. . . after reading Rick Warren's "A Purpose Driven Life"

(" . . . you were made for a mission")

Not at the time but now all these years later

I see how often, how mostly, duty and desire,

Intention and outcome, were at cross-purposes,

Choices resolved into unintended consequences,

How things committed to became something else.

In other words (because in the end is the need

For some defining truth) just an ordinary life.

If by the grace of something we cannot know

There will be the chance to do it all over again

I might choose instead the life of a martyr:

Not the glory of dying for some noble cause

But the pure passion of having lived for one.