Paideia Conversations, Ep. 12

After a bit of a winter rest, Melissa Cummings is back to converse with Jenn Discher from Paideia Southeast… and not just because she often cohosts Paideia Conversations. Jenn Discher recently published her first novel, The Elk King, and Melissa wanted to know all about it. Here at Paideia Conversations we talk a lot about cultivating a particular atmosphere in our homes and families as we live and raise kids for the kingdom of God… and this is a new way that rubber can meet the road. How did Jenn cultivate the culture of Animalia while simultaneously cultivating Discher culture at home? Where were the overlaps? How did she incorporate her family into the project? How did language and naming things in the book come into culture-cultivating? And what was the process like to coordinate the visual elements of culture with her illustrator? All of this and more… join us now for this conversation!

Resources and Links

The Elk King, available on Amazon in digital & paperback

Blog post explaining “why elk?”

World Elk Calling Championship Competitions

The “real” Glenariff

Illustrator Jessica Evans

Freebie Coloring Page

Jenn’s Website

Jenn’s Instagram

Jenn’s Facebook

The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer

The Winter King by Christine Cohen

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien

Transcript

Melissa: joining me today is my cohost from Paideia Southeast, Jenn Discher. She also happens to be today’s guest. Please join me as I get to chat with Jenn about her brand new novel called The Elk King, Tales from Animalia, Book One.

From the Original Histories of the Elk, Volume One:
The words of Henoria, Owl Prophetess to the Elk of Glenariff.
In honor of King Argyle’s sacrifice and the Provision of the Great Sequoia.
The Elk shall drink water only from its cistern as far as it depends upon them, the Elk shall shun all other water. It will be durmwat to them.
In faith did Argyle make his sacrifice and, if faithful to the ways of the Elk, the Elk shall be a blessed herd. The ways of the Elk are simple but true: protect the weak, live nobly, and be filled with what is good. But if the Elk prove faithless, be warned. They shall incur a fate more terrible than that from which Argyle saved them.
This water is pure, good, and true. Drink of it and be so yourselves noble Elk.

Here at Paideia Conversations we talk a lot about intentionally pursuing a specific culture, cultivating a particular atmosphere in our homes, with our children, for ourselves, as we raise the next generation for the kingdom of God. We talk about being prayerful, faithful, and mindful about it. So how does this apply to the idea of being an author of some new middle grade fiction? Well, let’s find out what Jenn has to say about that.

Oh, there you are!

Jenn: oh good morning, hey!

Melissa: okay, number one.

Jenn: okay.

Melissa: I’m so excited to have this in my hand, instead of just as a… what was it, a PDF?

Jenn: a PDF, yeah.

Melissa: nothing against digital… Okay, actually. Something against digital.

Jenn: right.

Melissa: but like, even though my husband… we own and he runs, you know, a digital Bible reading company, right? You’d think that I would be okay with digital reading of things. No, not so much. I could get through the paperback version probably in a snap, right? Because it’s the kind of thing where the kids would say, oh just one more chapter! oh just keep going! just turn the page and keep going! For some reason, even though it’s the exact same words, the exact same story, no matter what the book is – whether it’s, you know, C.S. Lewis or missionary biographies or, you know, a story like The Elk King, or even, I don’t know, the book of Genesis – it’s so much harder to keep the momentum when it’s digital.

Jenn: mmm, that’s interesting.

Melissa: I don’t know. I don’t know why. But my kinds seem to follow me in that. So having the paperback finally is like, ahhh! here we go! So instead of reading it in a more choppy version like I did with the electronics where I’m like, okay, I can’t even, because my eyes! I can’t look at a screen anymore…we’re going to revisit this in paperback version. And we’ll just, we’ll keep going. So anyway. I’m so excited.
I love how you have, in the back, you have the Glossary and you have… where’s the cast… Oh there you go. Cast of Characters. I’m kind of really super tempted to ask you to like read the Glossary for me. [laughter]

Jenn: I don’t have it in front of me, so that would be – and I don’t have – it’s not been part of my memory work, so I can’t rattle it off.

Melissa: well it should be! There you go. This should be part of your memory work!

Jenn: honestly, you could probably ask me about a character at this point and I’d be like, wait, hold on a minute. [laughter]

Melissa: like… haroo harrah! I’m like, I don’t know if I pronounce that right! Right?

Jenn: it’s great, it’s great. [laughter] It is. That’s how I would imagine pronouncing it.

Melissa: garoo garoo… well, is the emphasis on the gah or on the roo?

