The Splits

Last week I had the chance to have dinner with two old friends I haven't seen in almost 6 years. They are both artists, and their house is full of creation, beauty, uniqueness and life. I didn't realize how much I missed creativity until I was around it again. It is what I think life looks like.

These past few years the decisions I've made have all been directed toward the stable, rather than life. Let me put it less dramatically: it is possible to have confidence in that which isn't life-giving, just as it is possible to be talented in a field in which confidence is lacking. Currently I feel torn between the two. My confidence is misaligned. Maybe it's just my two worlds smacking me in the face with a big cold fish. Being very Type-A and creative hasn't ever been a conducive mix to either school of thought—I want to create, but get so caught up in getting all the details right that very often I never get past the good idea stage; my need to be organized kills my need to create. Similar in my desire to serve and yet to live my own damn life. I've loved this time of serving others as a vocation, but am done at this point (Burned out? Maybe), I'm wanting my schedule and my tasks to be less tedious and more meaningful and, well, a bit more about me. I need more discussion and thinking and conversations more weighty in their width and breadth. I miss being with people passionate about the same things as me. I feel like I've let that part of me suffer for the “greater good” of my social life. As if I have to shut up about what I truly prioritize in order to fit in with the people around me, and there is something tragically wrong about that.

And that feeds into this tsunami of doubt that has thrown me to the sands and pebbles these past few weeks. My science background reminds me constantly how ridiculous it all is, while my faith (however feeble) reminds me to stay focused on the heart of the matter, rather than the delivery of it. But then the science side says, “So you are telling me to ignore the messenger but trust the message? What?” and I'm thrown for the loop again. Like today in worship time my boss was reading from Genesis where Eve was talking to the serpent and the whole time I was trying to find a way to rationalize such a fable from the lesson.

Maybe my Gemini birth has more of an affect on me than I've ever thought. But this being of two minds predicament has me exhausted at all this damned straddling I've been doing, between the social and the political, the real and the easy, the faith and the science, the servitude and the ambition. I've got decisions to make. 2007 is already shaping up to be one of those years...