"Passion: a riddle that motivates you to take a journey for a thousand moments to find one answer." Karyn Kedar, Our Dance With God.

I wanted to first share the following paragraph from my reading today:

Passion. That burning ember within your heart that warms you, sometimes a bit too much, glowing, not igniting into fire that destroys. The energy that fuels life, sustains it, gives is reason, makes it rhyme. Passion: a riddle that motivates you to take a journey for a thousand moments to find one answer.

It is the relentless whisper that tells you who you really are and what you really care about, what you must give to the world at all costs. It is the whisper you are so often taught to ignore because it does not speak the language of profit. Rather it urges you, nudges. It is constant and demands that you surrender to it. What is your passion? Don't be afraid to ask. Do not be afraid to answer.

                                                                        Karyn Kedar, Our Dance With God, pg. 126.

I signed  up for the marathon. No, I do not think that this is my "passion" but I do feel like it is a part of my journey. It is the one time in my life that I am pushing myself beyond my physical and mental limits. I have to train, I have to be disciplined to make it to the finish line. I am dedicating my entire being to this one race, this one moment.

This race means so much more to me than just a race; it is the beginning of a new relationship with the world around me. If I can push myself to do this, what can't I do? My favorite piece of training? Time to think. I spend time in prayer, I pray to find my passion and live fully into it, I pray to have gentleness and serenity as I accept my passion, and I pray that I do not fear the answer, however distant from me it might seem. My runs are my dance with God.
Sometimes my dance is short and my body aches from the intensity. Sometimes the dance is long, with a slower, steady pace. Sometimes I don't feel like dancing, but never want to be a wallflower, so I dance anyway. My dance leads me down some paths that I do not wish to go down; paths that twists; paths riddled in darkness.

I ran the other day, a dark and dreary day. I was the only one out in a nearby forest preserve which can be a bit eerie, but I ran. I left the house not wanting to run, but I knew this was supposed to be my long run. Jena (my dog) and I wound through the preserve, slow and steady, until I decided to stop. I didn't want to run. We walked a bit, meandering through the curves in the trail. Then, I heard something in the brush. Jena went crazy trying to get at whatever was scurrying. I had to start running again just to get her to focus on the trail and not the thing in the brush. I ran harder and harder until I came to a fork; which way do I go? One path was well-lit, or rather, less densely populated by trees and seemed much brighter, the other was much darker. I chose the well-lit path, only to discover that it was, in fact, the long way to the same place the darker path led, a small clearing. I tried to make it easier, but only made it harder on myself in this long run. Sometimes I do not wish to go down a path where I feel led because it seems darker, a.k.a harder, but I must to find and live my passion.

I will ask as Karyn Kedar asks, "What is your passion?" "Don't be afraid to ask. Do not be afraid to answer." Journey with me. Find your passion. I am slowly learning to ask and answer without fear, and I hope and pray that you who read this will do the same.