A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words

It’s not the technology or negotiating the instructions: anyone who starts a blog must know that the hardest part is deciding what to call it. What element of my identity do I want to highlight? Do I want to be wildly original so that readers will be intrigued to visit?  Or is it just a place for me to dwell in cyberspace, and for the few who may stumble across it?

My first thought for a title was ‘Fearfully and Wonderfully Made’, a fragment of the beautiful and evocative Psalm 139. It seems such an affirmation of the human person, an awed sense of wonder at ourselves and whatever made us, for everything is fearfully and wonderfully made, with an intricacy that astounds and takes my breath away. The psalm continues: 'You have searched me, O Lord, and know me' - to be so thoroughly known by whatever I conceive that to be: whether I call it God or the Ultimate Mystery, or whatever, being known means being utterly accepted and loved.

My second idea was a favourite line from a poem, but which poem, how to choose? e.e. cummings‘ ‘leaping greenly spirit’ seemed apt for how I view the world:

"I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes."

Then there’s my passion for photography, which is a major reason for setting up a blog, and I thought of some of the titles I have given my photos. The one I have attached I called on one occasion ‘Trinity’, for the three water birds heading into the eastern risen sun; another time I called it ‘Clouds of Glory’* to draw attention to the spectacular cloud formation that looks like great balloons of water waiting to burst upon the parched Perth summer soil.  But that does sound a bit pretentious to be the name for my space, and one wouldn’t want to sound pretentious, would one?

Naming the blog is a glimpse at how I see myself and a chance to name some quality that I feel reflects me. It’s probably lucky then, that many of my postings will be photos – each one will save me a thousand words. Now there’s a good name…….

Gabrielle, April 2011

*From a verse of Wordsworth’s ‘Intimations of Immortality’:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:  

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,  

Hath had elsewhere its setting,  

And cometh from afar:  

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come  

From God, who is our home.