Is it any wonder why us bloggers sometimes go weeks between posts and then seem to hit a mother load of thoughtful stuff to ruminate about. Then it is hard to keep ones fingers off the keyboard and those “can’t sleep through the night” moments seem less painful and more useful than not.

It is 3 am and I am thinking about the word “passion”. I often think about words and am fascinated by their power to define an emotion, feeling or state of being. One of my favorite writers, the apostle Paul, wrote in 2 Corinthians that “…we have this treasure in earthen vessels” in part describing his personal knowledge of the power of the indwelling Christ.

From what I have read of Paul, I can say without hesitation that he was a “passionate” man. By this I mean that he was powerfully compelled to follow Christ to his eventual death during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero.

When I thought about the word passion this morning and how that word relates to my life, I was reminded of a book i was given by a friend several years ago. Even though I never finished the book, Marcia Sinetar’s, “Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow” the concept of it was quite compelling. In a nutshell, she postulated that if a person followed their bliss (i might be extrapolating this with another book as well) they would eventually be rewarded with monetary success.

At that point I had to wonder how many of us are really following our bliss or what we are passionate about. How many of us are actually in jobs that we can’t wait to get to in the morning—that the time seems to fly—and before we know it, it is time to go home and eat dinner.

Passion is partially defined as: 1 – any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate or 2 – a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music—the origin of which is 1125-75 Middle English and related to Christ’s sufferings on the cross.

It is a complex word that has a long history and is not used as much in the cerebral sense as it is the sexual side of things.

When I think of a passionate person I envision one who is strongly motivated and has a good sense of where he or she is going in life. Along with this, a passionate person knows why he or she is on this earth and this knowledge has for them, become an anchor for their soul. They are following a path that is sometimes well defined—sometimes not—and that excites and motivates them through the daily trials ad tribulations of life in general.

And herein, for me, lies the question and contradiction of this word as it pertains to me in general. I like writing, but in and of itself, the act of putting words to paper or cyberspace, doesn’t fulfill me to the degree that I could say that I am passionate about writing. That when all else fails, the sheer act of expressing myself through writing can get me through the hard spaces that life provides on a regular basis is not an anchor for me. Maybe I am just lazy and don’t make the time to allow writing to take me to that place of passion.

The dream is of course to find joy and happiness in the journey of living daily—to know why you are on this earth and finding your passion—is another question entirely. Not mutually exclusive but part and parcel of the same idea.

It is getting late—I may be able to go back to sleep now having delved into one of my life’s most interesting mysteries. Maybe today will indeed be the first day of the rest of my life!