Jenn: that’s a good question, yeah. That’s fair.

Melissa: so this is why, okay, I need you to narrate the audiobook. [laughter] In fact, okay, so The Winter King by Christine Cohen…

Jenn: yes.

Melissa: …who is another friend of mine with these odd connections from like when I was a teenager, and she does the narration for the audiobook of her The Winter King, and it’s so helpful. Because I’m like, oh, okay, that is exactly how it’s supposed to be pronounced! Or Andrew Peterson with The Wingfeather Saga.

Jenn: yes.

Melissa: it just makes so much sense. I love it when an author speaks the words and the characters’ names, and it just really helps me get in that culture. Because sort of like I could read Spanish or… mmm, I don’t know… could I read Swedish, Icelandic? Probably not. You know, I could look at the letters and try to sound it out but I’d be totally butchering it. It’s not until you converse with someone from that culture that you really get a taste for, what does it sound like?

Jenn: yeah, I hear you.

Melissa: so anyhow, that’s what this book makes me… makes me think of. It makes me want to know more. It makes me want to jump into that culture. And that’s why I thought, this is the perfect thing to talk to you about today, because it’s – it’s about culture, and yet, it’s not about the culture that we normally talk about.

Jenn: right.

Melissa: okay, that said. Jenn Discher lives in North Georgia with her husband and three adventurous kids. She likes exploring, reading aloud in bad accents, and serving as Secretary to the Tooth Fairy. I love that bio, by the way.

Jenn: yeah. [giggling]

Melissa: super fun. But I need you to tell me… why The Elk King? And then I’m going to ask you all these culture questions.

Jenn: yes, yes! Well, why The Elk King? Partly because I’d always wanted to write a children’s book, and I’d always specifically wanted to write a talking animal story. And then, why elk spec… I had never intended to write a story about elk specifically. That was a bit of a surprise. I was going on a hike with my husband, and we happened to, we kind of stumbled, almost literally, into a herd of elk. And he made a comment, like an offhanded comment, about them, that for some reason just sparked an idea in my head. And the words, “that would make a great children’s book” came out of my mouth. And instead of looking completely askance at me, he was like, “what do you mean? tell me about that.” And so I, to my own surprise, I all of a sudden could tell him about that. And these things just started coming out of my mouth, and worlds and characters and plot stuff just kind of started coming. And so we kept talking about it and kind of went from there. So, yeah.

Melissa: aw, while you were on a hike with your husband!

Jenn: I was, yeah! Yeah, we were. We were on a rare trip just the two of us, and it was a coastal California hike. Yep.

Melissa: and he just asked the right question at the right time.

Jenn: yeah, well he was kind of like, what do you mean? what did you just say and what do you mean by that? And so then we… yeah, he said something like… I wrote a blog post about this actually, so the fuller version is online somewhere. But I think he said something like, well that’s a herd of elk that’s gone soft. Like it’s almost like they’ve forgotten they’re a herd of wild animals. Because you could approach them. We had been told at breakfast that morning that, “oh you might – if you go hike over here, you might run into a herd of elk.” And I thought, what? no, that won’t happen. They wouldn’t let us, you know, get that close. And having no experience with elk whatsoever, these were my assumptions about elk. And but we were wrong. They were really used to humans because it was a, like kind of a preserve area. Not a preserve but a national seashore kind of protected area.

Melissa: oh that’s interesting.

Jenn: yeah.

Melissa: okay, so were there any male elk with an amazing rack?

Jenn: huh, there were male elk. The, yeah, the antlers, not maybe as dramatic as they’re pictured in The Elk King. But, and the time of year I guess, I guess it was summer so yeah, they wouldn’t have been full grown I guess yet anyway.

Melissa: okay, so it wasn’t rutting season? They weren’t bugling for you?

Jenn: no, they weren’t. I didn’t even know they bugled. I didn’t know any… I literally didn’t know anything about elk when I started writing. I didn’t know they bugled. I didn’t know there were bugling competitions where men got up on stage [laughter] and practiced bugling or performed. Didn’t know that! That’s pretty cool.

Melissa: [laughter] That’s a random piece of info right there, yeah.

Jenn: google it!

Melissa: so when I was… how old was I? I was probably twelve… my family went to Yellowstone National Park, and it was in like late September early October – because that’s when homeschoolers really like to travel. After all the other kids are back in their schools, we get to hit the cool places. And I remember hearing elk bugling and thinking it was the strangest, most amazing yet ghostly kind of sound. And that was about a year before my family ended up buying property in a town by the name of Elk. And so ever since those two experiences, I’ve been fascinated by elk. So I particularly love that you stumbled on The Elk King.

