Yesterday my friend Jackie had posted this cute little message on Facebook and I thought I’d use it today to talk about things my Mom often said.
A few hours ago another friend sent an email to say that something we had been working on was nearing approval. Before you knew it I’d replied to her using one of my Moms favorite sayings.
To include it in the Banter a closer look at it’s origins was called for and that’s when things took a different turn.
Who was this William Cowper who had given us one of the most commonly used phrases in the English language?
Turns out he was quite a poet who inspired both Keats and Wordsworth.
He was super smart but was horrendously bullied at school so much so that he suffered from deep depression and attempted suicide several times. He was even institutionalized for what was termed at the time insanity.
Mercifully he was taken under the wing of a kind clergy man and his wife. Through them he made a friend for life, a young curate and a man whose name many of us know, John Newton the author of Amazing Grace.
The two went on to work closely for the abolition of slavery and together composed hymns that they built into a collection known as The Olney Hymns of which number 41 was Amazing Grace.
Who knows what path a thought will take. Mysterious indeed!
Blessing # 628 – Discoveries
