Origin of Mel Ahrey

Mel Ahrey Torres

This is written

for Mel and for us all

to understand Mel's choice of “Ahrey” as her middle name.

It's for Mel and all of us to enjoy her name and to live it well.

“Ahrey” is part of “me'ahrey”, which is the English spelling of a biblical Hebrew word.

There are no verb tenses in Hebrew. Hebrew is not like our language.

We say: “She came.” “He comes.” And “They will come.”

“The past” in Hebrew definition literally means “in front of your face.”

“The future” in Hebrew literally means “behind you.”

“Me'ahrey” is a word Hebrew uses for both “the past” and “the future.”

Consider how this makes sense: The future is unknown. You cannot see future happenings.

They are behind you where they can't be seen.

You have seen the past. It is the past that is in front of your face.

The future, unseen behind you, whenever it happens, catches up with you

and becomes part of the past that lies in front of you.

If you had a 3rd eye in the back of your self,

you would be able to see the future coming behind you.

Does it make sense how the same Hebrew word can be used both for the past and the future?

Richard S. Hanson teaches us the meaning and usefulness of me'ahrey.

He was a professor of religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

He wrote a book published in 1972 entitled The Serpent Was Wiser.

He sub-titled it A New Look at Genesis 1-11.

He makes sense of Genesis up to the calling of Abram in chapter 12.

In early Genesis we are taught the wonderfulness of God's goodness.

We are presented God's promise of the One who came to rectify the world,

Jesus Christ, through whom God redeemed the wrongful world that God created good.

We are freed from the wrongfulness of our past and our bondage to sin

to live like Jesus, to live His way, looking forward to each new day

and longing for life in the world to come.

It was the same for the people of Israel, whom God brought out of bondage.

God freed them from slavery in Egypt. God brought them out to live well in the wilderness

on the way to the land God promised them. God took care of them.

But no longer did they live in hopefulness. No longer did they anticipate God's promise.

They took up the ways of the world. They blamed each other.

They complained: “Oh, that God had not brought us out of Egypt!”

They made images to trust and worship. Their behavior was ungodly.

Dr. Hanson wrote:

There is the sin of not daring to step into tomorrow – of wanting to settle for an

eternal yesterday. This was the sin that the Israelites would have committed had

they not followed Moses. “I tell you that God will lead you into freedom,” said

the wild-eyed prophet and the people could not believe him. Was this man

actually speaking the truth? Was such an experience a possibility? And could a

man whose brother held a serpent in hand actually be speaking for God? “I will

show you what God can do,” said the wild-eyed prophet and, after much

seduction, the people took hold of the bait. They followed him through the

threatening waters – only to behold a forbidding desert. Suddenly the dream of

freedom turned into the threat of death. “Better,” they said, “to have stayed in the

land of Egypt.”

And is this not precisely the sin which beset them again and again as they refused

to see God anywhere but in the past? “Your ears shall hear a voice behind you,

saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” So spoke the prophet Isaiah and he was

daring them to listen for the voice of God speaking out of the future, for the

Hebrew word for behind (me'ahrey) is also the word used to designate the future.

(The Hebrews were realistic enough to see that it is the past which lies before our

eyes while the future is the view behind us.) Or consider the conflict between the

Ezra-Nehemiah crowd, on the one hand, and the authors of Ruth and Jonah

together with the disciples of the Second Isaiah. The “conservatives” believed that

God's will for them was to live the past over again, with the temple and all the old

trimmings, so as to do right what the fathers had done wrong. But the liberal

followers of the great poet-prophet heard a voice which beckoned those Jews to an

uncharted course, to a universal kingdom in which a Persian emperor could be

Yahweh's messiah (cf., Isa. 45:1) and a pagan metropolis like Nineveh could

become a city of obedient worshippers.

Perhaps we can even understand the life of Jesus from this perspective. May he

not have been tempted by one voice which urged him to stay in his own home

town and faithfully serve the good folk of Nazareth as an artisan and a leader in

the synagogue? And what was the alternative, but a voice which enticed him to

discover his potential as the Son of man or the Son of God? And with the

discovery came the certainty of death.

Perhaps what we have here is the voice of the past versus the voice of the future.

Which speaks for God, if not both? And which leads to sin? Certainly the serpent

does that, for how can one live in freedom and responsibility apart from sinning (a

kind of sin which covers a multitude of things)? But is it any less sinful to disobey

the voice which tells us to leave the cradle and experience our imago dei? Alas, it

would seem that we cannot escape being sinners – of either one kind or another!

Can life be such a dilemma? Many would say, “This is so. There are within me

two voices and what tears me apart is this: one voice is sanctified by its identity

with the parents who brought me into this world while the other is as deep as the

very nature which makes me what I am.” (pp. 47-49)

Genesis recalls the people of Israel to remember God's love for them and to live faithfully.

Early Genesis is God setting the scene for calling Abram to go where God would have him go,

to do what God would have him do. Through Abram and his family would come

the One through whom God would redeem the world,

the world that is very evil, the world God created very good.

God accomplished it through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

Abram and Sarah had no idea what God was about to do.

They went where God told them to go and did what God had for them to do.

They trusted God. Their past did not keep them from serving God, fully.

The biblical Hebrew word for “the future” means “in back.”

Abram and Sarah's future was out of sight, behind them where they could not see it.

Their past was out in front of their eyes. They knew it. They could see it.

And they let go of it. It did not get in the way.

We view our past out in front of us, but we carry our past like baggage.

We burden our future with our past.

We hold our past against ourselves and we hold the past of others against them.

We fear the future when we certainly can entrust God with our future.

What if we accept what God has done with our past?

What if we sense God having to do with every minute of our life today?

Then, would not the future, coming from behind us, reveal itself to us every bit brand new?

All of our past, all that we still see and think about and feel, God has redeemed it,

forgiven us and everyone involved. God did it in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

God makes sense out of us, gives us new reasons to live, promises all will work out for good

and compels us to anticipate life in the world to come.

So the biblical word “me'ahrey” helps us to view our past redeemed by God, totally,

so it doesn't hang out in front of us, so the future can come from behind us,

where it certainly is. Then we can clearly and fully be about all that God has for us to do.

Mel's first name already has “Me”.

The “me” of “me'ahrey” is already in her full name.

Therefore, her middle name can be “Ahrey”

which allows her full name to flow as Mel Ahrey Torres.

Her name can serve to keep her and us aware of our life in Jesus.

Jesus redeems our past so that we can freely trust God day after day

as the future arrives and presents us with God's opportunities.

Written by A Loving Friend

in August of 2018