Our vocation may not always be ‘beer and skittles’ but there is a sense in which discernment follows the path of our passions.I thought about this when I went to buy some coffee from a coffee importer in Coburg, Melbourne.
This man in his seventies told me how he had built up the business for over 30 years. He sold the business at 65, thinking how good it would be to retire but he missed it so badly. He’d wake up every morning wanting to be down at the shop, blending the beans, grinding the coffee, smelling the aroma. He got an opportunity to buy the business back and he’s at it again. He was waxing eloquent, in English and Italian as he made up a brew.
To say that coffee was this man’s passion is an understatement!
Is what we are doing as a teacher, a gardener, a sewer, a baker, a counselor or a barista something that is a passion—the desire of the heart?
Discerning the right direction involves tuning into that which we are most passionate about.
Dr Geoff Pound
More on the theme of Discernment and Passion is in this chapter:
Delights and Desires of the Heart,in Making Life Decisions
Image: The passion of a barista
