I follow the Facebook page for the company A Mighty Girl, which is a collection of books, toys, and other items geared for young girls and the people who raise them.  I tend to bookmark things I'd want to buy my hypothetical someday-daughter.  But I really follow for their posts.  They consistently have great quotes and information in easily-digestible Facebook format.  

Today, there was this:

The post also contained a larger quote by Adichie, a Nigerian author.  In talking to a group of young women she says, 

In a way, this is something I've talked about before... about the importance of not shrinking, about how I wish it was easier to not be tempted to shrink, about what we can do to help others be their fullest, most beautiful, un-self-conscious selves.  (Of course, talking here about general feelings of being intimidated by a person-- not about a person who is trying to be intimidating!)

It bears repeating a bit, though, this talk of resisting the urge to shrink.  That quote just sticks with me... "The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in."  This quote hits me because I have had a man (who was asking me out) tell me he was intimidated by me.  

Frankly, it was one of the worst things he could have said.  Ph.D. student, goal-oriented, type A personality... I can't really change those things about myself.  If someone desired me to be something more than what I am, if I wanted to, I can attempt that... but I can't be less than who I am.  I can strive, but I can't shrink.  I'm sure that all sounds very humble-braggish... but this is a thing.  Articles have been written about this stuff.  Higher degrees for women aren't looked at kindly in the dating world! Craziness!  (Especially since, as a reminder... Scientists are people, too.)

In reality, there's also a lot of self-consciousness that goes along with being told something like this.  In addition to showing his own insecurities, his comment played on some of my biggest insecurities.  Also, complete turn-off.  The quote is right-- and that date never wound up happening.  (Being told that my brain is sexy, by the way, total opposite effect...)  

And for fairness-- it doesn't have to be a man or a romantic relationship at all for this intimidation thing to be problematic.  It's just as problematic if a woman was intimidated by me, or I was intimidated by her, or by a man.  

Have I ever been intimidated by someone?  Of course.  Maybe even with some good reason.  Some people are just so smart/confident/gorgeous/whatever.  But every time I have found myself intimidated by someone-- it was my loss.  I have tons of friends who are smart, confident, gorgeous, and amazing in all kinds of ways.  But I'm friends with them because I don't feel intimidated by their greatness.  Impressed, yes.  Impressed is cool.  Intimidated is not.  

But I don't feel or not feel intimidated because of the degree of their greatness-- I feel intimidated when I feel I don't measure up.  Everyone has some awesome quality that you could feel intimidated by.  Their own special brand of smart and talented.  But that's not it.  It's that lack of confidence in myself-- and I lose.  I lose the ability to develop that relationship, to learn and celebrate what that person could bring to my life.  I lose the ability to share myself with that person.  To grow.  To interact.  To communicate.  Allowing those feelings of intimidation robs me of the chance to do all of these most basic human things.  

So, this is a reminder to be yourself.  Whoever that is.  And don't "twist yourself into shapes."  The truth is, you can't do much about people who are intimidated by you, other than try not to let it bother you... but you can focus on keeping yourself open and brave when you start to feel intimidated by others.  Celebrate you.  And when you celebrate you, you'll find you can celebrate other people's strengths.  And let them celebrate yours, too.  

You will meet people in this life who are smarter than you, make more money than you, or are more well-traveled than you.  Who have had different opportunities and experiences.  Who have made different choices.  Some of them will be men.  Some of them will be women.  Don't read too much into it.  Talk. Have lunch.  Maybe fall in love.  Make a friend.  Share. Grow.  Let go of your fear.  Nothing good comes of it anyway.    

When I first started Mary & Marie, I couldn't help but notice that the name sounds like another famous (Biblical) "Mary&" pairing.  After a year of living and writing this blog, I'd nearly forgotten.  Until a few months ago when I was thinking about Mary&Marie things and it was on the tip of my tongue-- "What does that remind me of?"  Oh... Martha.  Martha!

And it's funny because there's quite a few parallels there.  Marie and Martha, that is.  Martha is known best, perhaps, for her unwavering work ethic.  (And, she's kind of even gotten a bad rap for it.)  

