What's in a name?

Have you ever eaten Oysters on the Half Shell?  Back in my CPA days, we were taken to one of the fancy restaurants in one of the tall buildings in Houston.  One of the items on the buffet was oysters on the half shell.  Well, all the others in their expensive suits were eating them, so I tried one and it was not really all that bad--especially if you put the right hot sauce on it.  The second and third ones went down pretty smoothly.

But, when I got home that evening, on the front page of the Houston Chronicle the headline was something like "Beware eating raw oysters" and there was an article about the problems that had just been discovered in oysters being served in Houston.  Oysters on the Half Shell never went down quite so easily after that.

And several years ago at a Festival of Homeletics where ministers from all denominations spent 5 days listening to some of the most impressive preachers in the country while they taught us to be better preachers.  One of these teacher/preachers introduced us to a poem by Emily Dickinson.  It began: Tell all the Truth, but tell it on the slant... 

What's in a name?  Eating raw oysters and listening to a preacher reading poetry is what is in the name of this Blog--Truth on the Half Shell. 

People say that sometimes the truth is hard to swallow.  Some people have no trouble swallowing the truth, but many of us like to doctor it up a little like the oyster on a half shell.  We add a little grain of salt, or some really spicy hot sauce and it goes not a little easier.  But in any case, just like the oyster on the half shell, it goes down a whole lot easier, if we slant the shell up a little before we swallow.

So, What's in a name?  Sometimes not much, and sometimes a lot.  It is my hope that this is a time when there is a lot in a name and as time goes forward we will share much truth.