The Paradox Paper #35

HELLO. What are you doing tomorrow? We are meeting The Dog Lady. She’s bringing The Dog to meet us. We are telling the children that she’s a friend who is coming to visit us with HER dog. But really, if we like The Dog and The Dog Lady likes us, we’ll get to keep The Dog.

WHICH MEANS.

We get to name The Dog. This is the best part.

She already has a name, but it’s much too Fancy Pants for us. Maybe you’ve never spent much time with three boys under seven and two slightly slobbish adults, but “dignified” ain’t the vibe around here. The right name for any dog of ours will 1) be easy to say 2) make every new person laugh upon introduction. I also love an old lady name. Marg. Phyllis. Agatha (although that’s too many syllables.)

The favorite right now is Aunt Pearl. Hilarious. But only if the “Aunt” is included. And realistically, am I gonna say “Aunt” every time? Doubtful.

If you have a name that would make you laugh if you met it on a dog, by all means pass it on. Along with any first-time-dog owner advice. And prayers.

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:

• An autumnal detective series

• A conversation about marrying young and all the different ways we come of age

• A word on decade birthdays

• A prayer for facing an unknown future

Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache series
My mom loves the cozy crime genre, which seems generally to involve several jolly characters solving the murder of a villainous character, and everyone lives happily ever after at the end. I am drawn toward a grittier variety of murder mystery, but I don’t want a book to make me feel hopeless or disgusted. Enter, detective Armand Gamache. Cozy enough for Kathy—a whole cast of charming and hilarious side characters, set in Canada which is always a little cozy—and gritty enough for me—no one is all-good or all-bad, and the resolution is always a surprise. BONUS: there are 18 books in the series, (perfect if you are, say, painting every surface of your house) and you don’t have to read them in order. I accidentally read the 18th first, and liked it so much I immediately started book one.

The Holy Post’s French Friday, Episode 580—Marriage, Parenting, and Prolonged Adolescence
Once a month David French—conservative political commentator and NYT opnion columnist—joins Holy Post host Skye Jethani for what they call French Friday. Usually the two discuss current events in politics and faith, but this episode was different. Having married and had children at an unusually young age for my generation, I was fascinated to hear this discussion on the influence marriage and maturity have on each other, and how marital and parental age influence a culture.

This month I crossed into a new decade. I don’t share the fear of age that some of my peers carry. Being a whole year older feels like a birthday gift in and of itself. Even more so this year. My twenties felt a little like a second adolescence. New expectations, shifting hormones galore (hello, three children in six years), and all the responsibility of adulthood with none of the expertise. Today I’m more settled in myself, my relationships, and my faith than I was ten years ago, and I’m grateful.

If there is a sobering aspect of the oft-dreaded 30th birthday, it’s that I’m now the same age as my brother was when he died. I think about Heaven more often and more personally now than I ever did before we lost him. Specifically age. What happens to our age once we leave these broken bodies? One day we get brand-new, unbroken and unbreakable ones. I believe that. But what happens in between? If Jeff is “absent from the body, present with the Lord,” is he just frozen? What exactly is present with the Lord?

As a young girl with a much older, much cooler brother, I used to dream of catching up one day. I believed the day would come when we’d be the same age—the balance of power finally equal. I could never understand why he got to be older and bigger when my birthday was a whole month before his. Now I wonder. I turned 30 this month. Are we the same age? If he’s in between bodies, do the passing years affect his spirit? Does he even know they’ve passed, or is time a cage only fit to hold the finite?

I like to think that on the day I greet him again I’ll work in a nice “I caught up! I told you so,” and we’ll laugh. But what if I live to be 100? Will I be seventy years older than him? FOREVER? What about the new bodies? The sick and elderly won’t be frail for eternity, but what of the signs of honor and wisdom time has written across their skin? Will the glory of the silver head disappear? The young and yet-unborn won’t be unaware and infantile for eternity, but what of the innocence and wonder that sparks in their young eyes? Will the joy of discovery be erased?

I don’t know. I’m glad I don’t. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings to search it out.” I am no king, but I do love to search. I trust my Father knows which knowledge to give, and which is too heavy for me, yet He invites and delights in my wondering.

I don’t know. That’s worth saying twice. But I can’t imagine all the new bodies will be the same. Why would a God who so clearly delights in diversity, color, variety, and beauty suddenly (and permanently) make us all look alike? Whether or not the age of our first bodies affects the appearance of our final bodies, we will be distinguishable and recognizable. Somehow.

I’ll know my brother belonged to me. I’ll know my husband was my sweetest friend. I’ll know my parents and my children were the ones to show me Christ before my eyes could see Him.

It’s a great gift to look toward the unknown future—this new decade, and millennia to come—with so much hope. Praise be to God.

Hold the paradox. Don’t panic. See you next month!

-Steph

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