Passion...

Passion - ardent affection; intense, driving or overmastering feeling or conviction; a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some object, activity, or concept. (Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary)

This single word can still up a cornucopia of thoughts, ideas, and feelings. A hotly contested political issue, and old flame, a favorite sport, an occupation, a calling, or maybe it is an absence of this feeling.

Lately I’ve been pondering at great lengths this single word, its definition, and its meaning in my life. There is no doubt that passion and passions for things change. I used to have a passion for playing baseball, but now it hurts like crazy to throw the ball. I used to have a passion for watching racing, but the cars changed and I can now get through a Sunday afternoon without absolutely obsessing over the television broadcast. Passions, focus, and people change.

I’ve often said, ” An 18 year old is not uniquely qualified to make serious life directing decisions.”

Now this is not a cookie cutter to apply to any and all dough, but it applied to me. Choices of college or no college, which college, majors, careers, and the like. I thought I was uniquely qualified to decide. But somehow through my “know-it-allness” and some lack of guidance (or unwillingness to listen to it) I did not connect the meaning of passion and how it relates to a choice of occupation that fulfills on more levels than the wallet.

Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”

He must have been talking about inspiration and its relation to producing great art, but I don’t know that for sure. However, the quote speaks to me along the lines of occupation and its connection to our inner mechanisms that drive us to excellence, to achievement, and to fulfillment beyond the wallet. The connection between passion and occupation is now growing much clearer, but it’s not totally in focus yet.

As we look at our lives in the rear view mirror it is easy to see where passions changed. Anticipating them and making course corrections while moving forward is not as simple. I guess as adults we see the immediate needs of bills, kids, and other activities and can tend to focus on these things. This is good and necessary because that’s what responsible folks do. Maybe we loose sight of those passions that we once had. I am convinced that we must stay focused on those passions that motivate us and stay in tune enough to them to recognize when they change.

“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be is obeying Him.”

Thomas Merton

My take away from the pondering that I’ve done on passion over these past eight months has shown me that I need to be that tree. Seeking God’s guidance on what kind of tree He desires me to be now as passions change and life streams on.

As I seek Him and His guidance on this matter I wonder what I can do to help others younger than me find their passions and run to them with reckless abandon in a way that brings fulfillment in purpose and balance in obligations.

I’m still seeking. Are you? +