Or not
NOVEMBER 2, 2007 (FRIDAY) – I let this blog slip up on my blind side, and I was tempted to believe it’s too late to write it. Might not hurt just to miss a day. No, I said to myself, there must be something I can put in a blog for this day, even if I have to quote someone else instead of writing something myself.
I then selected a beautiful poem from an internet web site, credited as “author unknown.” Well, I said, if the author is unknown, I suppose it’s OK to use it in my blog. Then I decided to keep looking to see if the author was named in someone else’s web site, but sure enough, even though it was quoted in many locations, no one knew the name of the author. All were “unknown.”
I said to myself, “That’s too good a poem not to have an author somewhere, whose work is being used but not credited. I thought, if I can find the author’s name, I’ll list it. I kept looking until I found the author’s web site, maintained by a lovely lady with a beautiful spirit. The poem didn’t just spring into existence on its own. Someone wrote it, obviously spending time with it, and published it with the hope of its being a blessing to readers. Alas, the credit that was her due was soon withheld by a web site, and then quoted again and again without naming the author.
I decided, then, not to publish the poem without contacting the author and getting her permission to use it, and crediting her with the work. But you can go to her site and see the poem. A link to her main page is found below, towards the end of this blog.
Years ago I sent in a little article to our state Baptist paper, The Baptist Standard. It was a creative piece, designed to make people think about the impact of television broadcasts upon family life and morality. The editor liked it, got an artist to add illustrations to the page, and gave it a two-page spread.
Some church decided to put it in their newsletter or bulletin, and credited me with having written it. Soon other churches around the nation saw it in other newsletters and put a copy of it in their own church newsletters. Almost immediately, as it made its way from one church’s paper to the next, the name of the author was dropped, and I became “author unknown.”
The truth of the matter is, I was happy it found acceptance and was being used, whether my name was on it or not. It was never copyrighted or sold, so it was available for reproduction. Years later, someone mailed me an article almost exactly like the one I had written, that was credited to someone else. I mention this so that you will know why I could not in good conscience print the wonderful poem I wanted to use in this blog today. We Christians do well to live by the rules.
The name of the author (of the poem I almost printed here) is Mary Rita Schilke Korzan and her web site is “onceuponapoem.com.” You may go to her site by clicking here. The name of the poem, which is displayed on her site, is “When You Thought I Wasn’t Looking.” If you click on the links on her main page, you can read the poem.