In the beginning...

My friend Julie, who encouraged me to become a blogger, said the hardest part of setting up a site was picking a fancy name. So I thought about a name before I started and Word Lover made sense for me because it is what I am.

A hundred years ago our dad used to take us (my brother and sister and me) to the muni opera in St. Louis to see first run musicals. Most people came out humming the tunes, but I came out reciting the words. I loved the meter, the flow, the beauty and the very clever use of words in those musicals, and I still love a good turn of phrase today.

Given all that, you won't be surprised to know that I'm a writer. Not professionally -- at least not directly -- but both of my jobs require me to do a lot of writing, and it is probably fair to say that I wouldn't succeed in either of them if I couldn't write, so I'm a writer. I also write lyrics, and I suppose in the minds of many that in itself makes me a writer.

The second meaning for Word Lover has to do with my faith and belief that Jesus is the Word of God. The very best explanation I ever read about that, by the way, was penned by Dorothy L. Sayers in her book "The Mind of the Maker." No doubt I'll comment on that in a future posting, but not right now.

So this is the beginning of my blog, and my goal is to build it daily, or thereabouts. My hope is that you will find words here that interest you, that challenge you, or that entertain you, and that if you aren't already a word lover you will soon learn to be one.