Living with Practical Purpose

The fog spread like wings over the steamy mountains and the valleys of the Blue Ridge Parkway and I wished I could look at the site forever. As quickly as the thought came, it evaporated like the tendrils of lifting fog. Should I see only this view every day I would never see the others I love so much, the sun rising over the ocean, the sparkling eyes of my boys as they hand me flowers on Mother’s Day, my friend’s smiling face over her cup of coffee, the swirling colors of a dusty, neon Arizona moon.

The perfect morning so far and I could do this every day. Drive. Dream. Browse the shelves in small town stores and tuck into the corner of a quaint cafe like the one I was just in with a writing tablet and an interesting book, not needing to know the time nor where I need to be next. But that wouldn’t be practical either.

Sometimes I don’t feel like being practical. I want whimsy. I want an empty schedule and an open road. I want to exit where I want and when I want. I want to relish the trip when the path ahead gleams with unsurpassed intrigue — when a grove of trees perfect for hiking beneath waves me closer. Sometimes I want to enjoy this human experience without limitations of anything considered practical because living practical seems to contradict living with passion.

But does it? Can’t we use each tick of the clock to our advantage — create a schedule full of passionate endeavors — ones we enjoy so much we get chills just thinking about? Sure, we can. Balancing work and play requires an inner and outer finesse, but we can stroll the sands, sling a fishing line in the pond, play guitar with the band and meet our basic needs by having digits in our bank accounts. How? This is where passion pounces in and takes control.
Sometimes we forget that we create our schedules. Everything from brushing our teeth after that first cup of coffee to ordering plane tickets to sitting on the couch in front of the Nascar race is designed by us — let’s forget, for now, the exceptions like the car’s flat tires or the child’s sporadic fever. Every second we have a choice. We can continue the drive or stop, get out and stretch, breathing in the view that may be of majestic mountains or of messy Koolaid-splashed faces that call to be kissed.

We are the master planners here in this physical realm. For God’s plan for our lives to come to fruition, we must follow the calling of the passion that we were born with. This passion is our guide. We know when something is right for us when we feel it in our heart where passion beats strong. When we let passion be our planner, our ultimate determiner of our schedule, the divine plan unfolds easily.

We can paint a portrait, write a book, sing at the top of our lungs and never worry if we make a dime from our effort, but we have to do more than want to — we have to do more than feel the passion — we have to design our day. We have to merge practicality and passion and be creative about doing so. We have to know when to schedule to the last-minute crunch and when to let the wind blow us where it will as we toss the schedule book out the window.

Perhaps the question should be not can we live passionately and practically, but how can we not? Especially when we realize that we were not created to just survive, but to create our own experiences. By enjoying and being grateful for the opportunities that we don’t particularly find our favorites, we find the grace and the power to live passionately despite our circumstances. We find a way to breathe our passion into the most ordinary of chores. We laugh as we brush the sticky grass from our legs after the lawn-mowing is complete. We let the sensations of hope sprinkle down with the rain as we get soaked in unexpected downpour.

Joy is not the byproduct of practicality, it’s the result of expressing the abundant passion inside of our cells. May the Divine shower us with the insight needed to express our passion each day!