Why "Presents"?

“One must choose a corner and cultivate that.” (Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James)

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” (Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda)

“[Time’s] present is God’s present, and you should be that: present.” (“Be Present (Live from Catalyst Atlanta)” by Propaganda)

When I created this website in January 2017, seven years ago now, I gave it the name, “Robert Brown Presents.” There were two reasons for this.

First, the name is a nod to the show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. (This is also why my picture on the home page is in black-and-white cameo.) Similar to how that show was a way for the great director to share his favorite kinds of stories, this website is a way for me to share the things I’ve made or the things I care about. 

Second, ‘present’ is one of my favorite words in the English language, and I can summarize  much of my life philosophy just by expounding its different senses. Senses 1 and 2: We present presents to others. I want to live my life as a gift to God and neighbor, and make things I can offer as gifts. Senses 3 and 4: When we use the phrase “be present,” we mean presence in place and in the present time. So much of my creative work and so many of my thought projects are attempts to answer the essential question, “How should I live, here and now?” More pointedly, as a Christian on this side of glory, “How should I live in the tension of the already-not-yet?” (If these questions resonate with you, you might enjoy my poems “Yet,” “Ground,” and “Borgesian.”)

Broadly speaking, this is what “Robert Brown Presents” exists to do: to present presents—articles, Notebook posts, poems, songs, podcast episodes—that might help others be present. They’ve certainly helped me.