I’ve realized something while playing with my hacky-sack and waiting for my computer at work to finish what it was thinking about. There whole teams in the world that compete in hacky-sack tournaments. They spend most of their time practicing with one other or alone for this competitions and keep up on the latest developments in “hack-sack technolgy.” Most of us would probably look at them and think they’re crazy.

But they look at the rest of us and think the same thing about whatever it is we put all of our time into. Most of us have a passion that over takes most of the rest of our life. Some of us don’t and some of us may be searching for such a passion.

In the church, I have been mostly encouraged to explore discipleship with Jesus and, with in that for the last few months, hospitality. Hospitality is not something I’m naturally good at, all the more reason to work at it. I usually don’t seek to spend time with people, I’m too much of a loner type. But all that to say that hospitality is not my passion, of that I am certain. It should be practiced, but maybe not solely in my case.

But I have no time to find my passion. I love coding HTML and learning more about that, but have little time to explore that. I love riding my bike, but have little time to learn more about how to take care of it and explore what it would mean to rely on it as my main (or even only) vehicle. I’d like to learn how to play the guitar just for the fun of it. To get my clarinet back out and firm up my chops again. None of that can happen. My time is spent elsewhere on other things that I have learned are not my passion, but I am now committed to in one way or another. All of my activities outside of work are church related in one way or another.

I’m growing concerned that, over the next years, I will begin to resent the church for taking time away from exploring what brings me joy and forcing me into a mold of what a Christian should look like. I don’t think this is intentional, far from it knowing well all those who are with me and guiding me. Nevertheless, this is where I find myself today. If I wanted to put time into being on a hacky-sack team, that simply could not happen. I don’t want to have my early adult experience of Jesus and the Church be a thing that I might remember as an institution that kept me from joy.