Jenn: yes, that’s awesome.

Melissa: I think that’s fun. So intentionally pursuing a specific culture. We do that because we know that we are going to cultivate one atmosphere or another, whether it is intentional or accidental.

Jenn: yeah, mhmm.

Melissa: so we believe as we pursue an intentional culture we need to be prayerful, faithful, and mindful about it. But what I’ve been pondering is this idea that you’ve been, for how long? How long have you been working on writing this book?

Jenn: umm, the writing was maybe about twoish years, and there was editing and all kinds of stuff after that. So maybe about four and a half years total.

Melissa: yeah. And the ages of your kids: remind me.

Jenn: so when I started, they were quite young. They were seven, five, and two. And now they are almost twelve, ten, and seven.

Melissa: yeah, okay. So while you have been working on intentionally pursuing a specific culture in your home, raising your babies for Christ, you’ve also been cultivating this other, entirely different kingdom and culture that came out of your imagination and you’ve been crafting it there and putting it down on paper! You’ve been living in two worlds. [laughter] And I find that fascinating! That’s where I just want to hear, what is that like and where do you see cultural overlap between those two? Between your home and family and Christian, Georgian culture – and then the culture that you created in Glenariff… how do you pronounce it?

Jenn: Glen-AR-iff. I would say Glen-AR-iff.

Melissa: well then, that’s the right way to do it. Glen-AR-iff. Okay. So where do you see those overlaps? Or do you see those overlaps?

Jenn: yeah, I – and I think there would have to be overlap, because I’m creating out of my own… well, my own head. But also my own worldview, like values and all that. So I think there would be overlap. But not, you know, not in every way obviously. Specifically with the elk, they are like the chief creatures of Glenariff. And the specific overlap I’d see there is that, in terms of values probably, like the, part of the motto of the elk is to be filled with what is good. And that’s something that’s very much in the forefront of my mind as I raise and educate my kids. Because we value identifying and focusing on, you know, what is true, what is good, what is beautiful. Another Way of the Elk is to live nobly and protect the weak. And so there would maybe be overlap there in terms of, in my home like I desire to live sacrificially, to consider the interest of others, to defer – we talk about deferring to those who are younger and honoring those who are older. I wasn’t explicitly thinking of this verse when I wrote the Ways of the Elk, but they do kind of remind me of Micah 6:8 where it talks about, what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord your God. So, yeah, so maybe the terminology… like I don’t explicitly say to my children to live nobly, but the underlying value there I think is present.

Melissa: so one of the things that is such a big part of culture in general is naming, right?

Jenn: mhmm, mhmm.

Melissa: and I think that applies to pretty much any culture at any time or in any location. Naming our children, naming streets, naming… I mean… in the Bible, that’s one of the first things that Adam is given to do, right? It’s to name things.

Jenn: right.

Melissa: and when a child is born, whether now or two thousand or six thousand years ago or whatever… naming a child has always been a big thing. Creating a title for a book, creating a name for a home, right? In a lot of children’s literature I think there are very creative names for places, and it can be as simple as Spare ‘Oom [laughter] and yet that’s naming something. So in creating and nurturing and sustaining a culture, that’s a big piece of that puzzle. So tell me about naming the places and the characters in your story. And particularly what about how you came up with… I mean, you didn’t even use English words, right? [laughter]

Jenn: haha, right! Is it easier that way? I don’t know, maybe!

Melissa: only if you tell me how to pronounce them!

Jenn: [laughter] Mmm, I’ve always liked naming things. I like my kids’ stuffed animals. I get kind of a kick out of it. I would do it for them, you know, before they could talk. We would use like rejected baby names for the kids’ stuffed animals [laughter], and then as they got older, they would come to me and be like, Mom, what does she look like? And I’d be like, oh she’s clearly a Mathilda or whatever. So it is something I enjoy. And where did they come from? They… so, Tolkien talks about this idea of the leaf mold of the mind. Meaning like, just things go in and they sort of decompose and turn into, I don’t know, like fertile soil. Or maybe I’m taking the metaphor too far. But basically it’s like this idea of a depository of everything you’ve seen and read and listened to, and so anything I named I guess came from that. Like books I’ve read, picture books, travels, people I know, places I love, cultures I have an affinity for… and so…

Melissa: and so cultural norms and customs related to language… how is that, or how do you think you may have expressed that in The Elk King? Sort of establishing cultural norms through the use of language?

