Division

Last week I exchanged emails with a friend who is coming out of a turbulent year.  Although the turbulent was personal, she said, "surely that has spilled into my professional life to some degree."  We would like to believe there is some great wall of division between our professional and private lives.  And somehow we are surprised when the professional or public pours into tour private lives, or when a tough time in the private world comes out in odd ways in our public self.

My mom used to work in a school where the principal's secretary was also his wife.  Mom's classroom shared a wall with the principal's office.  She could tell you when they had a fight at home because of the yelling in their offices at work.  Are any of us really surprised at this phenomenon?

We also expect there to be a wall of division between our sacred and secular selves.  This wall is no more existent than the wall mentioned above.  We are integrated beings.  Our sacred and secular effect each other.  Our faith cannot start on Sunday about 8:15 in the morning and only be important until 12:03. 

Maybe we all need to embrace the reality that our being is integrated.  That our physical effects our spiritual, that our public and private are related, and that our sacred and secular in reality are the same person.  Not that all things have to be shared in all places, but being more fully integrating and not letting the walls of division be so prominent in our lives actually frees us to be the full person God called and created us to be.  Maybe we can be more fully alive in all aspects of life.