"Live what you Love"

I had seen this title at Barnes & Noble a while ago as I strolled past their self-help section. The title had jumped out at me. I couldn’t help but do the classic double-take as I tried to fly past so as to secure my favorite comfy couch. So, I had stopped and flipped through the pages. It was like a memoir (or a blog in hardback). The book seemed to be a bunch of blubs about the author's experiences each day; really sbout just living life: enjoying the beach, reading, laying around & doing nothing, exploring the earth & doing everything, hiking, sleeping, etc. A simple life engaged in what s/he loved.

I found it interesting and so as I found my way towards the couch with my Starbucks chai latte in hand, two slightly opposing thoughts immediately came to mind . One, “live what you love.” What a great title. If you love something, then why not pour your existence into it? I love the very notion and admittedly, I believe my daily morning ritual involves a curiousity as to how my day can embrace the breath I have been given.

However the second was, “Really? But then what? What does living what you love all add up to in the end?” Enjoy the material world, parade within the abstract, delight in the intangible beauty all around, pour out your being, feel spent, and then die. You get a nice quote on your tombstone. Perhaps you leave a legacy behind. But what is it all for? For yet another round of a pointless, fruitless living-what-you-love kind of life?

But were we not created to enjoy all these things? Are we not human?

I have been in the process of rediscovering a life that is spent, yet so not wasted.  Loving a life worth living and living a life worth loving. Craving beauty. Appreciating the intellectual. Life has a point and there will be an exclaimation point at the end. Because in this memoir, there will be a life where at the heart of existence lays a desire for intimacy with the One who gave Love it’s name.

…with a challenge to love. A brilliant, fully-engaged, challenge to live.