Jenn: yeah, that’s an interesting question. So the passing down of the male royal elks’ names would be one custom. And I didn’t make that explicit in the book, so that’s not spoilery at all. I didn’t spell that out. It’s just what I did in my head when I was parsing through the family trees. And I didn’t create a whole language for the elk or any of the other creatures. But I did create certain terms to name certain aspects of their culture. Or to name, like, commonly used… I don’t know… expressions. So, for example, like, dermwat for the elk is… and for really any of the free creatures of Glenariff… is water not from the great cistern. So they have this great cistern: that’s where they’re supposed to go to get their water. There’s a whole backstory to that for why they’re supposed to do that, and so they just name any water that’s not from the great cistern is dermwat.

Melissa: and that’s right in the beginning, isn’t it?

Jenn: mhmm, yeah.

Melissa: okay yeah, so, that’s right from the getgo.

Jenn: yeah. Then there’s distinctions for… so, for the male and female elk. They’re talhorns and talhornas to designate fully grown male or female elk. And then you have nadorns and nadronas for the young male and female elk. And that transition from nadorn to talhorn happens when their horns are fully grown. Yes, I know elk have antlers, not horns. [laughter] But in Animalia they have horns, and there’s a reason for that too. There’s a backstory there. They did, historically, have antlers. But at one point they transitioned to having horns. Which, the difference, for my purposes, the difference – the main difference is that they keep them for life. I should also say, they don’t continue growing. They do stop at some point. Because in real life, I think, I don’t know if this is true for all species that are horned. But like, I think the big horned sheep, like I think their horns keep growing and growing and growing until – and I think that’s actually what kills them. It’s kind of awful. They just, like, the weight of it. So, I don’t have that…

Melissa: like Texas Longhorn cattle or something I’m envisioning…

Jenn: no, like sheep! Well, I think…. Well we were in the Grand Canyon last summer, and we saw the Bighorn sheep and my kids pop off with this trivia about them that they got from a nature show. And it’s, yeah. So that’s not happening in The Elk King. Their horns reach a certain point and stop growing. But, and then back to the language, that those terms kind of distinguish when they’ve come of age, I guess. That naming. They get a new name when they come of age there. And then there’s a Glossary in the back of the book of elk and smaller creature terms, and them some various bugles. So there’s a couple of terms for, that come out of rabbit culture and sparrow culture that I had fun with. They just… and like floptrust for a rabbit is like to just be paralyzed with fear, and when a bird, when a sparrow goes paddywhomp they’ve just grown limp, they are limp from lack of nourishment or something. So just, I mean, some of it was just fun. Fun to do. It was fun to kind of create those words that… sort of like those, I feel like there are those words in German that express a feeling that we need multiple words for in English. That was a fun part of it.

Melissa: have you started using those words or phrases in your family culture now? Every day language?

Jenn: what’s funny is that [laughter] my husband has, actually!

Melissa: I love that!

Jenn: he’s more prone to it! He’s like, are you floptrust? [laughter] And I’m like, I might be actually! So yeah.

Melissa: oh that’s great. One of the things I love about this being only book one is that you really drag us into the entire culture right from, at the beginning with the map, and then like you mentioned at the end, the glossary and… oh I said I was gonna keep it closed, didn’t I? Well but anyway, from front to back, it’s showing this culture, and it’s so encouraging that, oh hey, if it’s only book one, then getting to know this culture right at the getgo with the map and learning the glossary at the back, regardless of the story, right, that makes you want to know, well what’s next? Where’s book two? What’s coming? But even just those little, I don’t know… teasers?… of the culture – I want to explore the map more, I want a bigger glossary, I want all of that. So, but the map made me think, there are other aspects of cultivating a culture than just, you know, language or naming. A lot of atmosphere is impacted by visual presentation and then preservation. So how was it to work with your illustrator, especially thinking about this map, which is fantastic.

Jenn: Yeah, it is. Yeah, I love the map.

Melissa: but Jessica Evans… and I’ve… I have some of her picture books and so you’ve… how did that work? How did you get connected with her? And then what was it like to work with her? Did it take stress off your plate? Did it, I don’t know, was it a nerve-wracking leap of trust? It’s like trusting her with translating this culture that you’ve created, that she’s going to put into visual elements, she’s going to show us visually, you know, a picture of Glenariff and Draven, to solidify the Animalia culture for the readers. But how was that for you, essentially passing that off to someone else? What was that like?

