I used to work in advertising. I worked for a large ad agency in Chicago, and I was in media buying. That means that my department was responsible for buying the ad time for our clients’ commercials. I worked on the television side of things.
The bulk of national ad spots are bought at one time of the year. It’s called the upfront, and it usually means that people in media buying work long hours during those weeks.
For the month or so leading up to the upfront, all of the networks would come in and give us their sales pitches. We got some pretty cool swag during those meetings, but besides that, they were fairly boring. One Friday afternoon at around 3pm, the TV Guide Network was coming in to give us their sales pitch. As you can probably guess, this was absolutely fascinating. Or perhaps not…
I was sitting at a long conference table trying to will myself into a catatonic state when one of the head people in our department came in the room. I never really worked with him personally, but he was pretty much a big shot in the world of media buying. All of a sudden, the entire atmosphere in the room changed. I had never seen anyone so excited about the TV Guide Network and the “exciting changes” that were coming. He was on fire with passion. And at that moment, I realized that I would never have that type of passion for the work I was doing. A week later, I decided to go to graduate school and completely switch careers.
Flash forward about ten years. My husband and I had both grown up Catholic and had attended Catholic school for our whole lives. Somehow along the way, however, we had fallen off the wagon of sorts. We still considered ourselves Catholic, but we hadn’t really attended mass except for major holidays in years. Unfortunately for myself, I had listened too much to people who preach a theology of shame, and I couldn’t bring myself to walk through those doors and open my heart to the possibilities.
For the past few years, however, I had been in contact with someone who was really passionate about his faith. His faith was slightly different from mine; however, that passion was contagious. I started opening my heart to the possibilities. We started attending the local Catholic Church. We went through all of the motions. We taught Magoo all we had learned, and we made sure she knew that Church was important, but in all honesty, we didn’t have any of it in our hearts.
And then we realized that Magoo needed to start preschool, and the closest Catholic preschool was a part of a different parish. So we started to go to Mass there, and that is where and when our attitude changed. The pastor at that church is quite different from most priests working in parishes. He is eloquent and involved, but most of all, he is passionate. We laughed one week because he was getting all passionate about something, and the Goose started cheering from her seat. Apparently, she had caught the passion too.
This evening we went to a talk at our church on Mary. There was a visiting priest there, and the talk was so so but nothing special. But then at the end, he said something that struck me. He said that evangelization happens when people see the fire within our hearts and want a piece of it for themselves.
And that hit me because I had seen it in so many areas of my life. We are most moved and changed when we come into contact with someone who is truly on fire with passion for that which they preach, whether it be religion, family, or even the TV Guide Network. Passion like that moves people and it can change people. And it’s scary because it can consume us with its power; it’s that strong.
We can avoid that passion and we can follow paths that perhaps aren’t the most fruitful to us, or we can search out that which really makes life worth living. Something that makes us want to get up in the morning and take on the day. When we find that, I think we have found it all. We have found the place our heart was meant to dwell and because of that, it can really take on wings.
I am grateful for the people who have changed my life with their passion. I hope that one day I can help others in the same way.
And I am going to end this on a completely different note by saying that I am also thankful for the two most wonderful fathers I know on this Father’s Day — my own dad and my husband. I am lucky that I had a strong model growing up of what a good, strong, kind man is, and because of that, I was able to find the same in my husband. I love you both 🙂