Yesh Li Blog: Happy Birthday, Jono!

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Happy Birthday, Jono!

Six years ago today, we received a phone call from Australia saying that our first grandchild, Jonathan Santiago, was born. Here were two of the first pictures we received through the miracle of the Internet.

And a short time later came a picture of mother and child.

Jonathan comes from a Hebrew name meaning, "The LORD has given," while Santiago is a Spanish name, which in English means "St. James." Ultimately, in a rather obscure way, the name James derives from the Hebrew name Ya'akov (Jacob), who is later renamed Israel. He fathers a nation through whom the world is to be blessed. So we could conceivably interpret Jonathan Santiago as "the LORD has given one through whom the world will be blessed." We pray that Jono may be the fulfillment of his name in the most blessed and complete way.

The picture on the left below shows Sabba (Jono's paternal grandfather) and on the right is Jono at an equivalent age. Is there any resemblance?

And here's the birthday boy in a great picture taken just the other day by his mom and posted on her blog.

We wish you, Jono, a very Happy Birthday! Love, Sabba and Nanny

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: i don't know if you know how old i am but in case you don't, i am 6. thank you for the blog. from jono; 12:42 AM
Bonnie said...: Dad,

I love this blog !! Those old photos of Jono are great ! Mine are all on CD's and it takes forever to search through them all and find them ! One of these days I will get my CD's all organized and labeled !

AND I've seen the Any Resemblance photos before but it is still amazing ! Both Jono and Alia thought that you were Jono !

Jono wrote the comment above ... funny, eh ? he was concerned that you might not know he was six ! i just let him write what he wanted ...

Gotta go cook dinner ! Love, Bon

PS ... did you see my birthday blog to Jimmy ?; 12:45 AM

Post a Comment

Why Yesh Li Blog?

Why do I have a blog? Quite simply, I have a blog to share my favorite things with others. The right side of the blog has a long list of links to some of the places on the Internet that I visit often. In addition to sharing those with others, I often come here myself to find a quick link to where I am going.

Bonnie, our eldest, led the way into blogging with her Simple Beauty Blog, and later with her extremely popular Beans Blog. I decided I would give blogging a try and thought "I have a blog" might be a clever name, but in English it sounded rather lame, so I did it in Hebrew, a language I love more and more the more I learn it.

What does Yesh Li Blog mean?

We would translate (i.e. interpret) yesh li blog to mean "I have a blog" in English, but the literal Hebrew means "There is for (or to) me a blog." You cannot literally say "I have" something or other in Hebrew. It is always "there is for me," or "there is for you," or "there is for us," etc. Hebrew, the language of the Bible, is showing us that we are really stewards of what has been provided for us and for our use. Rather than private ownership, perhaps a better term for what we "own" would be private stewardship.

Languages have been my passion since at least the fourth grade, when I studied Spanish from a library book called Fun with Spanish. In high school, I was the rara avis that became enamored of Latin. In later U.S. Navy tours of duty in Spain, Italy, and Japan, we did our best to learn the local languages. Along the way, I studied some Russian and picked up some Greek by studying etymologies and some Chinese by studying Japanese writing systems.

My first introduction to Hebrew was in the early 1980s, when I took a correspondence course, but it was not until the past decade that my primary focus has been on this wondrous language. It has been deeply rewarding, and especially in the past few years since we met Ori, an amazing Israeli woman, who has become not only my primary Hebrew mentor but also our good friend. Moreover, the small group of people who meet weekly to study Torah in Hebrew in Boulder have become dear to us and enriched our lives greatly. Further, reading Jewish commentaries on the Web of the weekly Torah portions has deepened my own faith and opened up new understandings of the scriptures we share and of Christian writings based on those scriptures.

The pursuit of words has been an essential part of my life for many years (since birth?). Many things have changed in my life, but I don't see that part of it changing any time soon (until death?). Lehitraot! Shalom, Chaverim!