Jenn: it was, it was great, honestly. Like, it was just a total dream to work with her. She’s the best. I wasn’t nervous really at all about her, like, visually translating the story. Probably for two reasons. One being, I was pretty familiar with her work before I reached out to her about The Elk King. I’d seen her work, you know, on social media and on her website and in her books. And I loved it. And I especially liked her depictions of animals. I knew her a little bit from interacting on social media. I knew we liked a lot of the same books. And then probably the second reason is that, that it, you know, there wasn’t that nervousness, was that when I sent her the manuscript, she really just happened to connect with the story. She was really encouraging about it, and I remember telling my husband, “I don’t think she’s just being nice, I think she really likes it.” And he was like, “yeah, I think she does.” Which was just kind of mind-blowing for me, because I had sent it around to beta readers, and I had, you know, I had people I didn’t know read it.

Melissa: that’s so fun.

Jenn: yeah, yeah it was. And she really captured, I think I was even, I think I was surprised by how well she captured the characters. Because she just was like spot on.

Melissa: I’ve never thought about what it would be like to be in our shoes as an author, and then having an illustrator take my words and turn them into something visual.

Jenn: yeah.

Melissa: but I’ve experienced it in a consumer format. If I’ve read a book, for instance, and I have these images in my head of what the characters look like or what the landscape looks like, and then I see a movie… Do you know how many characters, like what number of characters she ended up sketching for you?

Jenn: I think thirteen or fourteen. I forget, yeah.

Melissa: more than a dozen though, essentially.

Jenn: more than a dozen, yes. Yes. She got some of the bad guys, too. Which was, it was fun to see.

Melissa: I love how you’ve shared them on social media, too. Little ways to, again, visually draw people in and entice them into that story and the culture. It’s really fun. So how has the journey of becoming an author impacted your typical routines of homemaking and homeschooling, and how have you been able to incorporate your family – your children, as well – into that process? And did you keep the story sequestered from them until it was closer to a finished product, or did you involve them the whole way?

Jenn: so I should probably say at the outset that my husband just happened to be insanely supportive of this. Like, really far and away beyond anything I would have ever imagined. I mean, I didn’t really have any expectations when I got started, but so he really was invested in this from the beginning and so we kind of sat and he would help me sit down and kind of navigate the family schedule to find writing time. Because it just sort of became a project that was a priority, I guess, for us together. And therefore for our family. So yeah, so he helped me make it a priority. He was my first beta reader, my first editor, plot untangler, would talk through stuff with me. And my kids were quite young when I started it; they were seven, five, and two. So it was almost easier then. I did kind of keep it sequestered from them, because it wasn’t… not like, I mean… just because it wasn’t super relevant to them. They weren’t even strongly reading yet. I mean, two of them weren’t reading at all, one of them was newly reading.

Melissa: sure.

Jenn: it was kind of beyond their level, too. So we set it up so that it wasn’t really impacting our, my homeschool time or my homemaking. I mean, homeschool time was not taking a lot of time in that season of life, too. I would write either after they’d gone to bed or during their afternoon rest time, about once a week I’d go out of the house to write for a longer stretch. And we just had to be kind of creative and flexible with that. My husband would work from home one day a week but it would, the day would change, so it would be like, okay, well I’m working from home tomorrow, so you can go out to the coffee shop then and have a chunk of time. Or sometimes I’d get up early on a Saturday morning and go out and write. So it didn’t impact generally speaking our typical routines. It just, writing sort of just became my one big extra, or my one hobby. There were other things that I was probably saying no to. I’m, off the cuff, thinking of things like, you know, watching shows in the evening or extra reading time or something like that. But that didn’t feel usually like a big sacrifice, I was enjoying the project and excited about it. And then also as a family, we didn’t have a lot of outside commitments in that season with the kids being younger. As they got older, I would occasionally read the older ones bits of the manuscript, but other than that, they weren’t really incorporated into the process until I got into final edits. And then they were super encouraging and actually really helpful. My daughter has a good eye for detail, and found some straggling edits that needed to happen there at the end.

Melissa: so what was the response of your children when they got to see… or maybe when they actually got to hold the first copy in their hands? To see their mama’s name on it!

Jenn: yeah, it was super, they were super excited. They’ve been so sweet. They’ve been really, really encouraging. And they’ve prayed for it, and they’ve just been excited, yeah, super interested and excited. There’s a, I have a free download for a coloring sheet, Elk King coloring sheet on my website, and I think my seven year old has done like twelve of them. He just keeps doing the same coloring sheet, bless his heart, over and over! I’ve never seen him color like that before. [laughter]

Melissa: and each one is probably different, right?

