passion

This past week I saw the movie, RAY, for the second time (story of the famous blind, black musician, Ray Charles).  There were a number of very moving scenes in the film, and when the movie was over I came away with the general thought, "I, too, am a person of passion."  Ray Charles had a number of passions in his life, one of which was heroin (which nearly ended his career prematurely).  The passion he had for keeping a promise he had made to his mother (that he would never allow himself to act like a cripple) is what pulled him out of his addiction and kept him on track to keep fulfilling his number one passion in life - making music.

Most of my life I never would have thought of myself as a passionate person.  Bruce Jones was always the cool, calm, rarely ruffled guy.  I thought that was a good way to be until a bout with depression temporarily knocked me out of college and my therapist informed me that I was suppressing emotions and thus bringing on depression.  Fast forward 10 years and I'm marrying someone who is hoping to have an emotionally satisfying marriage and . . . after 30 years of marriage I'm having to face head-on the reality that I'm broken and non-functional in this very important part of life!  BUT, over the years I've been aware that passion has slowly been awakening in me (unfortunately it's not the romantic kind, yet).  Slowly, ever so slowly, from time to time, I'll find strong emotion beginning to surface - my throat will tighten, and though tears may not actually materialize I know the first phase of crying is beginning to manifest itself.  I actually did have an all-out, tears flowing, weeping session when I met with a Christian healing minister a year and a half ago.  What triggered that outburst was my recounting to her the time I had to quickly and unexpectedly leave Honduras, my childhood home, due to my older sister's mental breakdown.  I had no clue that this experience had such a strong, deep well of emotion that had never been able to be expressed before.  How sad that I had been unable to connect fully with those feelings at the time they were occurring!

I believe there's something in our Western, Christian culture that seriously impedes and hampers the proper expression and full range of our emotions.  Passion is viewed more as a negative than a positive, something to be suspicious of and kept under tight control.  But I've come to the conclusion that passion is one of God's wonderful gifts to humans, to be fully appreciated and welcomed.  "Be angry!" the apostle exhorts us, "but don't sin, and don't let the sun go down on your anger."  The problem is not with our passions, but rather with the uncleaness  in our hearts that twists our passions in a wrong direction.  I know Jesus didn't say it this way, but I think he would agree with this statement:  "Blessed are the passionate with pure hearts, for they shall see God."