Sakamuyo: An Etymology

In 1996, I was a Petty Officer in the US Navy, assigned to a command staff in San Diego, California. I worked under a Chief Petty Officer who, looking back on things, was dealing with a number of hurts in his own life. He was the newest Chief in the crew, an ethnic minority, and of short stature. He hid his insecurities by putting down others. I hid my insecurities by accepting the put-downs of others. We made a great pair.

The Chief had a special word: sakamuyo. It was a pet name originally used to refer to anyone in the office or whomever he was hollering at. No one really knew where the word came from and we just sort of accepted it, until the day I put it together. It was a compound, multi-lingual, contraction of sorts. "Saka" short for "Sack of." "Muyo" a word best translated into English as "shit." Sakamuyo. Sack of shit.

Politely and privately, I called the Chief on his use as soon as I broke the code. He agreed it wasn't a very nice thing to call people and stopped using it - for everyone but me. So I took it. At first, I rationalized that suffering through it was worth the pain if it stopped him from calling other people by such a name. Over time, though, I began to believe him. I received the name and wore it as a label. I internalized it. I believed it. I wrote it on the outside of my journal: The Sakamuyo Log.

If this was the end of the story - if this was the end of the etymology - sakamuyo would be a terrible name for a website, for a person, for a community. But the story continues.

When I entered the blogging scene in 2001, it was natural to copy the name from my physical journal to its online cousin. I registered the first sakamuyo domain, installed an early version of MovableType, and The Sakamuyo Log was reborn in electronic form. It wasn't long before visitors started asking what the name meant. I couldn't tell the truth. It was hard enough admitting to myself that I was a sack of ... Admitting it out loud would be too pathetic. So I punted. I asked readers to guess the meaning. One reader thought it sounded Japanese. A Japanese reader suggested the kanji that might make up the words 'saka' and 'muyo' could mean "fish of no regard."

I praised my readers for breaking the code and quickly threw up a fresh, fish-based design to cement the story. A sakamuyo is a fish of no regard, a person who is left behind by society, who isn't necessarily thought of badly, but just isn't thought of at all. The fish symbol was especially proper to Christian faith. Outwardly, as the site grew from a personal blog to a community blog to a community, we recognized ourselves as men and women, followers of Jesus Christ, who for one reason or another didn't fit the expected molds. We were the toys from the Island of Misfits.

There was just one problem. Redefining the word didn't fix my broken heart. Even surrounded by the wonderful men and women who were a part of that early community, I knew deep down what I was really made of - and it didn't smell pleasant.

But God is good. God is so very good. It took a complete separation from the world of my past and a lot of hard, painful work that caused pain for friends and family. But God used that pain to teach me something very important. The whole reason he created me was that he knew me to be something worthy of love. He knew I was lovable and therefore created me to be loved. The letters of John refer to its readers as "dearly beloved children" of God. Those aren't just words. Dearly beloved child is not a word spoken by a human struggling with his own hurts, but the very essence of who I am. Of who you are.

Sakamuyo is redeemed. Restored. Remade into the newness of what Christ intended it to be from before the beginning of time.

I hesitated to rebuild a community under this name. Those of you who remember the old community will see the name attached to this post ("Caedmon Michael") and be puzzled. "Wasn't he named...?" you may be asking. As part of the restoring process, God gave me a new name along with a new identity in Christ. Why not a new name for the community? Because the old name fits. Some of us only remember a time in the past where we questioned our value, our lovability. Some of us are lost in the abyss of desperation. Many of us live in the tension of knowing we are loved, but not always believing it. We hear voices every day telling us we don't matter, we aren't wearing/buying/eating/doing the right things, we aren't welcome, we don't belong. And, in one regard, those voices are right. As children of God, we don't fit the roles and expectations of our world. But the very thing that separates us from the larger community draws us together: Jesus, the Messiah of God.

The early church used the sign of the fish to mark tombs and meeting places, as a symbol of community and fellowship. It is used here to mark a place where all are welcome because all are loved. What you've done, where you've been, or where you are on the path doesn't matter. You are loved.