Six of us in Team Hope Awakening (we miss you, Seth!) are riding through some very dry, dull mountains. They aren’t quite as lifeless as the northern regions of Chile, but they’re pretty close. We got this sixteen-passenger van to take us from Tacna to Puno, a supposed six hours away. Everyone’s pretty much asleep or nodding off except me and the driver – and possibly Hannah and Tyler, who both have earbuds in and sunglasses on so I can’t tell anyways. Francis is slowly leaning towards my seat, but I’m sitting straight up so I can watch the mountains as they come one after another, sliding past my window as we circle around the highest peaks. I’ve got a pair of Tyler’s extra earbuds channeling some good old Mumford and Sons into my ears (I need freedom now, I need to know how to live my life as it’s meant to be), but in the rests I still hear the strains of whatever Spanish-language music the driver has on. It sounds like it could be Peruvian, but what do I know about that… not much. Laura’s on the other side of Frank with an orange donut pillow around her neck, but it’s still bent at a terrible angle and it looks painful. I’m starting to think that if I lean back, I’ll smush Frank’s head with my back. Welp… good thing I’m not leaning back anytime soon. Stupid window bar. Sarah has the panetón and muffins we bought at the bus station sitting in her lap and I’m tempted to tap her on the shoulder and get some but I’ve already eaten so much bread in the past month. Maybe later.
Watching the plants that can make it out here in these arid, rocky hills zip by us has gotten me thinking about science again. It’s been happening more and more again. I don’t think I’ll ever let go of my love for science and understanding how things work. (Every time we go around a sharp curve to the right, Frank leans into me and I push into that window bar. Hey, window bar.) Like why are plants green again? I know they need to do photosynthesis but that doesn’t really answer my question. What is it about that 500-or-so nanometer wavelength that makes it get reflected into my retinas and that somehow gets translated into this perception I know as “green”? Why is the plant absorbing all those other wavelengths? What molecules in those leaves (well, they’re not really leaves… cactus parts?) are getting excited by those other wavelengths, and how are those being converted into sugars? From what I remember of Biochemistry I with Dr. Rule, photosynthesis is just 6CO2 + 6H2O + this vague “light” -> C6H12O6 + 6O2. (That could be wrong and it took me way longer to balance that equation than it should have. Sorry, Department of Chemistry.) What is this vague “light” thing? That’s what I wanted to know from biochemistry. More molecular details. Atomic-level stuff! That’s where the fun stuff is. That’s what blows my mind. I want to know how this stuff WORKS! And what about these crazy neon-green mosses and yellow-gray bushes? Why are they colored differently? I get incredibly worked up about this stuff and my mind goes in circles when I don’t get the answers. The last time this happened was when I was trying to figure out waves on the bus ride from Iquique to Santiago. (I have a much better understanding than I did before! But I also made it all up so it’s a little questionable…)
Anyways. There you have a glimpse into a science frenzy in my brain. This one was perhaps kicked off by the podcast I listened to a couple hours ago – Episode 1 on Creativity by The Liturgists (a project of Michael Gungor, Science Mike, and some other people talking about the collision between science, art, and faith). They lumped science in with other disciplines that are usually seen as more “creative” like painting or music. And within this lumping, which was so casual – as if it were an obvious choice to put them together – I started to understand more about how my brain works. I’ve always had these somewhat opposite interests, blossoming into more specific disciplines in college. Bioorganic chemistry, design. Molecular biology, photography. Quantum mechanics, music. (what? yeah. not to mention my love for language.) I’m drawing all these connections now that make me think maybe I’m not that disjointed and confused after all. Maybe having all these seemingly drastic interests in what people see as polar opposites doesn’t make me less of a whole person. Maybe it doesn’t mean that I have to choose. I can have confidence in who God made me to be. I don’t have to doubt the paths that I’ve chosen. My questions about what if I had chosen a different major and should I really switch to design don’t have to be dwelt on as much. I can have freedom from this confusion in trusting that God made me to be this way for a reason. And as I grow in Him, I find myself increasingly drawn to both ends of this spectrum, which I’m beginning to think is not a line but rather a circle whose other half I haven’t seen yet. I will trust that He will help me close that gap, that the chords crossing the circle will diminish until the circle is whole and the connections between the disciplines that seemed infinitely distant will become clear. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Awake my soul / awake my soul / for you were made to meet your Maker.
