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Passion for 365 days~

8/17/2012

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Picture
Spicy curried zucchini soup
The other day I got it in my mind (once again) that I wanted to do some kind of art or activity every day for a year. The idea has intrigued me every since I saw the movie “Julia Being Julia”, in which for 365 consecutive days a young woman named Julia Powell completes a Julia Child recipe and blogs about it. (Her blog no longer exists .)

        Then there is Nina Sankovitch reading a book a day to assuage her grief after her sister’s death and writing about it in “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair”. Her blog continues to be a rich resource for all kinds of reading: http://www.readallday.org/blog/

        “365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!” by Noah Scalin has also inspired many to pick a theme and then create variations for a year. The possibilities are endless. Check out http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/ for inspiration.

      So I decided I’d make a soup a day. Really? What was I thinking? I don’t have time for such a labor intensive activity, and besides, what would I do with all that soup?  Oh, I have the time if that’s what I want to do with my life; we could have soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner and of course I could give it to the people I visit and take it whenever there is a call for food at church.

     Well, after completing Day 1 of soup making I have scratched the idea. It isn’t that the soup was a disaster (which it was, but I tell you about that tomorrow), but because, who wants to eat soup for 365 consecutive days anyway? Certainly, I don’t. Why? I like soup okay, but a lot of soup is about vegetables, and truth be told, I don’t like vegetables. How humbling to admit such a thing, but I’m working on humility and confessing such blasphemy is a good a place as any to start.

     What I learned from this one day experience is that you to have passion to repeat any variation on a theme for 365 days, and since I don’t have passion for soup or for cooking, no wonder I failed. You have to have passion to get you through those days when you’re tired and want to skip a day, and you have to have passion to give yourself permission to do just that—skip a day. In fact, you have to have passion to do whatever you do in any serious way for any extended period of time.

     As far as the 365 a day commitment, I seem to have a passion, a desire, to post a quote every day on this blog. I’ve done so for about 635 days, missing one day, I believe, due to traveling.  What’s the passion? Inspiring, affirming and encouraging others to find the silence, solitude and simplicity that they long for--to follow their bliss.

    One more thing….I haven’t given up on finding another 365 day project, although if I think about it, I’m already doing  a bunch of them, beginning with such mundane, but necessary routines as flossing, and taking my vitamins. And there’s my walking and taking quiet time.  But I’m thinking of a new, intentional commitment, something a little bit more radical than flossing.


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