I get into these situations from time to time where, as I tell my husband, I find it extremely difficult to put into words what is actually happening internally. My brain thrives on understanding, on being able to make connections between what I know and what I don't know. When I find this difficult or elusive, I really can find no rest. I will rehearse in my mind the things I've experienced, searching for this understanding. Often during these times, even the things I know for certain no longer feel like they make any sense. And in all these regards I am speaking of spiritual realities, inner understandings -- that sort of thing. I know the sky is blue and food is fuel and putting the car in drive makes it go forward. But these types of things hardly ever interest me in the first place.
So tonight I'm just blathering for the sheer joy of working these thoughts out of my brain. What I notice developing, what I notice striking me (with staying power) is a sense I pull from a poor exegetical rendering of Ephesians 2:14: "For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh." The actual context of the "both" in this Scripture is talking about the Gentiles being engrafted into Israel in the Church. But this verse strikes me with a more personal meaning. Because of factors in my early life, I have always carried about this sense I'd call having two lives: an inner life and an outer life. I suppose if I thought long and hard I could describe how this came about, but that's not really my concern at the moment. Earlier on my "inner" life was weaker and often ignored, and I considered my "outer" life the most worthy of development. Then, say as a later teen, I wanted to honor my inner life but felt my outer life was my master, my reality, the reality everyone else considered important. It is significant that my relationship with God (though not always my religious observance) was something I very much counted as part of my inner life. But the most important aspect of this inner life was that I carefully hid it. I habitually kept it protected from whatever hurt, misunderstanding, or intrusion I felt coming at me from others.
As I matured, my deeper held values seeped down into my inner life, and to some extent, I began living my life more out of this place. My "outer" life, meaning those things I did or followed more extrinsically, I more and more allowed to fall away. I began to live my own views about things like health, education, and parenting.
But I remember clearly one time I went to confession early on in my marriage. I mentioned this sense that I've had this private life that involved my faith, and the fact that I was frustrated with my inability to undo it now in my relationship with my husband and my in-laws. I had practiced this separation for so long that I was unable to do anything else but keep certain intimate parts of myself locked away.
The one thing that has always played a part in both of my "worlds" is music. And I think what I am realizing is that right now, this music project and all of the inner swirls it sends me on is all about breaking down the wall in me that has created these two different worlds. I had a very strange experience last night of relating a deeply formative, deeply personal story to a friend of mine, verbally. I do this all the time in writing. But I rarely do this (especially with this person in question) verbally. I didn't for a minute regret sharing it (I've already blogged the story ad nauseum), but I think the unlabeled feeling was there that I had breached the wall. Even though I have gotten very fluent at living out of my inner life, I had nurtured certain... limitations, I guess, that kept the division in place. It seems that God's business at hand is to finally do away from this distinction: to make me but one person. That my inner life is my inner life that I share in the world because it is who I am, and not my secret life that I hide in subtle ways.
One thing I am doing with this music is taking my innermost soul and putting it on display for strangers. Yeah, that's a little weird, a little freaky. I suppose it is what I've been doing with blogging for years now to some degree. But this music thing feels like it has a much bigger obedience factor. I write as a catharsis and a way to hear myself think. Music has long since stopped being that for me. Music, my music, is now a gift of self. I'm not polished nor professional nor the most talented person in the world, but these things are not really my concern. I am producing this cd because I feel that to not do it would be stepping out of obeying the Holy Spirit. It's quite literally like this picture:
And I know his first desire is that I live with a full, undivided heart before Him. I can't make choices for you or for anyone. I can choose faithfulness to Christ for myself, and choose I must (2 Cor. 5:15 -- the love of Christ compels me).
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