To play without passion is inexcusable. -BeethovenI see the effects of passionless living all around me. It's petrification is evident in faces, voices, choices and relationships all around us. People living without purpose, without fire. They teeter on the tightrope of ambivalence...not daring to unleash the true sinner or saint that wrestles within them. They steer for safer waters, avoiding true communication, depth of feeling, expression of thought in all its truthfulness. They avoid conflict at the cost of their souls. They suffer in silence as they eek out an existence living obediently under the castrating gazes of some mythic authority figure that daily haunts them.
They produce half hearted attempts at almost everything. They are just getting by, not making waves, not rising higher, not being held accountable for never realizing the full potential of whatever they put their hands upon..be it relationships, jobs, bodies, minds, talents...or their inner lives.
They are hazy lifers...never gathering up all their energies to strike at some piece of life like a lightening bolt sent from heaven. Too afraid to try, to stretch, to dream. They won't own the commitment, the challenge, the possibility of life. the closest they come to resembling the reality they are skirting is when they act like promiscuous teenage boys. They sleep with everything but raise no children. They know how to feverishly lust but they don't know the molten fires of a God given, sacrificial love. They know how to be teased by the flames of the furnace but have no guts or faith to step into its belly.
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. -1 Cor. 10:31
Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord and not merely for people. -Col 3:23
Jesus laid out how to live, when He warned of spitting out of His mouth, all those whose lives were like tepid water. (Rev 3:15-16). Jesus calls us to live hot or cold...but flee the spiritual atherosclerosis that is running rampant in the dying around us. Throw off your timidity, the trepidation that paralyzes you from committing to whatever it is that you know is calling you to become more than a perma-couch cushion. Dare to bleed again on the knife of chance...don't settle for a cauterized existance...spill some blood, pour out your heart...try again...love until you hate...hate until you love...or go buy a coffin and lay it next to your tv...to remind you that you already died.
I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say "he feels deeply, he feels tenderly"
-Vincent Van Gogh
You do know that....You are dying.
Have you yet...truly lived?
Our defintition of art is the breaking open of the breastbone, for sure. Just open-heart surgery.
I wish there was an easier way. But in the end, people want blood, and I am one of them.
-Bono, U2 frontman.
3 comments:
Pastor Eric, this post strikes to the core of who I am. I have always been a passionate person, and sometimes, honestly, I've viewed it as more of a curse than a blessing. A friend said to me once, a couple of years ago, "A life lived with passion is far better than a life lived without it." Since then, that phrase has echoed through my mind and has really colored pretty much everything I do, say, think and feel. I believe it was God speaking through my friend to me. He used that concept to light a fire in my belly when I read about loving fiercely and fearlessly in "Fight Like a Girl."
One of the greatest desires of my life is to love all people fiercely and fearlessly (and unconditionally), according to the passion He has placed in my heart, and always, always, always under the umbrella of the truth and authority of His glorious Gospel.
This post is being printed even as I type this, so that it can be placed in a prominent place in my life as a reminder. Thank you for posting it!
Great post Eric, and the picture expresses it in spades. It is a rather difficult post to respond to for me. At 61 my pash-o-meter is somewhat shopworn.
There are some great thoughts in this post -"living obediently under the castrating gazes of some mythic authority figure that daily haunts them." Now that's a penetrating statement and a widely prevailing malady which we all suffer under to some degree. Whether its expression in worship,(I remember the first time I raised my hands in worship, man it made me squirmy) or just answering a post like the one below this one- shhhhhh, sex.
There I said it.
I think reaching out and stretching oneself is certainly made easier with examples, encourgement, like this post, but also personality make-up plays a big role. Freedom or lack of it during childhood plays a big part. Fear of being rebuked or ridiculed. All that said, I think it is the will of Christ that we see and hear what He is passionate about, and if in nothing else, we act on those things, we will have gained all. His passion can smolder and burn quietly in one and break out into a consuming flame in another. But God help us if we live and die a stranger to His passions.
I see his passion in the tears of a penitent, in the adopting parent opening their home, the kindness offered to the stranger, but also in the violet and the songbird.
Love Dad
A beautiful comment for a beautiful post, Fred. "His passion can smolder and burn quietly in one and break out into a consuming flame in another." I love that!
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