A rose by any other name....

I think I should consider myself lucky, given that my name is sort of not weird or flaky, and that the names my parents sometimes called me were not meant to be official or lasting. So, this Easter I'm going to be thankful for the little things in life, and I'll save a moment to reflect on how much worse it is for those less fortunate than I.

"I know a nurse who had to stop a young mother from naming her daughter “Vagina” because she had read it on a medical form and thought it was pretty."
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/a-baby-boy-named-q/

If we can think of Muslims, so-called, and think of them as merely others who have some distant religious connection to those of us Judeo-Christian and post-such, then we might think of them as just people like us with a named religion that really doesn't separate us much. In a fit of generosity on a holiday, we might think us all the same.

JULIET:
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

But it ain't so no matter how we would wish it so. Those who are Muslims have their ways, far different from ours, that suit them and they love. The rest of us, regardless, are pretty lucky in all.