What's in a name?

So my display name is Kimbers-Krizl.

My husband, upon reading my first entry of my new blog last night (after much prodding by me), asks me... 'Kimbers-Krizl?'

Yes, Kimbers-Krizl. A name given to me by Father Arnold several years ago when I served as an altar server.

He knew my first name was Kimberly, but wasn't as familiar with my last name. 'Who is your family?' he asked me, trying to figure out whose faces he had seen with me in the congregation before this first official meeting. 'My grandparents are the Krizls' I told him. 'Oh, the KRIZLS!' And that was that.

My grandparents have been devoted Catholics all their lives, and have been faithful members of the parish for decades, so it's no wonder that their name rings a familiar bell in the heads of many of the other parishioners and priests. Church is funny that way: there are many 'church families' that my family feels they know, simply due to the fact that we've heard their last name and seen their faces once a week for a few years or in some cases, a few decades. But at the same time, we wouldn't know most of their first names or anything else about them, besides the fact that they go to church. Who knows if they're super nice and volunteer every spare minute to serve hot meals at homeless shelters and pray the rosary together every night... or if they're completely whacked out and horrible people who just happen to get together every Sunday to go to church together in between bank robberies and drug deals... hmm. Maybe that's a part of the experience of attending mass that I never thought about: having faith that the people standing right next to your kid and your purse aren't going to snatch both, run out the door to the waiting get-away car, and send you a ransom note right after brunch.