A VULNERABLE PLACE

Opportunity obliges the soul's request for more.

I'm in a vulnerable place --no job and no immediate plans or ultimate desire to seek one. I'm not lazy or crazy but I am concerned. I know that it takes money to live. But I don't believe that getting a job will solve my problem, though it will ease my anxieties.

But once these settle I'll become as sour as I was before, probably more so. I know too much to retreat, at least I think I do. I know that God has sanctioned this season. I must have time to write. I'm convinced of it though I've tried to deny it, but I can't.

Still, whenever I open the mail I'm reminded of what I "should" be doing. Whenever I open my eyes in the morning and close them at night, I'm keenly conscious of my need for cash. Money, after all, controls. Everything serves its interest. For most of us this means that we only have a moment to prosper by our passion. Otherwise necessity usurps.

Unless we're single or insane we can't indulge our passion indefinitely. It costs too much and returns too little. Combine this with the advice of well-meaning friends and it's impossible for most people to endure such pressure. Ironically, however, this dilemma also contains its own solution.

Unlike the great, most people can't bear the burden of their reality. Thus the pressures that embolden these breaks them. So much, until they forsake their passion and compromise emotionally. Doing so temporarily, however, isn't wrong. It is, in fact, wise. But many, in leaving their passion, get trapped in a profession.

That's the problem. Like a book they buy intending to read, their passion remains on the shelf unopened by them and unread by others. Yet I understand. Pressure is real no matter how impassioned we are. That's why greatness is revered wherever it's revealed. Great pressure can only be subdued by an even greater passion.