Today I found beauty in productivity--without actually doing any work! Ok, here I might need to back up and explain that this is based on a slightly different interpretation of the word. When polled, a random sampling of the people in my living room (aka it was just Amber) said that productivity meant "getting things done." As I adore her and feel that she is a solid representation of the English speaking world, I'll go on a limb and say that this is how most people would define it. Also, hers was way better than the other suggestion made: "the quality or state of being productive" which is just redundant. That Merriam-Webster fellow sure is lazy and uncreative.
So back to how we're going to tweak this understanding to better fit my needs. (It's my blog so I do what I want, right?) Our consumerist brains usually jump automatically to an image of productivity as resulting in the making of a tangible thing. "Getting things done" refers to things like finishing paperwork or building houses or being a grown-up and cooking a meal that doesn't require a microwave. For my purposes, let's think about "things" as being abstract ideas: life questions, faith journey stuff, or understanding the point of life before microwave ovens. I spent my whole day shadowing a doctor in the local medical clinic and it was amazing. Practicing medicine in a small town is definitely a unique experience because you already know your patients and their history before you're presented with their chart. You know their kids and their kids' friends and their kids' friends' parents and their parents and THEIR parents. Exhausting, surely, but incredible.
Rewind to college where I was told that Christians who were scientists were an oxymoron--a moment that caused a significant amount of doubt in my faith life. In pondering my choice of the medical field I've spent what feels like a lot of time thinking about how God probably isn't a huge fan of pain, disease, or suffering and how, if He loves us like I think He does, He would want us to do our best to keep people from experiencing too much of those things. Thinking about medical school applications and the countless times I'll have to tell people why I want to be a doctor, I really don't know that I've found a concise answer. It seems to me that medicine is the best combination of things that I find most important--helping others and using science. In their own ways both of these things have created links to God for me and I cherish that. Now fast forward to today when I was walking around the clinic feeling like God was present in the oddly named antibiotics and the genuine conversations that made people feel loved. I still don't know how I'm going to put that feeling into an essay in a few months, but I definitely feel more sure about where my life is headed--and that, I'd say, is pretty productive.
"He said, 'My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.'" Exodus 33:14
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