A few years ago I began recording the fleeting thoughts and musings that are now finding their way into the articles you read here. Little Moleskine notebooks yielded their humble pages to my handwritten notes of these ideas. As the pages filled and one volume blossomed into two, the utility of a distinguishing mark on the exterior of these little books morphed into a necessity.
Many, if not all, of these notes touched upon the unexpected gifts (unearned, undeserved benefits) that pop up in our lives with amazing frequency. Their surprising timing and deep significance convince me of their divine origin. Though often small to the eye, they yet appear to shimmer with something of the unseen glory and majesty of their Giver. Thus, the title I scrawled in silver ink on the books' spines– "Glimmers of God's Glory" (Vol.s I and II).
As the year 2015 crept into existence, I resolved to bring more depth and substance to the ideas in my notes. About the same time, I committed myself to collecting the output of this endeavor in the convenient online repository of a blog. And in serendipitous fashion I also fell into an ongoing relationship with an existing critique group of talented writers. With the name "Glimmers of God's Glory" already declared by writ, I felt compelled to assign the same tag to my newly launched blog.
Several months later I began having second thoughts concerning my choice of a blog title. While "Glimmers of God's Glory" has much to recommend it, I started thinking, as a blog title it was a bit weak. Certainly, God's Glory is the antipodes of weakness, so perhaps, it was the word "Glimmers" that brought it down. I also discovered that a few other existing blogs already proclaimed themselves as "Glimmers of God's Glory," or something very similar. My search for a new title began in earnest.
The new title needed to satisfy these requirements:
- descriptive of the truly unexpected nature of these divine gifts
- catchy, edgy, and memorable
- unique in the blogosphere
The result of the effort was the new title you see above: "A Peculiar Gift." For much of my life I have had an unusual attachment to the word "peculiar," so it feels right. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I grew up not far from the little town of Peculiar, Missouri.
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Note: Rene Magritte's painting "The Treachery of Images contains his erudite statement–"This is not a pipe"–demonstrating the relationship between an artifice signifying a reality and the reality itself. I have vandalized his piece above to connect his statement with parallel comments by William Shakespeare and Gertrude Stein.>>> Unless otherwise attributed, all text and images are Copyright, Bill Brockmeier, 2015. All rights reserved.
2 comments:
I, too, like the word "peculiar," and had no idea that there was a town named that, near where you grew up!
I've also always loved that Magritte painting. I realize the Dadaists & Surrealists were primarily using absurdity for reasons other than whimsical winking at their audience, but personally, I appreciate their work in that manner. It's like a visual pun.
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