There is a rare kind of peace like the one that finds me in airports.
In that space, something physical lines up with our spiritual reality of in-between.
Here and coming. Already, but not yet.
This was my constant thought during my layover at DFW two weeks ago. I must have looked like a five-year-old sitting up on my knees in the black seats by the gate, my nose inches from the grimy picture window, watching the planes take off. I laughed a bit each time one left the ground–a small victory over gravity.
This transition time is so exciting and so boring. For anyone who has read Victor Turner, you see why a friend and I have affectionately named this season of life “Betwixt and Between.” The night that I officially moved back to Wichita from Manhattan, I sat on the floor in my Dad’s office and just listened. This is a pretty regular ritual at home, and I really should start recording the insightful things that he shares with me. This is one of them:
“In between discovery and synthesis, there is a churning cauldron of confusion.”
What he meant was this: you’ll learn a lot this year, and it will suck sometimes.
Luckily, I’ve become pretty familiar with that “churning cauldron of confusion”; it has defined the last 3 years of my life and all of my major research papers. If you honestly want more detail on that, I’d be happy to email you those papers… anyway. The point of all of that is one of the words that Tiffany spoke to me at training:
Ideas.
In a moment of divine wisdom, she knew that I’d had tons of good ideas. But she told me that they’d soon be overshadowed by “God ideas.” And that summed up anything I could tell you about where my life has been and where it is going. I have been educated by some of the most ground-breaking intellectuals in the world– I think like an anthropologist, and I’ll never get away from that. But after all of those theories and Theory, ripping apart my worldview (and nearly my sanity) with every exam, I FOLLOW CHRIST. That truth never fell apart.
So there are two possibilities In this “betwixt and between”: the difficulty & confusion of a genuine learning experience, or the all-encompassing peace that yes, the “here and there” between which you stand are real and can coexist. There is a terrifying beauty in one, and a serene beauty in the other.
And if you want to see what churning cauldrons of confusion I’ll find this year… keep reading.
-Katie
