The Paradox Paper #33
Yoohoo! I started saying “Yoohoo,” last month as a nonthreatening way to let our high school campers know I was about to enter the chaotic sanctity of their rooms. “Yoohoo, time for breakfast!” or “Yoohoo, what’s happening in here?” My camp counseling strategy is to make my out-of-touchness as obvious as possible in as many ways as possible. Yoohoo fit that bill at camp, and now I’m stuck with it at home.
This morning my four year old asked, “How many days left in July?” Which forced me to do early morning math.
“Only three.”
“And then it will be August?” he pressed.
“Yes, then August.”
“In three more days?” He’s nothing if not scrupulous.
“Yes, in three more days July will be over and it will be August.”
And then we’ll go back to school. This boy’s first time at “big school.” Then it’ll be September and he’ll turn 5, which in my brain is the end of the blurry, baby-toddler hybrid years and the beginning of the Little Kid years. And then I’ll turn 30, the same age my older brother was when he died. And then the holidays come one after the other and before you know it another year is in the books.
I don’t mean to sound sad or stress you out about the passage of time. I don’t feel sad or stressed about. It’s just that people always say “Wow the summer sure flies by!” I know what they mean when they say it. I’ve felt it myself almost every summer in my memory. But not so much in recent summers. I had my first baby in the Spring of 2017, and have not known a fast-flying summer since. Fun, hot, eventful, exciting—sure. But when the gravity of your days centers on tending to the basic needs and functions of one or two or three small humans, nothing—other than your free time—goes by quickly. So for years when there are only three more days left in July and people start saying, “Wow, the summer flew right by,” or “Can you believe school starts next month?” I have just smiled and made general noises in the affirmative. Because no, it did not. And yes, I am counting down the days.
Until now. This has been my first post-baby fly-by summer. Almost without warning we’re out of the painfully-slow, impossibly-tender, everybody-needs-everything-constantly stage of parenting. Whodathunkit?
So I look at August coming up over the horizon, I notice some of my six year old’s mannerisms resemble those of a sixteen year old, and I say to this new stage—whatever it is— “Yoohoo! I’m coming in now!”
Welcome to The Paradox Paper, a monthly newsletter that honors the everyday paradox of a life with Jesus. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:
In this edition:
A new favorite journal
Two books that exceeded my expectations in unexpected ways
A Scripture that tells our story of hope
A song I can’t shake, in the best way
Moleskine Soft Cover Notebook
I’ve used a journal since I was twelve. It took me a few years after beginning the practice to settle on my favorite style, but once I did I just kept buying the same one. Until recently, that is, when it became sadly apparent that my long-beloved journal was on the fast track to being discontinued. While I miss the smooth leather and wrap around style of the old one, this new style has proven to be easier to handle. And it has all the other features that matter most to me:
Soft cover, to withstand being shoved into overcrowded backpacks.
Big enough to fit a full thought on one page, small enough to be easily portable. I get the 5 x 8.25 size.
Unlined. My handwriting isn’t *amazing* even on my best handwriting days, and it worsens based on the intensity of my emotions. A lined page only makes it look more chaotic than it already is.
The right paper *feel*. Cool and smooth to the touch, textured enough for a pen to glide over without a problem.
As a bonus, it comes in lots of fun colors (I currently have the Myrtle Green) and the prospect of discontinuation in the near future looks slim.
The Rose Code, Kate Quinn
I started this novel because I thought it was nonfiction. I’m glad I made that mistake, because it was a fascinating story. Even though it takes place in the familiar (and I would argue, tired) timeline of WWII, it is set around actual places and events that I wasn’t familiar with. Three women from very different worlds come to Bletchley Park to join the most brilliant minds of their day in the effort to break German military codes. In stories like this that are told from multiple perspectives I’m often most interested in one and get bored by the others, but these characters held my attention equally. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to each of them, and I was not disappointed by the ending.
Talking Back to Purity Culture, Rachel Welcher
I bought this book two years ago. I’d interacted with the author online and listened to the interviews she did when it came out. She seemed a trustworthy voice on the tricky topic of Christian sexual ethics. Still, even as I grew to respect Rachel’s character in the online space, something kept me from picking it up. It took me two years, because I was afraid it would spend all it’s words on the bad news. I was wary of adding someone else’s cynicism to my own. Reader, I was so happily wrong. She tells the truth, and she drenches it with compassion. The gospel, and even more, the person of Jesus, is on every page. I’m so glad I read it, and I know I’ll return to it for years to come.
Our church had VBS this week. I was an old-soul kid that became a “not-a-kid-person” grownup. Cheap crafts and hyper-dramatic lesson times never appealed to me much, even when I was in the target demographic. But now VBS week at our church is one of my favorite weeks of the year.
Grandparents sign up to hold doors and rock babies whose parents are volunteering elsewhere. Those too elderly or ill to come every night of the week show up for a few minutes when they are able, just to see the action. Middle-aged and young adults bring their cooking, organizational, and tech skills to makes sure kids and volunteers are registered, fed, and assigned to the correct age group. Middle school students help the three year old group stay in line as they walk between activities. High school students befriend the fifth grade group so they are less intimidated coming to youth group when school starts next month. Every demographic shows up and joins together to spread the gospel—via dinner, crafts, bounce houses, teaching, dancing, and freezy pops—to the next generation. I can’t get over it.
Last night I watched a crew of middle and high school students as they led the room with singing and dance moves. A father in his fifties—the group leader for our K5-1st grade boys—joined in with enthusiasm, waving his arms and pumping his fists in time with the music. Facing the crowd just a few feet ahead was his introverted seventeen-year-old son, leading the moves.
These two haven’t had it easy. Years of battles with mental health, addiction, and family trauma have ravaged them both. But there they were, linking arms to serve and lead not just as father and son, but as brothers in the gospel. It reminded me again of a Scripture I can’t get over lately, Galatians 2:20:
My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
We are not stuck. We are not bound by generational curses or past trauma. Every unhealthy coping mechanism, addiction, harmful relational style, self-destructive tendency, and sin is dead. Those things may be the default, but they are not the destination. We may be used to them, but we are not bound to them.
Here and now we lived in earthly, broken bodies, rubbing elbows with folks that have baggage and brokenness of their own. We live here, in this moment, with this baggage, in these bodies, by trusting Jesus. A thriving life of freedom and hope will never come by muscling through, shaming ourselves, or trying really hard to follow Jesus better.
And who is Jesus? The SON OF GOD. This One we are invited to trust is not a feeling, not an idea, not an education, an athletic career, a relationship, not money, or fame, or safety or any other counterfeit god who does not hear and cannot act. I’m invited to trust in Jesus, the Son of God, whose death-defeating Spirit now lives within me.
And when I come to Him loaded down with the same struggles that’ve plagued me my entire life and offer Him my trust, how does He respond? With more shame? Condemnation? I-told-you-sos? The cold shoulder?
Never. This is Jesus, the Son of God, who loved us. This is the man who gave Himself up so that we could be free. So that old folks with aching bodies and failing minds can smile at young parents and say, “There’s hope.” So that young adults barely making ends meet can link arms with high school students and say, “You’re gonna make it.” So that high schoolers stressed out about college can look at fifth graders and say, “You belong here.” So that not-kid-people grownups can learn the moves to Church Clap. So fathers and sons with every reason to be estranged can unite to offer hope to the generations after them.
We are not stuck. We are free. We are full of hope, because Jesus the Son of God loves us.
In place of a prayer, here’s a song I’ve been singing over and over to myself. If I need the comfort it offers, I’m betting you might as well.
Hold the paradox. Don’t panic. See you next month!
-Steph
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