Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Wow...

So, I was doing my Daily Blog Check and as I was reading Deb Strandberg's Blog, this video really caught my attention and I thought it needed sharing. It was pretty much a smack in the face for me.



This quote is from the mouth of Penn Gillette (a famous atheist--who said of himself "I am beyond atheist"):

Here's Penn's quote about Christians, "If you believed that there’s a Heaven and Hell, andthat people could be going to Hell, or not getting eternal life, or whatever, and you think that, well it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward . . . How much do you have to HATE somebody to know that everlasting life is possible and NOT tell them that?

I mean if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe it, and that truck was bearing down on you -- there is a certain point where I tackle you --and this is more important than that."


I don't know about you, But I definitely agree with him. (on most things anyways)

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Still Alive, Just Busy.

Hello Blogging world, 

I have been incredibly busy these past few weeks and will probably continue to be busy up until Graduation. Blog posts might be slow, but i still will post occasionally keeping you updated and with some blurbs here and there. 

Since last time I posted: 

- My Brothers Turned 12. Yay! 
- My Daddy got his screening message for 410 Cold Lake.
- Samantha turned 17! 
- Had a 1 night trip to Vancouver to see my Uncle's play "Toronto Mississippi"  


That's just the big things, but all in all it's been super good. 
I need Better blog topics. 
Bah. =]

Monday, March 2, 2009

What Is Passion?

So This is a little journaling/research  assignment I had to do for my comp civ 12. I really liked it even though it's a bit scattered, and decided i'd say the extra time of posting a new blog and just post this. it's pretty much and update of my past two weeks anyways.


Passion

“Passion is when you put more energy into something than is required to do it. It is more than just enthusiasm or excitement, passion is ambition that is materialized into action to put as much heart, mind body and soul into something as is possible.”

-UrbanDictionary.com

 “Passion” –

1. any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate

2. strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardour.

3. strong sexual desire; lust.

-Dictionary.com

“Passion. Suffering; refers to Christ’s Crucifixion and death on the cross (Acts 1:3)”

-The Student Bible Dictionary

“Passion is important. Being passionate is being willing to jump into any situation with out warning, warm up or notice; if you are passionate about something, you just do it.”

-Jason Eliason (My Youth Pastor)


The above statements really have challenged me to look back on the foundation of my beliefs about passion. As seen in some of the above definitions, passion is something that has a very broad definition; it can mean many different things. The variety is what really astounds me when it comes to this idea of passion.

When I asked some of my peers to describe what passion meant to them, a surprising amount of people answered with either intimacy of some form. Some then followed up with the statement that passion was to have incredibly strong emotions or drive for something and to really just go for it and show it; only some Used that as their first response. Now, the latter definition is fabulous, but one in particular really gets to me. Roughly 3 out of 6 people responded with “passion, like during sex” as their first response. I was shocked, purely because I have never thought of passion as a form of intimacy. Although I believed that passion being used to describe sexual intimacy would seem incorrect and saddening, I discovered that the definition of passion has not fallen far from its original definition.

While I was doing further research I found an alarming amount of Bible verses that contained the word passion. Though they were spread amongst many different translations; they held different variations of definitions and contexts in which the word was used.

Some verses that I found as examples are the following:

KJV Bible, Acts 1:3 – This verse uses the word passion in the context of Christ’s suffering on the cross showing the definition to be suffering.

NLT Bible, Psalms 69:9 – The psalmist uses the word passion in a manner to show how committed he is to the house of the lord. This shows another aspect and definition of passion; Just doing it, no matter what the cost.

NIV Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:9 – This verse uses the word passion in order to describe a deep desire and sexual lust.

These are only a small fraction of the verses that I was able to find, however they seem to really capture the variance of this word passion. From sexual desire to extreme willingness, passion is a word that covers many different things. However there seems to be one connecting factor between each of these ideas of passion; passion is strong.

In closing to all these thoughts, I’ve really re-defined passion in my mind.  Passion is simply s strong desire and drive and giving something everything you have, no matter what the circumstance.