Blog 3485 – 05.19.2025

Why James?

Two and a half months ago I modified my blog sign-off to include my middle name, James. When I first began publishing http://www.theencouragingword.co

On March 15th, 2015 my signature salutation was:

Your fellow traveler,

David White

I remember that when my college friend Andrew James Mitchell who resides in Australia first read my blog that he commented that the first satellite place in earth orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4th, 1957 was named Sputnik 1. It was the first of five Sputniks. Sputnik in Russian means “traveler” so Andy referred to me as Sputnik. Over time I modified the closing sign-off to: “Your friend and fellow traveler” sometimes adding the words “in time and space” or “in space and time” then my name “David White.”

In naming me, my mother did not want me to be a Junior but wanted to include my father’s first name James in mine so she just reversed the more popular James David and named me David James. My mother’s given surname was Davidson and she always told me that she thought David James just sounded better than James David. She rarely if ever called me or my brother Robert using our middle names (his middle name is Wayne) but she was a stickler that our first names not be shortened in anyway.

In the third grade when his new teacher asked him as teachers did back then “What would you like to be called?” Robert said, “Just call be Bob.” For years when his school friends would call and ask for “Bob” it would irk my mother. She like the moon in the song was a harsh mistress when it came to watching over her boys.

Just today when I was researching the meaning of the name James online I came upon a new shade of meaning. For years I had known only the traditional meaning. James is Greek for the Hebrew Jacob which means “supplanter” or “grabs the heel” from the Old Testament stories about Jacob. I like the newer shade of meaning even better:

A man in charge of his own actions. For some years I have thought of myself as my own boss as it says in the poem Invictus: “I am the master of my fate.”

So James it is and with David that means “Beloved” the name for my higher best self becomes “Beloved Master.” Which reminds me that the best form of government has often been said to not be democracy, socialism, or communism, but one with a benevolent and loving monarch at its head.

Long live the loving king or queen- James or Jamie the First.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FgP076Q0NvmBsbn4NeJS8V6LmoJIivqo/view?usp=drivesdk

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