When Sara was born, there was a note in the drawer. Her mother had written it before Sara existed. It said one sentence: we searched a long time for your name. Sara thought that was odd — a name is just a name, isn't it? But her mother told her how they had said all the names out loud, evening after evening, until there was one that sounded as if it already belonged to someone. To her. Ever since that day Sara sometimes says her own name softly to herself, and then she thinks: that one was thought up for me.
From the teaching
All that we are begins with what we think.
Freely adapted from Dhammapada 1
Did you know?
There are more than ten million different first names in the world. Even so, nobody carries your name in quite the way you do.
The question of the week
“If you could choose your own name today, which one would you take — and why that one?”
The drawing
Write your name as big as you can and turn it into a drawing. Let the letters become something.
The wish
I am glad of my name.
Let me make something good of it.
For the parent
Tell the table once how you came by your own name. Then let a silence fall: children sometimes need ten seconds.