Dear Jubilee,
Like your brother and sisters, we thought a long time about choosing the right name for you. We wanted a name that is both full and waiting to be filled. Full with a richness of meaning as our gift to you, but also, empty enough for you to fill and define how you will, and return the gift to us as we learn what it will come to mean.The inspiration for your name is drawn from ancient peoples, whose stories moved from culture, to tradition, to sacred scriptures, to the stack of books and papers beside our dining room table. Scattered through the book of leviticus of our bible in this messy pile, your name is found. The year of Jubilee, a promise of restoration and realignment, always just around the corner. In this ancient story God told his people that he was building a community of people who would be known for how they loved their neighbors. God gave this beloved community the idea of Jubilee. Every seven days, they would rest. Every seven years, they would let their land rest, trusting, inexplicably, that God herself would provide for them. And after seven times seven of these sabbaths, they would enter a year of Jubilee. In this sacred year, they would proclaim freedom - forgive debts, let the land rest & heal & be returned, & release those in the bondage of servitude. The people would live out the message that there is abundance & enough for all, if only we share.
Perhaps like other times in history, you are born into times of uncertainty. Our very presence on our planet is changing the home we live on. The fabrics of our societies are shifting under new pressures. The hopes for a more just and balanced world, seem more threatened. In uncertain times, it is easy to live into a vision of fear and retreat into the smallness of a protective posture. Our desire for you is that your name will be a reminder of a more hopeful vision. A defiant hope that may be more needed in your lifetime than it has been in ours. We hold this hope in our palms - a hope for restoration of land and generous societies in their rightful balance. The remembering that sharing is not a burden, it is a joy, an unexpected jubilation. Just like you, our “laat lammetjie”, our late lamb.
On the morning you were born, we woke in the night to wind & the falling of a heavy winter rain. As we drove to the hospital in the dark morning, our windshield sparkled with raindrops. As you enter the pilgrimage of life, we wanted to give you a middle name that connects you to a place to call home. Rain. We welcomed you in Terrace, whose dramatic beauty is often brushed and baptized with mist and fog. Rain can be cold and dark. In our corner of the world, it can hide the sun for weeks, bringing puddles and wet shoes that never dry. But in the moments when the light breaks through, this hiding reveals unexpectedly beautiful peaks that were with us all along.
Rain is also a powerful symbol of sustenance & renewal. We were grateful to observe many seasons of the monsoon rains of Southeast Asia and the savannah rains of Southern Africa. These rains brought desperately needed nurture for the soil and refreshment in times of stifling heat. And here too, they feed our rivers and nourish our soils. Rain embodies the sustaining & mysterious spirit of God. It is not always comfortable. But, as the ancient writer of hosea 6 wrote -
As surely as the sun rises,
He will appear;
He will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth.
So, Jubilee Rain we offer this name to you.
May you become a woman of defiant hope, with an improbable generosity & assurance that there is enough to share, and there is always a path to restoration. May this defiance in the face of brokenness refresh others, even as God’s spirit & presence restores you, whether with mists or deluges. May your name bless you as you grow. And in return may we be blessed by you as your name takes the shape you fill it with.
Love,
Mama and Papa
![basket baby [selah kiri]](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7558/26986739112_814a84c728_z.jpg)