I'm (still) reading Marie Curie's biography.  This is a woman who won two Nobel prizes.  In two different fields.  And sacrificed her health and life for her science.  To say that she was no slouch is a severe understatement.  The book describes in detail the lack of technology at the time--which required her concentration, precision, timing, skill, and steadiness of hand.  The woman worked hard.  Science takes a lot of effort usually, but without the tools we have now, the stakes were much higher.  

Being a scientist-Christian is a challenge for a lot of reasons (just look at my summer posts...), but one reason that might be overlooked is simply the pace: Read! Write! Get grants! Teach! Prepare! Analyze!  The deadlines scream as they rush past you.  The degree of stress and pressure that comes as part of the academic lifestyle can be overwhelming.  The to-do lists are never done.  

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to do a Bible study on Sabbath rest.  It was mind-blowing, and incredibly challenging and thought-provoking.  I do not easily rest.  Born an A-type personality, even my fun is goal-driven and ambitious.  At times, my free time has consisted of: practicing piano (which I'm not good at and is fun, but quite effortful), learning languages, watching TV with the goal of catching up on a series, reading books because I want to finish them.... I'm getting better at this, in part because of my new awareness of it.  And it's something I've continued to pursue exploring- Sabbath, rest, busy.  But I do not naturally rest.  And Science does not naturally Sabbath, either.  

But intelligence, hard work, and busyness are not fruits of the spirit.  [Really, can we talk about those fruit for a minute? We've all got one (or five) that just does not come easy to us. Love- love is easy for me.  I can conjure up love as easily as peeling a banana.  Peace?  More like hacking into a coconut.  Which, the description alone probably expresses how easy peace is for me.]  And, in this line of work?  In science?  Peace, patience... gentleness, self-control.  Patience with that difficult advisor, gentleness with students, peace in the face of deadlines and failed experiments... And that self-control, that includes being able to stop working...

These fruits are evidence of our relationship with God.  They're part of what sets us apart and makes us look different.  But busy rushes in and makes it hard.  Busy creates chaos, roughness, haste, obsession, and idols.  

A devotion I read today reminded me that busy is based on fear.  

We're afraid.  

We're afraid because we think it's our job to do all of this and that it's all on our shoulders and we will be failures and let everyone down if we stop.
We're afraid because what people will think.  
We're afraid because we have not worked hard enough, or long enough yet to deserve a break.  We have not earned it.
We're afraid because our identities are wrapped up in our work.  (Priscilla Shirer does a lovely job of unpacking this in Biblical context as a slave mentality, which God desires to free us from.) 

We are afraid.  But the omnipotent Creator-God loves us.  And perfect love casts out fear.  We forget that our identity is in Him.  That He is the One whose shoulders carry our troubles and worries.  That He is strong enough and good enough to provide.  That what other people think doesn't matter.  That we don't have to earn it.  That He calls us to rest, and to trust Him, and that sometimes Sabbath is an act of faith.  

I have been learning how to let go of my fears, one by one.  Today, I'll learn this one again.  Martha, Marie, and me.  

I do a lot of thinking, and writing, about how science shapes our lives.  Discovery, knowledge, medicine.  Science is all around us.  Personally, the practice of doing science gives legs to my desires to teach, help, question, understand, and explore.  It's a part of who I am.  

Lately, as I find myself in conversations with professors and scientists, I'm noticing the other side, too-- how we shape science.  I think about this a lot too-- our unique giftings, skill sets, talents, creativity-- but that's not what I mean here.  Lately, I find myself confronted with the reality of the human element in the cold, science machine... behind the scenes.  

PhD programs are hard.  Science is hard.  Science gets in the way of life... but life gets in the way of science, too.  We are off in our ivory towers, sometimes accused that our involvement in academia is not real life, not real work.  But we are living and working.  We are exploring and discovering.  We are teaching and researching.  And we're doing it alongside real life.  

We are loving, needing, worrying, heartbroken, excited, daydreaming.  Just like everyone else.  We are striving for financial stability, and worried about our student debt-- but we need to focus on writing tomorrow's exam.  We are grieving the death of a grandparent, a friend, a brother; a breakup-- but we have to teach.  We are falling in love, distracted, but there are subjects to run.  We've just been given a diagnosis, but we focus on our statistics.  We see the facebook post that our significant other is in a new relationship, and walk into our meeting the very next minute.  We get good news, but don't have time to celebrate, because a student is about to arrive.  

