Meeting of the Prophets

I try and avoid fast food joints. An occasional exception these days is Chik-fil-a. It took some time to get over the emotional damage caused by the temp job over a decade ago wherein I accosted people at Chik-fil-a franchises and surveyed them.

I decided to allow this exception due to the family-friendliness of the establishment, the decency of the fare and the usual cleanliness of the play area. This deviance allows my children to run and play in the midst of my errand running.

Until Friday however, I had not frequented the Chik-fil-a nearest to Fairyland. I realize that Chik-fil-a attracts many Christians for the same reasons I listed above. What I realized on Friday however is that only in the heart of the Bible Belt can a devout Mormon suddenly feel not quite religious enough.

The restaurant was packed that day with many women in long skirts. My sons were enjoying scampering about on the play area with be a large number of other children--almost exclusively boys--many of whom were sporting T-shirts with Biblical references. Well, time came for the bulk of them to leave and as their various mothers stepped into the play area to call them away, I began to notice a pattern: "Joshua, Aaron, Enoch, time to go!!" and then "Eli, Ben, Abe" . . . At this point I began to write them down just to test my theory. Here is the list--for real, every last one of them was in the restaurant that day: Jacob, Isaac, Enoch, Daniel, Nathan, Aaron, Joshua, Jacob, Eli, Jonathan, Luke, Adam, Ben and Abe.

At this point I was feeling a bit sheepish as I called to my son Elliot. (I considered temporarily calling Elias). In my defense, part of the reason I chose Elliot is that the Hebrew is "My God is the Lord", and Ethan is also in the Bible, but they aint no Enoch (in fairness, I looked Elliot up and it is derived from Elijah, so there).

I certainly have no problem with the idea of naming your children biblical names and giving them something to live up to (though Enoch and Eli are pretty hefty role models), and having grown up in Utah, I know about wearing your religion on your sleeve (maybe that's why I no longer live in Utah). But I tell ya, sometimes in this place, I just feel I don't quite measure up.

I think I'll name my next son "Moses".

"Amidala" for a girl.