I’ve always had trouble with giving titles to talks and lectures. Occasionally I’ve tried to be clever and assigned a title that even after the talk some have asked what relationship the title had with what I said. Other times I’ve tried to be factual and humble. The result was being told that they were glad they attended my talk because the title sure hadn’t attracted them.
I assume the same problem occurs when I write articles. Like this one. I solve my dilemma by simple posting it on our website and not worrying about it. Thanks for reading this even though I agree the title is less than titillating.
I’ve been thinking about this because I am working on a book manuscript. Rather than being on one issue or idea, I want to summarize what I have learned about the art and wonder of being faithful to Jesus in our world of advanced modernity. So, I will touch on a whole variety of topics—discernment, living in exile, the reality of the Interface, being in God’s kingdom now, the shape of faithfulness, true hopefulness, the riches of the gospel—and much more. If you’ve followed Margie and my teaching and writing over the past decades you’ve probably recognize the list. The book is intended to bring all this together in one unified reflection, because it is, in fact, a unified whole.
You could respond by saying that the title should be determined last. There is truth in that. But it isn’t exactly how I think and work. A possible title provides a hook, a central image around which to explore all these disparate but intimately related topics. So, I’ve filled pages with possible titles.
I wouldn’t have this problem if this was the early 18th century. I received Alan Jacob’s latest “New posts from social.ayjay.org” this morning. By the way, if you don’t receive his emails, please sign up for them. He reads widely, thinks deeply, and is a delight to learn from. Anyway, in today’s (July 3, 2024) post, Dr Jacob references a treatise published in 1733 by Dr. George Cheyne on “The English Malady.”
I had never heard of an English disease, or of George Cheyne, so this was all news to me. But what caught my eye was what Cheyne titled his treatise:
The Title I have chosen for this Treatise, is a Reproach universally thrown on this Island by Foreigners, and all our Neighbours on the Continent, by whom Nervous Distempers, Spleen, Vapours, and Lowness of Spirits, are, in Derision, call’d the ENGLISH MALADY. And I wish there were not so good grounds for this Reflection. The Moisture of our Air, the Variableness of our Weather, (from our Situation amidst the Ocean) the Rankness and Fertility of our Soil, the Richness and Heaviness of our Food, the Wealth and Abundance of the Inhabitants (from their universal Trade), the Inactivity and sedentary Occupations of the better Sort (among whom this Evil mostly rages) and the Humour of living in great, populous, and consequently unhealthy Towns, have brought forth a Class and Set of Distempers, with atrocious and frightful Symptoms, scarce known to our Ancestors, and never rising to such fatal Heights, nor afflicting such Numbers in any other known Nation. These nervous Disorders being computed to make almost one third of the Complaints of the People of Condition in England.
A title like that would solve my conundrum, but though I am now elderly, it isn’t 1733.
So, back to the drawing board.
Photo credit: Photo by Jimmy Chan: (https://www.pexels.com/photo/scribbles-on-wall-1309899/)
