Frangiwhat?

The other night I was visiting with a friend of mine and casually asked if he read my blog. He replied that he did, and even let me know that he had come up with a pretty good name - which unfortunately he could no longer remember.

So naturally I asked what he thought about the current name, which brought a confused look as he had never heard of frangible before and wasn't even sure how to pronounce enyrgy. Let me take a moment to explain so everyone can appreciate its brilliance.

When I decided to truly pursue this blogging endeavor, I originally had the title of "This Space for Rent." That was a very temporary title, and more or less expressed how I felt about it in the first place. There was no particular inspiration for a title, and there's not a singular theme that will be followed here. I decided I wanted to try and work off of the one thing that unites everything else I have in various internet locations: my nickname.

The nickname itself is not popular in usage anymore (and I'm not trying to revive it) but it was given to me in high school and is still what I use any time I have to have a user name or login name for something on the net. A friend in high school was an avid nicknamer and dolled them out on a regular basis to anyone and everyone, regardless of whether or not they actually wanted it or appreciated the one they got. It began as a play on my last name (Yarnell) combined with a Kansas City radio personality (Chuck Nasty) and evolved through several stages: Yagnasty, Yaggleberry, Yaggleberry Finn and then finally just Yags, which was the one that stuck.

Yags was unusable as a permanent internet nickname, as it's short enough to have other uses or meanings. Once upon a time I considered getting yags.com, which turned out to be the Yale Anti-Gravity Society - a juggling club. (I, myself, am a decent juggler.) Looks like it's now a clothing store of some sort. I have yet to find anyone else that uses or goes by Yaggleberry Finn, so it's mine - a rare original.

How does that relate to Frangible Enyrgy? I'm getting there. This past summer I played Fantasy Baseball (which I won, incidentally ... although I'm now getting crushed in my first try of Fantasy Football) and I constantly changed the name of my team. I did my best to imitate or mimic my opponent's name. There were several, but my favorite was a subtle change to Sterling's team (putmeincoach) which led my team to be called putmeincouch. That still makes me smile.

So in the process of all of that, I started working on anagrams. Pastor Paul's team, the Saints, inspired me to be the Stains. As I continued to think about a name for this blog, I wondered what kind of things you could spell with all the letters of Yaggleberry Finn.

At the beginning, none of the words really worked together to make anything worth using. There were several options, but none really grabbed me. So instead of trying to use all the letters, I simply looked at all the words that could be made from Yaggleberry Finn. The most intriguing word to me was frangible - one I was completely unfamiliar with.

It turns out frangible means "capable of being broken." As a Christian, I was instantly attracted to this word. Brokenness is such an essential ingredient in a genuine walk with the Lord, something worthy of many blog posts. Once I was hooked on frangible, I looked at what letters I had left. Ygeryn doesn't leave a lot of options... in fact, you can't spell any real words with that. But if you just substitute an "e" with a "y" you can spell energy. Outstanding!

Those two words work very well to describe much of my life and my struggles. I've been one to get excited or motivated about something for a short time, only to lose interest or personal discipline and move on. Sometimes my walk with God feels like a roller coaster, with all of its ups and downs. When I depend on myself rather than God, that "spiritual energy" definitely comes and goes. There are also some things that affect me physically (primarily large amounts of sugar as well as those other pink mushrooms) that rob me of my energy. So, on multiple levels my energy is capable of being broken. And that's what frangible enyrgy means.

Kudos to anyone that reads all the way through - proving they have quite a bit of energy of their own! (Or is it mercy? or maybe you're just bored ...)