Passion on the bus, in the skies, and under glaciers!!

A call is passion, desire, and choice, all rolled into one. ~John P. Schuster~

This week we have observed people with passion, purpose, desire, and choice and vicariously participated in their stories of call!

Who cannot forget the breath-taking views of Felix Baumgartner, who desired to break the sound barrier by jumping from a capsule attached to a massive balloon miles above Earth. For over four minutes he flipped ‘n flopped, jigged ‘n jogged, zigged ‘n zagged,  twisted ‘n turned - all short of being turned inside out until he was able to control his speed of 870 mph. Then upon opening his shoot, he gracefully landed on his feet after dropping 128,097 feet, or roughly 24 miles, above Earth.

This week on Bill Moyers, we were introduced to James Balog - one of the world’s premier nature photographers, author, and “prophet.” Bill has a poignant interview with James to speak about the tragic thinning of the glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, and other northern areas.  James tells of how he set up time-lapse cameras to photograph the ongoing retreating of the glacier ice sheets. In November, Balog’s film, Chasing Ice,  a breathtaking account of climate change in action, will be released.

And let us finally recall the images of the Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani girl with a strong voice, a courageous heart, and a deep desire for girls in her village to have the benefit of being educated; she wants to be a doctor – and desires possibilities for all girls and women in her village. “The shooting of Malala Yousufzai along with two classmates while they were on their way home from school Tuesday horrified people in Pakistan and internationally. It has been followed by an outpouring of support for a girl who earned the enmity of the Taliban for publicizing their acts and speaking about the importance of education for girls.”

Why do people do these feats of passion, desire, courage, and choice?  Because they cannot not do them.  We could say that it is already programmed in their DNA!  They listen to a different drummer; are willing to swim upstream; eager to go beyond the box, have a stance of ready-set-go so as to take risks in the present to make change happen in the future; are never satisfied with the status quo so they promote creativity, and innovation, and have BIG COURAGE to be who they are called to be. Thomas Merton puts this search for passion, purpose, and call to be one’s true Self in these poetic words:

“For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true Self. Trees and animals have no problem. God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied. With us it is different. God leaves us free to be whatever we like, since God alone possesses the secret of my identity; God alone can make me who I am or rather, God alone can make me who I will be when I at last fully begin to be.”

Let us pray: 
“I will not die an unlived life; I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.  I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.  I choose to risk my significance to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.”
~Dawna Markova!