Jenn: each one is different, yes! Very, very boldly colored. They’re great.

Melissa: my ten year old did one a couple weeks ago, and it’s been up on the fridge, and he did the… oh, what are the trees in the background?

Jenn: oh they’re aspens.

Melissa: aspen, okay. I was going to say birch, I knew that wasn’t right.

Jenn: yeah, I’ve actually probably called them that at one point, too.

Melissa: yeah. So he colored each one, like it looks like a rainbow backdrop.

Jenn: oh, that’s cool. I want to see that!

Melissa: I’m like, why? [laughter] I should do that. So that has been a fun aspect, too, is having something tangible like that to color. Actually, the map… and of course I wouldn’t let them actually color the map in the book… but he wanted to color the map. I’m like, well, I guess we could photocopy it and blow it up on a piece of paper, and then you could. He wants to like map it out.

Jenn: that’s fun!

Melissa: that’s my ten year old for you.

Jenn: yeah. I had fun with… I had to draw a map as part of the writing process just for me to kind of visually orient myself. So it was really fun to see her, like I had to give her like my little chicken scratch map, and then she made it beautiful. But yeah, I like maps.

Melissa: I wondered what the process of story boarding, story mapping, was like for you. Because I’ve seen some author friends with their… I mean, it can be really intense. The notecards and the white boards, and just all these files of… yeah, sometimes chicken scratch, sometimes really intricate family trees written out.

Jenn: yes, yes.

Melissa: what has that part been like for you?

Jenn: yeah, so I don’t know that it’s anything I would recommend to someone else. I was just figuring it out as I went. But yes, family trees, multiple family trees, maps, calendars, timelines, sketches of rooms – like, real rough sketches of rooms to orient where everything was, sketches of buildings. Yeah. A lot of… distances. Things that maybe nobody else would pick up or I didn’t even need to be explicit about in the book, but I needed to know in order to reference and have it feel real. I mean, there’s always, you know… it’s not, the map’s not to scale, there’s things that aren’t really to scale so to speak. But in order to have there be a reasonable, you know, for it to feel reasonable, I felt like I needed to know those things.

Melissa: yeah. Where do you store all that stuff? I mean…

Jenn: yeah, in a binder.

Melissa: okay.

Jenn: it probably should be more organized than it is. I have napkins from coffee shops! But it’s just, it’s all there. [laughter]

Melissa: a binder actually… because I was envisioning like, okay, a cardboard box, or an accordion file… a binder sounds like a really good, easy reference just to flip through to find what you need to answer your question.

Jenn: yes, oh, and spreadsheets too. Yeah. Spreadsheets of characters.

Melissa: and would that also be stored digitally so you could look it up digitally?

Jenn: yeah, it’s not technically in the binder, but it probably should be.

Melissa: but having both is probably great.

Jenn: yeah.

Melissa: I love that. So… asking for a friend… ahem. Then, your tips that you might offer to a similarly busy homeschool mama with unique interests to pursue in little off-moments… would be things like getting it scheduled or going to a coffee shop? What else do you have as tips for my friend? [chuckle]

Jenn: yes! yeah. So probably to check in with, if there, you know, if you have a husband… him first about those interests. Just kind of to be able to collaborate there and to think holistically about your family and the season that you’re in, and the calendar, and see if you can come up with a plan to work in time for that amidst the family schedule maybe. That would probably be where I’d start. And then just to be realistic about what you can do in this particular season. Because some seasons allow for more interest pursuing than others. But I think there’s probably, there’s often ways, creative ways, to support a particular interest even if you’re in a season where you can’t produce a lot. So, you know, when there’s a new baby or a sick child or a family member living with you or you’ve just moved… or all these, the myriad of, you know, things that are unexpected or just transition times. You might not have a lot of margin for producing something then, whether it’s writing or knitting or whatever creative endeavor… or maybe not creative endeavor, you know, maybe it’s a particular form of exercise or whatever. But I think there can still be maybe that could be a season for more, for consuming about that particular topic. I mean, I don’t know. I’m spitballing here, but if it were, if it were writing for example, there could be a time, that could be a time of consuming good stories or helpful books on writing maybe in the form of audiobooks, or reading to your children. That kind of fueling the leaf mold of the mind kind of thing is going to help when you do have margin to produce. And then just living life, going on adventures, paying attention to the world around you, to what God is doing, I think can be fuel for bigger writing projects later on. And again, I’m speaking specifically there of writing but I think the principles could translate to other interests. I think not despising small windows of time, because they do add up. Ten minutes here and there is better than nothing, especially if you, you know, have your whatever paraphernalia you need for that particular interest kind of on the ready. Like if you have your knitting in the basket here next to the couch where you know you’re going to be sitting down with the baby on the mat or whatever, or I had a writer friend say, you know, always keep your laptop open on the kitchen counter so you can just type as you walk by, like oh here’s a note I want to write down. Tips like that. I think, talking to other people who have maybe that particular interest, and who might be in that same season of life is super helpful. I’m part of an online writing group, and it’s been helpful to see other peoples’ writing routines, what they do, and they’re really different. I mean, some people can only go write like once a week, that’s what their schedule allows for, but they go take like a six hour block of time. Other people are doing it every day really consistently. I think it’s just going to really vary, depending on your family dynamics and the season of life that you’re in. But if it is something, especially that you know the Lord’s put on your heart or that you are particularly, you know, really interested in or potentially gifted in or want to pursue, I think, just looking for those opportunities. And be willing to be flexible, and just kind of seize them when they come. I’m not naturally flexible. I want things to be a certain way, and this really, this process was super good for me to kind of break a lot of that off because I had to just take what I could get and embrace it. And I couldn’t, really, I had to be pretty diligent with the time that I did have, because time was a rare commodity. Like I just had to use what I had. Yeah.

