To initiate this blog let me share one amateur etymologist observation not in any way unrelated to the blog title.
Over the past couple of years I have run into, frequently and in varied circumstances, the word cover. Not that other people have never heard of this common word, but it has been for me the subject of some reflection. The word as a noun, and I will not bore you with technical definitions, brings to mind something that separates an object from exterior entities and in many cases its primary function is one of protecting either the object from harm or guarding the external surroundings from the object itself. It interested me to then observe several words that share cover as a common root; for example, uncover, recover, and discover.
Uncover has little ambiguity about it and its daily usage fits logically with its apparent meaning. The other words I find more intriguing because of the apparent inconsistency between the root meaning and connotations of the full word. Specifically, I do not usually think of someone who is recovering from illness, or recovering a lost possession as covering it again with something, but in a figurative way it works. Your returned object could be re-covered by your care and protection. Since an illness is a breach in the protective barrier of you immune system, after the invading disease is expelled, that hole in your health defense should quickly be covered over again. Make sense?
The sense behind discover is more easily uncovered. To discover is to peel back that covering that has blocked out some thing or view from those unwilling to find out what lies behind it. Nothing was or is made or miraculously created from nothing when discovered. The object, place, person, idea, principle, truth, passion, feeling, emotion, answer, memory were all there, hidden as it were, until dis-covered and opened to view. Many things are discovered by one and easily shared by the world, while the most important things, like who God is and your relationship with Him, require each individual to become an adventurer and discover it for themselves. This is a common pattern of truth, it must be revealed to the individual by individual effort. Hence, this blog is an expression of my personal discoveries, that have been discovered and rediscovered by incomprehensibly countless others past, future, and present.
The moral of the observation is...for you to dis-cover! *facetious grin*
