Do you ever wonder if when someone wrote or invented something that they meant for it to be used in the way it is currently used?

I started thinking about this when I attended a funeral last week. As part of the funeral, the song “On Eagle’s Wings” was played.  Perhaps it is just where I live but “On Eagle’s Wings” has become THE funeral song. So much that if it were played at any other service, I think people would be looking around for the body or spontaneously start crying. The question in my mind was did Father Michael Joncas, when he wrote the song, have any idea that his song would be the quintessential funeral song? My guess would be that he was moved by passages in the Bible and created the song. I suppose that you might be moved to create a song that would bring comfort and that it could become a song used for funerals.

In case you are not familiar with the song, here is a YouTube video of Josh Groban singing the song.

There appear to be many inventions that were created by accident. One of my favorites, the telephone, is an example. Alexander Graham Bell was trying to invent a device that would send more than one telegram at a time. Another favorite, the slinky, came from a naval engineer (Richard Jones) who was trying to make a meter that would monitor power on naval battleships.

Photo by Tara Bowen

If you are wondering about some other inventions that were accidents, you can use this link to an article “15 Life Changing Inventions That Were Created By Mistake.”

One of my favorite invention stories is in the book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.  If I have not raved to you about this book before, then somehow I screwed up.  I think this book is fabulous. The illustrations that he uses are very  interesting. In one of his examples, Mr. Duhigg tells the story behind Febreze and it’s near failure. In summary, let’s just say that while Febreze was actually a breakthrough in scent removal, to get people to buy it they had to market it with a  fresh scent rather than its original scentless form. (The whole story is much more interesting to read.) 

So see what letting your mind wander a bit can do? You can think of all sorts of random things.

Thanks for reading!