Melissa: I really like that distinction of pursuing an interest versus producing something from that interest. I feel like there needs to be a bumper sticker or a water bottle sticker with that sentiment on it that I can look at regularly. Because that’s, that’s a really helpful way to look at that. I’m going to be pondering that. Pursuing something doesn’t necessarily include the producing in all seasons. Oh, because there’s the physical time but then also the mental capacity. So even when I do have maybe a physical time that’s open, the mental capacity for a particular interest… maybe writer’s block? Maybe that would be an example of what I’m trying to articulate.

Jenn: and there’s time, I mean, when you’re doing physical tasks like homemaking tasks, you can be thinking about the particular project or the particular interest, too. That that time could be spent like brainstorming for that. Or, I think thinking of our… all these interests too, in light of using them to bless our families first or, and then our communities, or just these concentric circles – that’s been really helpful to me. That idea of just being willing to use your gifts in a hidden way to bless your people. I’ve really, I’ve been chewing on that for years. That’s a, probably an idea I got from that Edith Schaeffer book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking. But I love the particular example that I often think of that I think is an example of that is Tolkien’s Letters to Father Christmas. That he, he wrote these letters to his kids from Father Christmas, from, I think it started around 1920, with his first son – and they’re so intricate! I mean, he’s pretending to be Father Christmas, writing in different languages, different, he’s drawing drawings, he’s writing clever stories, he’s got all these characters… and you can see in them, like, glimpses of you know Middle Earth, like the kinds of drawings that are actually in his books… and nobody was ever, I mean, they, people… we can see them now because they’re published but I’m sure he had no thought of them ever being published. And he did this for all his kids for over a decade, and I love that! Because he was using his gifts to bless his kids, to delight them. And I want to have that in the forefront of my mind as I’m writing. Like I want to delight, bless my kids with my stories.

Melissa: so good. How about a quickfire of the silly questions?

Jenn: yes!

Melissa: where did you do most of your writing?

Jenn: our schoolroom table.

Melissa: what did you drink most often while you wrote?

Jenn: black coffee or Good Earth sweet and spicy tea.

Melissa: hot or cold?

Jenn: hot.

Melissa: what is your favorite quote from the book?

Jenn: oh, I have a few!

Melissa: it’s like asking you to pick a favorite child, I know.

Jenn: yeah! There’s… and probably the ones that stick with me are the parental ones, the ones spoken by the parents in the story. But there’s one where the king is saying to his son that the king’s mantle has a way of making the wearer ready. Like even if you don’t feel ready for something, like the very act of being called, you will be enabled for the task at the right time. I guess that sentiment is what’s behind that. And I didn’t give you an exact quote, so sorry. [laughter]

Melissa: well that’s because we need to read! We need to read the book to find it. It’s like a treasure hunt.

Jenn: yeah, aw.

Melissa: now when I go back to reread it with my kids, when I find that, I’m gonna book dart it.

Jenn: yeah!

Melissa: is there a moment in the process that would stand out to you as most remarkable?

Jenn: yes. After publishing it, having kids, hearing kids say that they love the book or that they really, you know, love a certain character. That’s just really surreal and an honor, and just makes me so happy. It’s really, it’s really great.

Melissa: so what’s next?

