AY-VUH
By Anonymous, 17, Wisconsin
Ava (AY-VUH), a name that sounds as though it arrived before language itself . . .
a breath,
a wingbeat,
something living carried softly across water . . .
Though not written plainly into scripture, it feels biblical in the oldest sense: humble, enduring, close to earth, a name that belongs aside olive branches and wandering saints, beside lamps kept burning throughout the night.
She is not good in the effortless way stories demand of women. Her goodness is studied, deliberate, the hardest kind. Like Jacob wrestling until dawn for the right to become more than he was, Ava moves through the world attempting holiness through ordinary mercies: listening longer than necessary, forgiving late but sincerely, carrying the grief of others without announcing it. She fails sometimes. That, too, is a part of the discipline.
And perhaps what makes Ava hallowed is not innocence, but intention; not perfection, but the continual reaching towards it. Ava leaves places softer than she found them . . .
conversations gentler,
silence less lonely,
people slightly more willing to believe in each other.
In a world of spectacle, she practices quiet repair; there is something deeply biblical about that.
My teacher encouraged us to write a ‘My Name’ pastiche.
