WHAT'S IN A NAME?

To write or not to write, that's the question I'd been dealing with after I got off from over two decades of blood, sweat, and tears in the corporate world. It's not as existential a question as Hamlet's "To be or not to be" since I love writing. But, where would I write? The answer: my blog – I am launching today.

Two days ago, brooding over a banner for my blog, I have narrowed my short-list to two names. The first name -- I Write, Therefore I Think (smacks of Descarte's "I think, therefore I am") -- will give a clue to a reader that what he or she is going to read is a result of a complex process of Thinking. Just as M. Scott Peck, the author of the The Road Less Traveled spelled out that, "thinking is difficult ... Complex... Laborious... painstaking process," so too Donald M. Murray in his book Write to Learn, amplified that "writing is the most disciplined form of thinking."

The second name -- Spiritual Eyeglasses -- will give a reader, at a glance, an inkling of what he or she is going to read: an article with a tint of spirituality. Surely, secular readers will pose a big challenge for me in creating a "catchy" lead sentence or paragraph for each article, to "catch" their attention,  provoke them to read more, and hopefully, inspire them to read the whole article ultimately.

Wavering in choosing between the two names, all of a sudden, I recalled an editorial I had written many years ago in a maiden issue of an old little magazine I have kept in my file. This editorial is serendipitous, being a Sunday, today.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Rubbing my eyes, I got off the bed and looked at the clock. It's 4:45 in the morning. When I opened the door, I found my five-year-old boy standing still and soaked wet. I put him in fresh pajamas and laid him down to sleep.

I tried to get back to sleep, but I couldn't. I just couldn't shake off Art's idea about a proposed novel name that would unfurl the banner of our new magazine.

"How about Bidlisiw?" Lilius suggested on one occasion.

"I saw a magazine with that name," Lee mentioned, and added, "Why not Dan-ag?"

In a moment, I was thinking about its hyphen as a potential problem.

I looked at the clock again. It's 5:00 a.m. sharp. I opened my Cebuano Bible and was lead the way to Juan 4:6 and read:

"Atua didto ang atabay ni Jacob, ug milingkod si Jesus tapad sa atabay sanglit gikapoy man siya sa panaw."

Praise the Lord! That's it! ATABAY! That's the name! The Jacob's well. In this well, Jesus said to a Samaritan woman:

"Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up in eternal life."

ATABAY. What an inspired name! What a beautiful promise! I phoned Art that morning and told him about my inspired reading. We collected our thoughts on the word ATABAY and pondered on its meaning.

To rural folks, ATABAY nourishes life. It's a spot where we come together to draw water for our daily needs. To some, ATABAY refreshes hopes. It's a refuge, where a mother whispers a prayer or two for the next meal of her seven children; or where a small child throws a mickey-mouse coin in the well and wishes for a new toy. To others, ATABAY measures love. It overflows when we love and serve the Lord. Otherwise, it will run dry.

[My editorial concluded with a promise that ATABAY would quench the spiritual thirst of anyone who reads the magazine. It was its first and last issue; that's another story.]

After reading the editorial, I uttered the same exclamation: Praise the Lord! That's it -- ATABAY -- that's my blog's name. The suffix ATBP (and many more) I added to the name to mean that, now and then, before I write, I will take off my "spiritual eyeglasses" to see things from a secular point of view.

I look forward to charm, not a "fast reader" who can't put down a good book, but a "slow reader," who after reading a line, or a paragraph, or a page, puts down a great book and reflect.

I'm not naïve. In this day and age of hi-tech social media crazes like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, what does an old-fashioned writer, like me, have in order to compete for viewer/reader attention? The answer is embedded in the lyrics of a Bee Gees' song:

"It's only words and words are all I have to take your heart away."

Dear Reader, I promise you, like my above editorial, my words in my ATABAY blog will nourish your soul, refresh your hopes, and overflow you with love.