Another thing we learn in solitude is to love the ways of God; we learn the cosmic patience of God. There's the passage in Isaiah in which God says, "Your ways are not my ways," and then goes on to describe how God's ways are like the rain that comes down and waters the earth. Rain comes down and just disappears, and then up comes the life. It's that type of patience.

Richard Foster. A LIFE FORMED IN THE SPIRIT. Interview on Christianity Today. Sept. 2008.

Why I am content to be an "amateur" writer, photographer, teacher, youth worker, runner:

am·a·teur -

French, from Latin amtor, lover, from amre, to love.

A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity for love and passion.

This version of Christianity is a facade [the "Sunday Christian" phenomenon], a method for practicioners to appear like fine, upstanding citizens without allowing the claims and teachings of Jesus to bite very hard into everyday life. With the death of Christendom, the game is up. There's less and less reason for upstanding citizens to join with the Christian community for the sake of respectability or acceptance... leaving only the faithful behind to rediscover the Christian experience as it was intended: a radical, subversive, compassionate community of followers of Jesus.

Michael Frost. EXILES: LIVING MISSIONALLY IN A POST-CHRISTIAN CULTURE.

Aristotle observed that people are much more likely to respond to a message if, in addition to understanding it, they experience the emotion that energizes an appropriate response. Information and reasons alone are unlikely to trigger action.
....
Vincent Donovan, the modern Catholic apostle to the Masai people of East Africa, once observed that Protestant Christian leaders seem to trust only the sense of hearing, and therefore rely almost totally upon using the preached and taught Word to reach and teach people. By contrast, he said, Celtic Catholics believe that God can use all five senses to "speak" to people.

George G. Hunter III. THE CELTIC WAY OF EVANGELISM: HOW CHRISTIANITY CAN REACH THE WEST...AGAIN.