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LOSE YOUR COOL |
DESCRIPTION: "Throughout history there have been passionate people who have used their passion to change the world. Some changed it for the better, while others were passionate about things that had terrible outcomes. But whatever it was, each of these people was willing to make big sacrifices for what they were passionate about. In Lose Your Cool you’ll read the stories of these people and their passions. "
Jon Foreman is one of these people. Zac interviewed Jon for the book and Taylor sent us that interview!
Zach: First of all, what is passion?
Jon: When I think of passion, I think of suffering and the folks who have died for something; I feel like they have a deeper sort of passion than anything I've experienced. It's one thing to say you're passionate about Led Zeppelin in junior high when everyone hates Led Zeppelin. But a true, deeper passion is being willing to suffer for something.
Zach: Who do you think exhibits passion?
Jon: There's a passage in the New Testament that includes a list of patriots, and hopers, and dreamers of time gone by who never got to see tehir dreams come true, never got to see the Promised Land. [Check out Hebrews 11 to see the passage Jon is talking about.] That is the first thing that comes to mind--the Abrahams of the world who were part of a dream much bigger than themselves.
Zach: Who is someone who exhibits a passion that is destructive or maybe someone who was well intentioned, but let it get out of hand? Could you talk about that?
Jon: Absolutely. [laughs] Go to any Little League game, and there's a chance you might see a few parents with some misdirected passion. We want to feel like our blood is tied to something bigger than ourselves; that's a genuine human desire--that's a great thing. But when that's misguided, it can lead to a lot of dangerous situations or even an overly intense patriotism that would make a nation decide they are somehow better than others. Suddenly you've got Hitler - sure, he had a lot of passion. So absolutely, like many of the other human attributes, passion can be a double-edged sword.
Zach: What are you passionate about?
When you use the world passion, it's like the word love--which has such a wide variety of hues and tones. C.S. Lewis talks about the "four loves." You know...you love your mom, you love asparagus, you love your high school football team, and you love the smell of the ocean. There's the "familiar love" and the "agape love," but what is the best love? In The Four Loves Lewis describes that while writing the book, he tried to put them in a hiarchy--but he found that all of these loves are tied together.
In our Western world we like to compartmentalize, which can tend to oversimplify things. For example the pursuit of holiness can not leave out justice. Maintain a passion for your hometown ball team without forgetting the homeless who sleep downtown outside the stadium. Martin Luther King Jr. talked a lot about how we rise or fall as a society together. He said, "I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."
So in this context I am passionate about my family, the smell of the sea, the hope I see in the eyes of a child, the smell of a freshly cut lemon, and a Creator who holds all of these in tension.
Purchase the book for yourself HERE.
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