Passionate Desire

Passion is rooted in knowing the will of God and doing it, no matter what the cost. This is a definition I extracted from a quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.; " The purpose of life is not found in avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. The purpose of life is doing the will of God come what may." I live in and love this kind of passion.

Then, there is this quote, which I believe comes from the movie, "Braveheart"; "Everyone dies, but not everyone lives". Add to this another word I have recently heard by Kris Vallotton from Redding, California; "The greater tragedy is not that 3000 brave people have died in Iraq, but that many millions back home will live for nothing." Shortly after I heard him say this, I picked up a newspaper and read an article about vets of the Iraq War who have lost a limb. They've been sent home for recovery and are being fitted for prosthesis and yet they desparetely long to get back into the battle. The reporter was perplexed but I understood their passion. Once placed in a circumstance where life and death is determined by your focus and by the focus of a passionate team around you, you'll never be happy with life on any other level. Channel surfing or sitting in a bar listening to people laughing at inanity is unacceptable.

Don't get me wrong, I like having fun as much as anyone. But isn't "having fun" the reward at the end of some term of sacrifice and not a prolonged end in itself? I thought that the word, "recreation" was based on a need to re-create when we've been spent on a worthy cause.

C.S. Lewis once said, "You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive,' or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity.' In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate (the beast) and bid the geldings be fruitful." I am caught once again in a season of my life where I am carefully inspecting the boiler of my soul. I'll do my best to blog while I carry out this inspection so that anyone interested can join me for a re-firing. I need to warn you, however.....I will not go gently through my own inspection, much less, leave you in a "ghastly simplicity."