The Fires of Passion

Friends: The Fires of Passion

"Oh Yes, Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone...". John Cougar Mellencamp, Jack and Diane

These lines open up a pretty big subject, and they remind me of an old adage: "As we age, we don't change; we just become more 'so'."

A comment recently by Dr. Jim Phillips, a Macon Escapee and Friday Forum Regular, got me to thinking about some things: He said, "Bud, I can't figure out why you and Renn put on these lunches." I'm sure some of you have had the same thoughts. I concluded that it all came down to passion and action.

For me, certain passions began in youth with friends, huddled around real little fires along the Spring Creek banks, on mountain tops, beaches and backyard grills, cooking up (frying, mostly!) things like bacon and eggs, potatoes, fish, burgers, dogs, steaks, BBQ, marshmallows and anything else that could be cooked outside. There were always friends around to share the experiences and food. There was life then, life without pretense….and always friends around!

But the creek-bank passions of adolescent campfires gave way to fires of Life's necessities as we left youth and proceeded into the "real" life of jobs, marriages, children and the passions required to sustain lifestyles and businesses. But Hellooooo: some of the youthful passions we had never really died for many of us, though they burned low for many years.

Slowly those things that required us to abandon the youthful fires began to drop off like last year’s leaves, and we find we are reclaiming some of our lost time. In many ways we find there is a chance to return to some sense of the freedom and simplicity of life we experienced in youth. Maybe not totally, but perhaps bit by bit...or so it seems to me. Am I dreaming? Whatever, but it sure feels good to me to push the envelop again!

The NY Times recently headlined an article about the return of retired folks to their passions of earlier times, like shop-tinkering, wood-working, fishing, golf, inventions, music, bands, art, Harleys etc. I may not be totally there, but I’m arriving soon! And you?

Passion is a True Expositor of the "real" person, I think. It exposes the ego for what it is: simply a "husk" or disguise we wear. John Wesley used to say of himself: "I am on fire, and people come to see me burn." Some folks mistake panic for passion, but it is not so….they are mutually exclusive concepts. Passion's wind blows constantly where it will, extinguishing small candle-fires; but in a mighty conflagration, that Wind stokes the still-lit fires of suppressed passions, consuming things in its path. This is passion in action.

So to Jim, and to those who silently question the "agenda" for Friday lunches, I answer you this: Renn and Bud, Chef Mike and Vanessa in this small way have found an opportunity to allow the Winds of Passion to stoke some of our smoldering fires of youth in order to add vitality to living. And, of course, we hope it adds some enthusiasm to yours as well.

The end of life is a grave...a grassed-over earthen hole sprouting small colorful plastic flowers. It's a sad reminder that we once lived. But vibrant life is found in the "Process of Living," momentary and day by day. That is why we do what we do on Fridays, and it's why you do what you do in your days.

Chief Justice Holmes, the great jurist, once remarked: "It is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being judged not to have lived." So on Fridays, we share lunches, hoping to avoid "the peril of being judged not to have lived."



Bud
July 26, 2007