09/07/2026
I set out to write about a word we use constantly in religious spheres and ended up accidentally re-introducing myself in a way.
The word is known.
Every kid should be known. Nobody falls through the cracks if they are known. It is on the vision slide, and the people saying it mean it.
But in Scripture that word is yada, and in the treaty language of the ancient world, to know someone meant to enter into covenant with them. To bind yourself to them. Legal weight. A claim.
Which means being known was never primarily about being understood. It is about being claimed.
And somewhere in writing this out, I looked up and realized nearly everything I have spent my life on circles the same thing. A school full of kids who want it. A group of accomplished business leaders who quietly want it. A company built to help people be understood. A nonprofit started so a child who never got the chance would be known anyway.
I did not design any of that. I grew up wanting to feel known, the way a great many people do, and God has apparently been doing something with that without asking my permission.
So this one is for the sixteen year old seen by thousands and known by nobody. The parent exhausted trying to understand a kid who will not let them. The grandparent told their role is peripheral now. The executive who has realized many people know who they are and almost nobody knows them. The educator who says every student here is known and lies awake wondering if it is true. And the person who assumes by now that they are simply unknowable.
It is long. Only partly sorry. It has been a long time coming.
Read it anyway. I think you will find yourself somewhere in it.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/known-claimed-samuel-rodriguez-edfhc
Written for the executives, the leaders, the quietly faithful, and the honestly uncertain. You are welcome here exactly as you are.
Sam Rodriguez
The Still Small Voice
samueljonmedia.com
