A Parable

From Stand Firm in Faith blog:

A very wealthy man wanted to build a luxurious mansion that would never fall
or be destroyed. He knew that the foundation of the house was key, and
being wealthy, he decided to build his house on a foundation of the hardest
substance in the world, diamonds. After carving out a trench on a granite
hilltop overlooking the sea, he laid a foundation of bricks made of diamond.

Now, you can imagine how wonderful the house itself was if it were built on
a diamond foundation.

Well, the house stood for generations, and the man had several children who
had several children. Each successive generation, being larger than the
previous, ended up adding on to the house. At first, the children and
grandchildren either added on upper floors in order to be safe on the firm
foundation of diamonds. Some generations even expanded the original diamond
foundation and added on to the house as the original building father
intended.

After some time, the descendants of the building father decided that the
father had been silly to make such an over-the-top decision to use diamonds
in this way. They began to build apartments (attached to the original
house) that were simply laid on the hilltop. These new apartments did not
look nearly as nice as the original house, but the children were happy
because they had saved so much time, money and effort.

Soon, the attached apartments spread past the granite hilltop onto regular
soil, but the children just kept on building and building. These new
apartments started looking pretty trashy, and, in an effort to fix them up
and make their lives more luxurious, some of the children started mining out
the diamonds from the original foundation and selling off the assets to
purchase cheaper materials that looked nice but had no real substance.

Finally, one generation got so bold and defiante that they decided to build
a luxurious apartment that was attached to the main structure but hanging
out over the sea with no foundation whatsever underneath it. It was a
beautiful apartment, not as nice as the original mansion, but very
appealing. The children had great parties with music, dancing, feasting and
laughing -- they laughed heartily at their brethren who were struggling to
follow the father's original plan for solid building.

For a time, the solid structure was able to support the hanging apartment,
but, after a while, at one of the great parties, the dancing was so intense,
and the food so heavy, the apartment fell into the sea. Unfortunately, as
it ripped away from the main structure, it dragged some of the hilltop
apartments with it (those that were not built on a solid foundation). Some
of the apartments that were not carried into the sea, but had had the
diamond foundation mined away were damaged or destroyed.

But, the original mansion . . . the one the father had built, was completely
unharmed. The surviving children finally saw the beauty and value of the
father's original plan and committed themselves to living on the foundation
supplied by the father without trying to add on cheap shells of buildings
that had nothing solid on which to stand.

Passion: Shari Caudron

Shari Caudron spent three years following people who some might call fanatics.

Weekend Edition Sunday, August 6, 2006 · People and their passions. The National Barbie convention in Los Angeles attracts hordes of pink-clad doll traders. The town of Mount Airy, N.C., morphs yearly into the fictional Mayberry of Andy Griffith Show fame. Thousands of so-called Grobanites follow their singing idol, Josh Groban, from city to city.

Shari Caudron's book Who Are You People? peers into the lives of each of the above communities and many more: ice fishers, pigeon racers, storm chasers... even people who take on animal "fursonas."
Excerpt: Who Are You People?

by Shari Caudron

Cover of 'Who Are You People?'

Before writing this book, Shari Caudron dabbled in some passionate pursuits of her own. Just not for very long. Barricade Books



NPR.org, August 5, 2006 · When I was twenty-one years old I decided to take up black-and-white photography. I bought a Pentax single-lens reflex, rented darkroom space at the San Francisco Art Institute, and began to take long, watchful walks throughout the city. Pentax in hand, a scowl on my face, I scoured the streets for revealing city images. The crumpled newspaper in a grimy alley. The empty bottle under a park bench.

The weight of the camera felt good in my hands. I was a Photographer. I wore an oversized jacket, green fatigues with lots of pockets, and I smoked. I was earnest, artistic, and totally consumed by photography.

For about five months.

Two years later, I hooked up with a group of pagan, Mother Earth, goddess-worshipping feminists. I became a vegetarian. I bought Tarot Cards. I attended week-long festivals in Yosemite National Park with topless "womyn" who chanted, wore crystals, believed in past lives, and ate an alarming amount of tempeh.

As did I.

For about a year.

When my metaphysical musings came to an end, I became -- what else? -- a runner. I gave up smoking and began to carbo-load. I trained and entered a triathlon. I learned about shin splints, drafting, electrolytes, potassium, runner's high, lactic acid, pronation and sand-bagging. I was a diligent convert to the world of the fit, and entered races at least once a month.

The racing phase easily outdistanced the photography and metaphysical phases.

It lasted two whole years.

Months passed, seasons changed and so did my roster of activities. For the next several years, I dabbled in backpacking, Buddhism, Scrabble, snowshoeing, bridge, belly dancing, golf, gardening, fencing, piano and an abundant amount of non-professional, highly unstructured wine tasting. The operative word is dabbled.

Through all these years, through all these hobbies, nothing ever took hold and swelled into a grand, all-consuming, get-a-load-of-this obsession. I once started a collection of antique Roseville pottery and actually managed to acquire six pieces before losing half to a lover when our relationship ended. Of the three pieces that remained, one was chipped and worth maybe twelve dollars. See, I was never good at this sort of thing. I got bored easily. Plus, I always thought zealots were a bit strange. I once attended a slide show given by an avid rock collector who described various pieces of her collection as "droolers" and "show-offs." After advancing to a slide of a rock with dazzling purple crystals, the collector slumped back in her chair. The light from the projector cast a warm glow on her thick glasses and curly hair.

"Oooohhh," she said, hand to her heart. "This baby could win a pageant."

Afterward, I invited friends to stone me to death if I ever got like that.

But truth be known, I admired the rock collector. She had something I didn't -- passion. A passion so deep she was never at a loss for what to do with her weekends. A passion so consuming, she just had to share it with others. A passion so meaningful and enriching she burned to excite in others her love of droolers, quartz and feldspar.

Me, all I had were three pieces of chipped pottery and some memories of running topless in the woods with a crystal around my neck.

Given my history, I hadn't the faintest notion what it was like to love a single hobby or activity so much that I would plan all my spare time around it. And once I hit forty, once I was no longer obsessed with finding a job, snaring a mate or buying a house -- I'd done all that, sometimes more than once -- I began to want more.

I wanted to find something that I wouldn't, couldn't get bored with. I wanted a grand, ferocious, larger-than-life fervor that knew no bounds. I wanted to love diamonds like Elizabeth Taylor or cooking like Julia Child. But I wasn't like these larger-than-life women with their over-the-top interests. I was more like MaryAnn on Gilligan's Island. You know. Nice. Temperate. Vanilla.

Because of this, I began to sense that something may have been holding me back. Sure, maybe I hadn't hit on the right activity. Nude volleyball had yet to be tested. But I started thinking there might be more to it. That something else had been preventing me from committing myself more thoroughly to an interest. But what? What had been standing in my way? I set out to learn the answer...Shari C