It’s a question that I was asked many times throughout my
conservative, Bible-belt based youth, though in different ways. Whether in a
personal conversation with my parents, at church, or at some youth convention
or camp, I was challenged multiple times to think about what world issues I
care most about and how I might contribute to the greater good in that area. It
was usually worded something like this:
“What are you passionate about?”
Passion…you keep using that word. I do not think it means
what you think it means.
Don’t get me wrong, the point of this blog post is not to
criticize anyone who is encouraging folks to find a cause that they can get
behind. Whether or not you believe that your interest in a given issue was
placed in you by a divine being, it’s a great idea to take that interest to the
next level and actually do something about it. If everyone in the world (or
even just the first world) chose one cause to support, be it with time or
money, the result would be felt across the face of the entire human experience.
What I’d like to propose is that we refine the way we go
about it. Here’s why.
Most of us aren’t really doing anything about any of the
world’s problems. And it isn’t that we don’t care or think we should be doing
something. It’s that we’re too busy, we have our own problems to fix first, we
don’t know how to get involved, etc. There is an endless list of excuses that
we let get in the way and numb us to the pain of others. I would know, because
I’m as guilty as anyone else.
So when a youth pastor looks out at his hormone-ridden flock
and asks, “What has God given you a passion for?” What that really translates
to is something like, “What do you think you could spare some time for
after school and social responsibilities?”
But that’s not what passion is. If you’re passionate about
something, it means more to you than just something to write in the “volunteer
work” section of a scholarship application. If you’re passionate about
something, you’ll invest in it other than when your church family is
paying for you to travel to a different country for a week or two with all of
your youth group buddies. If you’re passionate about something, you think about
it a whole lot more than when you’re asked what you’re passionate about.
When it comes to world issues passion should demand a place
among your priorities and not settle with the scraps of leftover time we call “when
I’m not busy.” Passion should be more than a reputation boost that gets you an awesome
new profile picture holding an impoverished-looking African child who you knew for a few
days. Passion should be embers glowing in your chest that spark into flame with
the slightest provocation. Passion should be a thirst that you know you’ll
never quench yet you can’t possibly be happy if you don’t try. Passion
should be painful. It should grieve you. It should linger. It should bleed.
Maybe I’m being dramatic. But as for me, I want to be one of
the few human beings who knows a passion like that.
And right now, I have to admit that I don’t. I care an awful
lot about education. And after living in a developing country as a volunteer
teacher, I care about it even more. I daydream about how I can help improve
education in impoverished and underprivileged places pretty frequently. But I’m
still developing my passion for education.
I guess that’s the silver lining in this little rant. Not having
a passion for anything doesn’t mean you should hang your head in shame and walk away! It means you should look at what you care about and invest in it. You’ll
probably find that the more you engage an issue…the more you care about it. The
more you taste it, the more you understand it’s complexities and nuances, the
more it will mean to you…the more you’ll feel those embers glowing in your
chest.
And thus I propose not that we stop asking the question.
Rather, I would like to suggest that we start framing it with wording that more
helpfully reflects what we really mean:
“What do you want to develop a passion for?”
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