God and the Art of Toy and Diecast Marketing
A Mystery with Names (intro)
By L. S. Su
I've always like mysteries and riddles. They're like puzzles, where you collect bits and pieces of knowledge and put them together and attempt to assemble a story or a timeline.
A couple of weeks ago, I took my family to the Maine. It was not until the second day after the fog lifted that we realized how beautiful this state was and is. The first afternoon we got there, a very dense fog had rolled in and reduced viability to about 50 feet. The fog was so thick, when I looked up I couldn't locate the Sun. We were standing on a sandy beach at one of Maine's national state parks. It was kind of a surreal experience. We could hear the waves crashing onto the shore, but we couldn't see the water.
Though I found it amusing, I'm sure sailors traveling these same frigid coastal waters in the dead of winter in wooden ships didn't find it quite as amusing as me. So hence the numerous lighthouses that dot Maine's beautiful coast.
Since it wasn't a good beach day, we decided to take the kids on a hike. We left the state park and a few miles away there was this nature preserve with a hiking trail. Before we got to the hiking trail, on the side of the road I came across this old wooden sign stuck almost vertically in the ground. On the sign was written, "C.S. Lewis"
"What the heck?" I thought to myself.
All that was written on the sign was just two initials and a last name. My initial thought was that this must be in reference to C. S. Lewis, the prolific Christian writer, who gave us books like The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, Mere Christianity, and Screwtape Letters; but thought maybe another Mr. or Mrs Lewis lives around here and happen to have the first and middle initials C and S. I haven't come across one yet in my life, but thought it was very probable.
I also couldn't figure out the purpose of the sign. And what it was doing here. Usually the only reason you would write a name on a sign and post it somewhere is to tell others that this is that person's property. But there wasn't a house anywhere nearby. Just a dense forest. And judging from how weathered the wood and ink was on the sign, it must have been stuck in the ground several years ago.
It remains a mystery to me why someone would go through the trouble in making such a sign, why they would want to express this particular name (why not Luke Skywalker or the wrestler Big Show?), and why place it in such a remote location? Now if the sign said "C. S. Lewis was here" it would at least establish a little purpose. Or if it had two dates on it (birth and death) it would at least be a little informative. But just the name with nothing before or after the name, leaves me hanging. But it did give me a new marketing idea.
Using your first and middle initial, instead of your first name, seems like the "in" thing to do for marketers of words and products. C. S. Lewis did it. He convinced his friend J. R.R. Tolkien to do the same. And I believe not too far from where I was standing in Maine, a man named L. L. Bean went to this same naming convention.
When you study geology, anthropology, or things that once roamed and creeped on the Earth, we are led to believe that Earth is exceedingly old. Science also teaches that man (the two legged creature that stands upright and has opposable thumbs) is millions of years old. But the Bible doesn't have mankind (or is it person kind now?) as being that old.
The Bible, it's chock full of names. Names of non-fictional rivers, cities, towns, and people. I'll show you next time how with the use of people's names, the Bible only puts the age of man and the created Earth at only thousands of years old.
There is a pretty big differential going on here to say thousands versus millions. Both cannot be correct. Either one answer is correct and the other false. Another possibility is that both answers are incorrect. So do we not trust the accuracy of science? Or do we not trust the accuracy of the Bible?
This certainly is a mystery. Next time, let's look at some names to see if it provides us a clue to the answer.
