Dear Kaleid Ladies,
What does the word “passion” conjure up for you? Scenes of love or abundant personal expression? Perhaps fiery speeches or risky activity for a cause?
In Lent’s lead up to Easter, we are reminded that Jesus’ passion was humankind and that his abundance of love in our direction went hand in glove with his abundance of suffering.
Love and pain, freedom and surrender are all intricately woven together inside the knot that is passion.If we are of a certain ilk—those of us who are contained, careful, thoughtful, planners—the knot of passion can be particularly eyebrow-raising. We approach it cautiously. If that person is you, we offer you an invitation to dip your toe into the waters of passion over the six weeks or so as we unpack it a bit here and (hopefully) offer you small doorways into exploring your own passion and embracing it as God-given.
At Kaleid, we want to see ourselves by knowing our purpose, passion, and power.
Purpose, or the unique way we love that looks like us, shows us our “how.” Our purpose comes from the particularity of our God-given wiring, talents, and gifts.
At Kaleid we say that our passions reveal the people, causes, and places where we will unabashedly and unreservedly show up. Our passion will determine our “where.” Our. We can’t help but step into the ring when our passions are stirred, even if the fight is messy.
Just like purpose, our passions come from being made in God’s image. Do you remember the icon below? It reminds us that our Creator made us in love, by love, and for love. God’s life exists in the unique relationship of love between Father, Son, and Spirit; we are made in the image of this God. To be made “by love” is to be made by a divine relational God who placed into our very essence the desire and capacity to love and be loved. We were created to participate in a free, unhindered exchange of love with God and others. We were created for passion.
We know it can feel awkward to talk about the intensity and the freedom of love. But, today, could you open yourself up to the idea that God’s love is passionate in its creativity, its freedom, its pursuit, and its suffering? Could you accept that God made you to love with this kind of passion, too?
Jesus shows us what God’s passion looks like. It looks like free-flowing energy toward others’ good out of his own fully loved and distinct self. It looks like a man open to seeing and being seen, to knowing and being known, to loving wholeheartedly despite the risk.
It’s true that passion can be horribly twisted. It’s true that there’s nothing more dangerous than a passionate person with power, destructively moving with blind abandon. But what if we could welcome the concept of God’s holy passion, rooted in free, secure, interdependent relationship that flows toward us to generate more of the same?
What if we could start to notice our passion, seeing where our hearts yearn to participate in healed, whole, free expressions of God’s love in the world? What if our pent-up energy flowed more freely into the places and alongside the people that truly and deeply stirred our hearts?
We were created to be women of full passion. We were created to have focused desire—to be passionate. Our passion is the risk of love.
We desire this passionate freedom for each woman at Kaleid. We are women who want to connect our purpose (our “how”) with our passion (our “where”) and to live as we were created: in love, by love, and for love.
For Reflection:
First, spend time with some of the questions that came up in this email:
What does the word “passion” conjure up for you?
Could you be open to the idea that God’s love is passionate (in its creativity, its freedom, its pursuit, and its suffering)?
Could you accept that you are created to love with this kind of passion, too?
What do you notice about your own passion? Where does your heart yearn to participate in healed, whole, free expressions of God’s love in the world?
Next, spend time with Hosea 2 and Hosea 14 and ask the Spirit to show you God’s passion for you and what God’s passion in you, as an image bearer, looks like.
“The only way to own and claim love as our identity is to fall into love itself, to feel affection for longing, to value our yearning, treasure our wanting, embrace our incompleteness, be overwhelmed by the beauty of our need.”
Gratefully,
The Kaleid Team
P.S. We would love for you to join us on April 15th for the StrengthsFinder workshop with coach Elizabeth Payne, where we will explore how our purpose and passion can work together as we love well and uniquely in the world.
If the concept of passion, or even the concept of desire, is hard for you, this podcast from emily p. freeman may be encouraging.
Finally, register today for our Easter Silent Retreat at the Ignatius House on May 1st! We have about 8 spots remaining!
Gerald May, The Awakened Heart: Opening Yourself to the Love You Need, (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991)