"Complex" - Compliment or Curse

Tim and I in Ireland on our "pilgrimage" with the girls. (morgan 3 Mary Grace 1)

Me and Sue (a high school and college friend) getting ready to go out at SIU Carbondale

Partying with college friends on a VERY HOT summer night...










Me and my 4 kiddos on our family vacation to Virginia











Today I got a call from my brother-in-law Martin. In the course of our conversation he began his thoughts with a caveat: "Now this is not meant to hurt your feelings Kristan...but I would say that you are a complex person." In my opinion the caveat was not necessary. I took it as a compliment. Then as he went on explaining why exactly he felt "complex" was such a suitable description of me I said to him "Yes, Martin. There you have it then. That is my curse. I fit in no where, belong no where."



This led me to consider the pros and cons of this "complexity" as he described it, and as I agreed does exist in me. I live a simple life. I have a very clear and simple purpose which motivates everything I do and am - love of God. Yet, I see things, relate to things, and respond to everything and everybody around me in shades of gray that even I fail to understand completely. It is both a gift and a cross.



It is a gift to articulate very strongly held beliefs and convictions and yet love the friends and family who reject or disagree with these as well. It is a gift to see beyond my own surface, allowing me to grow closer to the God who made me. It is a gift to see beyond others surfaces as well, allowing me to regain the proper humility when it escapes me in moments of weakness. It is a gift to recognize the limitations of most liberal arguments without dismissing the good motives behind most liberal positions. It is a gift to laugh, be loud, be goofy and obnoxiously silly, and then to be quiet and contemplative and prayerful too. It is a gift to have made mistakes and fallen into the deep pits of a sinner, and now to stand on a new road with a firm resolution not to fall again and yet never forgetting the compassion required to lift a sinner from out of one of those pits. It's a been there done that sort of thing.



It is a cross to be complex in a world that demands simple labels for everybody and everything. Like it or not, with the discovery of a handful of details about me, people have me "pegged" as either a self-righteous, prudish, saint who cannot be approached, or a weird, alternative, phony who is easily dismissed. My cross is going to a home school event and being the only mom there in pants. It's getting giddy over the words of St. Augustine or Bishop Sheen, and sharing them to a less than enthusiastic audience. I actually have to restrain myself from talking about or inserting certain spiritual observations or truths into conversations. I don't want to "weird people out" - but I do. My cross is being deep in a world of superficiality - I see things that disturb me or even elate me that seem invisible to the rest of the population. It is a cross to be different and to stand out on your own. People think this separation is a sign of arrogance. If only they could see the insecurities that plague me or hear the self-loathing mantras that go on inside my head. I have a past filled with mistakes and scandalous sins which exclude me from the innocence and purity I see in many of the Catholic home schooling mothers I respect so much. At the same time the innocence and purity I aspire to leaves me in an awkward place amongst the suburban housewives I see and interact with daily.



They say some of the greatest sinners became the greatest of saints. I know why. It is because these people have been down in the low dark places their sins took them. They experienced the mercy of God. They rose to a new height. Their life after that was one of constant awe. They were in awe of God and His mercy. This awe allows you to see. You see a lot - more than the average ordinary soul I suppose. It doesn't make you "better than" your fellow man, but it does make you more "complex". In the final analysis "complex" IS both a compliment and a curse.