When all else seems lost, when experience tells you no, when pain grows with every step and the experts say give up; what overcomes common sense? Passion. When the gap's a foot too wide, the bar an inch too high, the opponent a bit too tough; what helps to lift the load? Passion. When two sit at a t\iable staring through each other, ennui medicating the blindness of one eye to the other, and they wonder, "What ever brought us together?" Passion.

She saw beyond the obvious flaws; he wanted to capture the moon. They were willing to walk through the fire, swim the deepest ocean, climb the highest mountain just to satisfy the passion which left them gasping to regain the rush of fix when it died. Over and over, flint and iron strike a spark which flames only to be extinguished by the first gust of reality. Passion seems a charge which fires but once per load. As such, is it good for nothing but the hunt — the wounding of the gentle heart — the killing of the soul?

The proverbs advise, "Passion without perception is not a good thing." Its misuse is akin to that of explosives which can be used to break through mountains or blow up cities, drive rockets into space or bullets into flesh. Passion, in one of its forms called gumption, derives from the Greek "enthusiamos" (God in you) or enthusiasm. Being driven by God, or the perception of such, can have the same good or bad effects as explosives. The greatest sacrifices and the most horrific abominations have occurred in the "name of God." A certain understanding of the tool in question is necessary for its proper manipulation.

Yes, passion is a tool of accomplishment. Its proper wielding is hinted at by how God uses it to help us overcome our most difficult barrier: intersexual relations. Just think of it logically (logic and passion tending to be mutually exclusive). Throughout the world, we are separated by barriers; religious, racial, nationalistic, philosophic — wars are fought over such differences. Even within these classifications, individual tastes tend to separate or at least strain relationships. At the worst, you have clan frictions like the Hatfields and the McCoys. At best you have The Rolling Stones vs. The Beatles. But, all of these classifications contain within them a common dichotomy: male vs. female.

There is no greater gap than the gender gap; yet, with the onset of puberty, passion crosses it with regularity. Sometimes the union formed is dynamic. More often, however, the result is dysfunctional. The danger results from a misunderstanding of passion; it is best served as a verb rather than a noun. Like love, passion is not an end in itself, but a tool of overcoming towards the desired ends. How many of us would go through the pains of childbirth and the lessons of child rearing, if not for the passions which led us to such ends?

Thus, passion becomes the turbocharger which launches us from the deck of our lifecraft carrier, after which we either learn to navigate to a destination or wander aimlessly, run out of fuel and crash. Those individuals sitting at the table of despair have run out of fuel. Their relationship has crashed. The passion is a long-dead mystery. Some will go on like that until their physical existence is as dead as their lives. Others, hooked on a drug, will go off in search of other passionate trysts in a futile search for the fountain of youth.

The successful few, however, discover the dynamics of mutual vision — the fruit of understanding one another's needs. Communication between these prototypes of advanced humanity is constant. They are free to share expression and quick to accept the validity of the other's viewpoint. Even when there is disagreement, they learn to see through each other's eyes. Life becomes a joining of parallel lines, the exception to simple mathematics, one and one is no longer simply two but the secret to world peace.

Yes, world peace; for if man and woman can come to accept and celebrate each other's diversity, there should be no difficulty in crossing the less obvious barriers of race, creed and national origin. We just need the passion to overcome our inbred fear of difference. We have the beginnings of that in the United States. Never before has so much diversity cooperated so closely together.

As our Master showed passion for the giving of compassion to all creation, so we cry out at each injustice no matter the color of the victim. Each Kosovo, each Columbine, each continuation of the existential effects of the Holocaust refines our passions against inhumanity and towards The Kingdom of Love. As waters run to the sea only to be embraced and lifted by unchained winds, to fall as life-giving moisture over the branches of life, so passion finds its eternal purpose: embracing diversity with compassion.