So we go into the bathroom, gain our composure, splash some cold water on our face and go do science.  So we silently squeal, send a text or two if we can, and go do science.  We show up.  

Or we don't.  

Projects left incomplete- because collaborators grew apart, interests changed.  And interests do change- because interests can be fickle.  Delays in projects because of location changes, marriages, spouses' goals-- "She got her dream job, so they moved and he left the project."  Delays in projects because of pregnancies, babies born.  "She became a mother, so she's taken a smaller role in the project for the time being."  Delays in projects because of life, death, care-taking, grieving, personal tragedy, depression.

It's not something that you'll find accounted for in a grant proposal or report.  It's not part of the scientific method.  You probably won't find it in a handbook or a textbook or even in an ethics seminar.  But we shape the science, and the science shapes us.  This is our work, and we make it work as best we can.  Even in the face of difficulty.  Sometimes science wins, sometimes life does.  We try to keep the co-habitation as symbiotic as possible, lest one area become parasitic to the other.  But we shape each other, the way a river sculpts the surrounding rocks, the way our bones and muscles are shaped by our repeated movements.  Just like every other job.  Just like every other person.  Because the reality of science is it's done by scientists.  And scientists are people.  

Happy Anniversary, Mary&Marie readers!  
(Oh, and Happy New Year, too!)

It is one year ago (tomorrow) that I wrote my very first blog post and Mary and Marie got to introduce themselves.
I'm so thankful for how supportive and wonderful my readers have been, and for the community that I've drawn from this-- and I hope you have too.  

Heading into year 2, I have some new ideas that will unfold slowly as the year goes on.  I hope you'll all enjoy them and be as excited about them as I am! 

​I am a resolution-maker.  I know, some of you think that's corny.  And that's fine.  But I love them.  The fresh slate.  The blank notebook.  The chance to try again.  Also, I'm a pathological goal-maker, so it's hard to resist the opportunity to give myself some way of measuring myself. 

For the past several years, though, I've become bored with the standard New Year's resolutions.  Exercise more.  Eat healthy.  Save money.  We make them, we break them, we move on.  We're no different.  Also, there's no plan.  They're New Year's hopes at best.  So, for the past several years, I've made-- stranger resolutions.  And resolutions with legs, with a plan.  Because I wanted to keep these resolutions.  (And, maybe, in part because A-type personality that I am, I also wanted to measure how successfully I could keep them.) 

The resolutions themselves varied.  And some I kept, while others I failed at.  In 2013, just to name a few: I wanted to be more generous, even on my tight budget, and do some good in the world.  So I decided to pick a charity I cared about every month and donate just $5.  I wanted to be more comfortable being myself (didn't really have a plan for that one).  I wanted to keep in touch with people I loved, so I decided to try to be diligent about sending cards for events and holidays.  
In 2014, I continued some of these, and added others.  I wanted to travel, at least a little.  I wanted to read the whole Bible cover-to-cover, which I'd never done before.  And read more for pleasure.  I set the bar low: 2 books, because I didn't want to overwhelm myself, and I was accounting for my slow reading, the influx of school-reading, and the Bible-reading goal.  I also had the vision for a theme for the year: I wanted to love more, and take more risks.

Last year, I upped the goal to 4 books.  And I wanted to write my weekly blog posts here.  And really listen when other people spoke to me.  And stop being busy.  My theme was "Be Brave."  And brave I was (if I do say so myself)... writing on here about things that drive me crazy, and get me riled up, and hurt my heart.  

This year, I haven't made any specific resolutions yet.  But my theme for this year is grace.  It has become a theme in the drafts I've written that I've yet to share on here.  It's become a theme in my mind and heart and how I experience the world.  It's become something that I admire in others.  Something I can't always find quite the right words for- yet.  The desire, and need, for grace.  To give it, and to receive it.  

And while this post, this New Year, First Anniversary post, has nothing directly to do with science, or faith, or feminism.  I'd venture that it has to do with all of them. Grace.  To ourselves.  To others.  Our friends and enemies.  The people on the other side of the table and the people on our own side of the table.  Regardless of how we feel or what they've said, or what we've said.  
Grace makes it possible to have the hard conversations.  It makes it possible to disagree without killing each other (figuratively and literally).  It makes communication and learning and change possible.  And we all need grace.  
​To give it, and to receive it.  ​