What's in a name?

Good mornin' folks, Tumnus here.

I know it's probably not morning where you are whilst you're reading this, but I can't plan for those sorts of contingencies. Since I'm still wiping away the sleep and propping my eyelids open with a strong cup of coffee, we're just gonna pretend it's morning where you are, too. I hope you like a good game of pretend, or perhaps we couldn't be friends. Wouldn't that be sad?

Anywho, there 's much to be talked about still so I'll just assume that you're not opposed to a little pretend and are still reading, so I'll keep typing.

I wanted to talk to you a bit about names today. In cultures that are less Western in their approach, names actually carry characteristics and meaning for the person who bears that name. But even in our culture, names have great significance, even if the reasons are far more superficial. I'd wager that you've not run into one Adolf on the playground in your lifetime. That's no coincidence.

Take my compatriot's given name, Sean Matthew. Named after Sean Connery and the tax collector-cum-saint who liked to throw parties with sinners. Not a bad mix. Doesn't hold a lot of meaning in the etymology department, but it sounds good and it's got, what he believes to be, the best and only correct spelling of the name on the planet. And since he was nearly named after football players Roman Gabriel and Johnny Unitas, my partner-in-crime - who could have ostensibly could have been Roman Unitas - is forever grateful for having dodged that bullet in utero.

My name, as it was self-endowed, holds a bit more meaning. My namesake is the only character that I could really relate to in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I have forever been a man without a country. I find myself always living somewhere in the demilitarized zones between established boundaries: flesh and spirit, science and faith, fashion and function. I could empathize with this half-man, half-beast whose compulsory allegiances stood against his personal convictions. I admired this character who, in the face of his own imminent demise, chose truth and honor. So, I stole his name.

All that said, my true intent of this post was to shed a bit of light on the name of the studio itself. "Saint Schizophrenia" is an odd name which generally elicits a chuckle upon first hearing. There's something about the ridiculous juxtaposition between sainthood and mental illness that people find amusing. Good. That means we chose well. Yet, despite the apparent silliness of the name, it is in fact a tightly packed shorthand for the vision of our life and work.

"Saint Schizophrenia" is our concise way of saying this:

"I know that you didn't hear the voice that I heard when it told me to do the thing that I am now doing. I'm sure that there is the possibility that the voice could have been a delusion or hallucination caused by a bad taco or a chemical misfiring in my brain. But at this juncture, I'm not convinced that it wasn't God speaking. Nor has this voice suggested that I do anything which would be illegal or dangerous. In fact, so long as it continues to lead me through the teachings of Jesus about self-sacrificial love and the unsurpassed worth of others, and that I don't need to go around fighting and jockeying for position to get my identity or worth or even my food or clothes because God is taking care of me, then I'm gonna stick with it and see where it takes me. I neither expect you to believe me nor follow the voice in my head. I'm not going to argue with you and think ill of you because it's possible that you are the sane one and I'm the loon. We can even be friends as long you don't spend your time trying to prove to me that I'm wrong, and I'll afford you the same respect. I can live with the fact that when I get to the end, they might find out that I was crazier than a craphouse rat."

So, that is why we bear that name
and that is who we are.
Yes, we are hearing voices. Believe it or not.
If you would like to hear them, we can show you what we've learned.
If you don't want to hear them, we don't rightly blame you.
It occasionally muddies as much as it clarifies.
You can still enjoy our work, if you so desire.
We're sharing it with you because we like you.

Affectionately yours,
Tumnus


PS: I will leave you with one of the earliest paintings from The Saint:
"If the world is sane..." by Sean Matthew Howard



If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully — the life you save may be your own — and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion. -Frederick Buechner (The Faces of Jesus, 136)