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I have such a list of things I’m passionate about.  Sometimes I don’t even realize that I’m passionate about something until I’ve flown off the handle about it.  This usually happens when someone else gets me going either by sharing my enthusiasm or have opposition to it.

The things that get us worked up, these passions, these things that we hold dear to us, are what make us different than any other living thing.  No matter how endearing my cat is, and how much I like to personify him, he’s a cat.  He doesn’t get a broken heart or infuriated with me when I take away his favorite toy so that I can wash it.  He just moves on.  Emotionally sterile.  Yes, it was is favorite toy, he does have favorites, but he’s not full of passion about it.

Passion is what gives us that spark in our eye when we talk about our hobbies, our loves, our interests.  I feel so blessed to have passion about so many things.  I’ve even had people (both strangers and friends) tell me how much they enjoy seeing me get passionate about something.  I feel compelled to compile a list of a few things that come to mind that I’m passionate about.  I would love it if you would help me grow my list and share some of your passions in the comments.

A few of mine:

• Worship & Discipleship
• Skiing
• Sportbiking
• Michigan
• Doing things “the right way” the first time
• Taking care of my body
• Pets
• Parenting (though I have no kids, yet)
• Good Friends
• My Partner: Ogg
• Work Ethic

Nothing in that list will fail to get me in an energized debate with someone who takes the opposing stance on the topic.  That’s not to say I’m right, or they’re wrong.  In fact several of those items are very subjective, for instance Parenting.  There are many ways to raise a child.  I have some strong feelings about parental responsibilities that will conflict with other valid methods of child rearing.  Though I’m bound to offend and upset some with this: I don’t find Worship & Discipleship to be subjective.  I don’t “believe” in God as if God were something I’m hoping on being there but am ultimately deeply unsure of.  I accept that God is as much a truth and fact as gravity, carbon, and water.  I can rely on God, eternal life, and all the truth of the bible as much as I can rely on the sun coming up tomorrow.

And there I go again, flying off the handle about my passion for God.  I look forward to seeing passion each day in those around me, even if they’re polar opposite of my passions.

Enjoy life, enjoy being human, enjoy your passions. Express your passions to the world; express your humanity.

Jesus said, and I quote, “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

Three very strong points. All three are at the core of Christian perspective. Jesus is our teacher who gives us the path (aka: way) to true happiness by following His teachings on love and life. In crucification He defeated death so that we’ll always have life, both in Heaven with our Father, and a more fulfilling one here if we follow him. But the truth?

Sure we can say simply that Jesus did not lie. Or that Jesus was, and that is the truth. But truth is something that runs much deeper. And I dare say it’s harder to accept whole truth than a savior and teacher. It’s so easy to make God and/or His son our co-pilot, to have him serve us, fitting Him into our lives as we see fit. It’s so easy to say “God loves me even if I don’t do everything right” and allow that to be our reason for not doing ‘faithy’ things. And although it is true that He is always forgiving our short comings it’s not an excuse to allow us to not even try. We’re commissioned children, made in His image, to follow the teachings of a savior. And yet because we’re known to be imperfect we allow ourselves to be as imperfect as we see fit. I hardly think that’s living up to God’s wishes.

It’s a challenge to convince myself that worship service is for Him and not me. It feels so unnatural to pass on Jesus’ love when I am confronted with people I despise. It’s really hard to accept that everything the bible says is right, and I’m wrong. I don’t want to have to study the bible daily as though it were life sustaining food for my soul. And it’s near impossible for me to talk about God in front of most people. However, life is short. Eternity isn’t. That doesn’t leave me with much time to screw around. Perhaps it’s time I drop the excuses and read up on what it is that God expects of me for real instead of going off hearsay and selfishness. Care to join me?

February is going to be a month I spent learning about God’s expectations of Me and all His kids. Would you like to say the same about your February? Comment.

As many of you know: The rear tire of my bike lost traction in a parking lot, snapped out, and crushed my left foot. What most of you won’t understand is why I still love my bike like I love God and living in a free country.

I am not poetic, nor am I an impressive orator. Without the help of others I could probably never express what it is about being a motorcyclist that I can never, and will never, give up. Lucky for me a stranger by the name of Dave Karlotski did it for me. Please read his story with an open mind and listen to the passion of a fellow rider.

Season of the Bike
by Dave Karlotski

There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind’s big hands squeeze the heat out of my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops don’t even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from the skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and forehead streaked with blood, but that’s just an illusion, just the misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds.

Despite this, it’s hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life you’re changed forever. The letters “MC” are stamped on your driver’s license right next to your sex and height as if “motorcycle” was just another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition.

But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and rainstorms are paid in full because a motorcycle summer is worth any price. A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us languidly from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.

On a motorcycle I know I’m alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of sunlight that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than PanaVision and higher than IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard.

Sometimes I even hear music. It’s like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind’s roar. But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock ‘n roll, dark orchestras, women’s voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed.

At 30 miles an hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree-smells and flower-smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it’s as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it.

A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane. Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It’s a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It’s light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it’s a conduit of grace, it’s a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy.

I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I’ve had a handful of bikes over a half dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn’t trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride was one of the best things I’ve done.

Cars lie to us and tell us we’re safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, “Sleep, sleep.” Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that’s no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride.

Um.

Wow.  It’s been a long time since I posted anything to my fans.  I really meant to.  I mean I have about 1/2 a dozen posts in my drafts waiting to make it out to you.  I also have a pile of stories to add.

So an update on me:

1. Foot is better, can walk, but not yet 100%

2. I am allowed to ski as soon as I feel comfy.

3. Ruby on Rails is quickly becoming my preferred web development language & framework

4.  Love the new job

5. Agile Development Process seems like a good idea: can’t wait to try it starting next week.

6. Way excited my lil’ sis is coming out to visit next week! w00t!

7. Looking forward to skiing

8. Ogg & I are doing well, and that’s wonderful news.

9. My fish are spawning and I’m attempting to raise the young.

10. Been cooking a lot more now that I can stand on my own. Delicious!

There’s the top 10 highlights on me right now.  I’m going to write a note to myself to keep this blog up a bit better.  See you in a few days.