A life of more passion

I woke up very early this morning with a few important things to do:  getting our day started, finishing up Sweet Boy's costume for his kindergarten book character parade today, getting everyone up and ready for a Halloween Friday.  And in the middle of it all, realizing today is the last day of the 31-day writing challenge, the phrase that quieted my mind was a soft place to land.

This is what we all need.  A soft place to land.

This blog space - my tiny piece of real estate in this giant digital world - has become my soft place to land at the end of each day (or the beginning of each morning).  Although posting each day takes much time, planning and execution, I knew that at some point in each of the 31 days this month that I would get to have creative time.  I would return to my blog space and get to have reflective time, time to think about what drives people to live more creatively, more beautifully, more passionately. 

Where is your soft place to land?  What creative efforts do you return to each day?  In the business of the everyday, how will you step out into the creative realm?  Or, perhaps you've figured out a way to combine the two?

Writing is my favorite craft - it moves me, it energizes me, it stretches me and makes me grow.  I've been able to see things so differently this month with some clarity that has been missing.  Photography is my second love.  Photography and writing together have reminded me that it's our privilege to get to illuminate God's world.  As a creative being and a child of God, I have the unique opportunity to serve as a mirror by receiving His light and shining it back to the world.

This month, I've touched on the importance of creativity quite a bit.  I hope I've inspired you and introduced you to a new blog, podcast, book or artist that perhaps you didn't know before. 

I hope that you've taken time to be creative this month.  Or, in the coming days, I hope that creativity becomes part of your regular routine.  And I hope that being creative and pursuing a craft to get to know yourself better will lead you to a more passionate place.

This month, I hope you've found time for some quiet.  And I hope you've heard God's whispers a little more, and the many conversations in your mind a little less.

Remember that the Oxford Dictionary defines passion as strong emotion or enthusiasm; eagerness, intensity, zeal, mania, obsession, craze, hunger, itch, yearning, longing, desire.  I hope that this month, you're a little bit closer to having one of these words in your life that  = something special to you.

Today is a lovely, beautiful day.  Today is a day of being reminded that we can complete something.  We can put our minds to creative efforts by moving one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.  We can run the race set before us.  We can fight the good fight!

I'm extremely thankful for the special people who organized the Write for 31 Days effort.  Writing for 31 days is a wonderful metaphor: we've been in the wilderness, hunkered down, listening closely and sharing for 31 days.  Now, it's time to decide how we will maintain this for the coming months.

I will see you on the journey.