the christian and the academic

They have looked at me and seen the smart girl with the bad priorities. The one who went to get her Ph.D. in theoretical fluid mechanics. The one who poured way more hours into mathematics than she did into her church family. The one who said no to joining her church's college group because of real analysis, the one who decided not to go to house church because of complex analysis, the one who skipped life group because of numerical analysis.

They have looked at me and told me I get too caught up in academia.

They have looked away from me when I started talking about it.

They have looked at me and thought I was successful, so I must be happy. I looked like I had the perfect family. I had the summa cum laude honors tassel, I had the scholarships and awards and full funding to graduate school.

They didn't see the crippling insecurity rife in academia. They didn't see the tears I shed for hours on end when I couldn't understand. They didn't feel the pressure to think faster and be smarter. They didn't see the sleep deprivation that made teaching recitations humiliating from all the mistakes I made. They didn't have the nightmares about professors saying I was a horrible grad student. They didn't have the fear of disappointing my dream advisor.

In mathematics, we say the distance between two sets is zero exactly when the two sets share a limit point. But I have always felt like between the sets of Christians and academics, the distance is strictly positive -- there is a chasm between us. To be a Christian academic is to suffer not only the ridicule of your opinionated, liberal friends, but also the quiet judgment of the Christians who think your priorities are messed up because God has called you to work in a field with unspoken brutality. My gratefulness abounds for the Christians who have fervently prayed for my healing and victory over seemingly insurmountable depression, brokenness, and anxiety, and yet I still feel like an outsider in Christian gatherings.

If tomorrow you see the smart girl with the bad priorities, see someone else.