Jenn: getting my house in order! [laughter] I mean, the last couple months have been a more full season, and so with, you know, launching it. And so I’m backlogged on house projects and family photo albums and things like that. But I would, once I kind of get life on the rails there, I’d like to, I need to start working on Book Two.

Melissa: how about with The Elk King? Are you doing promotional things? Are you, will you take it to local bookshops and ask for… I don’t know… them to carry it and you could do an event? I mean, what does that look like?

Jenn: yeah. So sorry, I did jump ahead to Book Two mentally, but yes. There is some of that going on. I’m gonna go a sweet author event in a couple weeks with a local homeschool group, kind of like an author Q and A, especially geared toward kids who might want to write themselves, or who already are writing. Kind of like a young writer’s thing. Which I’m really looking forward to, I love those conversations. That’s been one of my favorite things actually also about the book, is it’s generated some of those conversations naturally just with kids I know. And yes, I’ve been chatting with local bookshop owners, and have, I would love to do a local, like a bigger local book signing. Like author event, book signing, kind of celebratory thing. That’s in the works too.

Melissa: and do you have people… do you have tips for people as far as how to get it requested by a library or that kind of thing? Is that a…

Jenn: yeah, actually. So because I do this with my library all the time actually, I’m always requesting that my library buy certain books.

Melissa: yeah, same.

Jenn: yeah, I just, that’s just kind of a habit for me. So it’s usually pretty easy, you know. If it’s not clear on their library’s website, you could ask a librarian and they’ll usually very kindly walk you through the process. My library happens to be really fast about it, they’re really, they let you request three books a month, and they have really fast turnaround on purchasing them. Which is really, really great. So yeah, if you find yourself, you’re interested in getting the book but you’re in the place where you can’t really, you know, you can’t buy it, don’t want to buy it, then asking your library to buy it would be great. And then it’s accessible to any number of kids for free.

Melissa: we can get it on Amazon, I know, because that’s where I got mind.

Jenn: yep, yep. Right now it’s Amazon. Ebook or a paperback, either is great, I probably prefer the paperback but both have their benefits. I have both. And then potentially local bookshops, that’s TBD.

Melissa: mhmm. And where can we find you on the internet with all these things?

Jenn: yes. So I do have a website, it’s JennDischer.com Jenn with two n’s. And you can get the free coloring sheet there, it’s a free download. And then on Instagram @JennDischer and Facebook as well. Yeah, thank you.

Melissa: well, in the midst of all that is on your plate, both cultures you’re pursuing right now, I’m so honored that you would just be able to carve out time to have a chat with me this morning and to celebrate The Elk King! I just, I can’t get over… I mean, it hasn’t been that many months that I’ve known about it, but just seeing that come to fruition from a distance has been delightful. And I’m, I’m so happy for you! And happy for the kids in this upcoming generation that they get to have these kinds of stories to grow with and to learn from. It’s just beautiful.

Jenn: thank you, Melissa. Thanks so much for having me, I really appreciate it.

Melissa: well I’m looking forward to chatting again soon, actually.

Jenn: yes, I would love that.

Melissa: and I was also thinking, the scarf…

Jenn: yes! The king’s mantle! That’s another cultural thing, right? Yes.

Melissa: right there. Oh, see. You’ve been talking about knitting, you’ve used that as an example.

Jenn: yes, I don’t, I want to knit. So that’s an interest I’d like to pursue. I would like to pursue knitting! I have not had margin for it. Or I have not made, created the time. Taken the time.

Melissa: I thought, wow, there needs to be a pattern for that! And that would be a… [laughter]

Jenn: yes, yes! Well there are these four clans in Glenariff, so it’s all the colors from all the clans, are in the king’s mantle.

Melissa: again sort of pulling from that Celtic or Scottish little bit there. Maybe Nordic people do that as well, but

Jenn: yeah, it is definitely more Celtic than anything.

Melissa: yeah, I love it. Well thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions about the book and the culture.

Jenn: thank you! My pleasure. It was a treat for me to like, to just kind of reflect on the process.

Melissa: yeah, well, I’m glad it was a treat for you because it was definitely a treat for me. All right, let’s talk again soon, friend. God bless you.

Jenn: aw, okay, I would love that. Okay. You too, bye bye.

Melissa: bye!

Elk Prince Draven will inherit the throne of peaceful, prosperous Glenariff much sooner than he’d like. He doubts he’d make a very good king and just wants a normal life. But in Glenariff no elk is normal. All are bound to the magical source of the herd’s strength. Like many, Draven has forgotten the old tales and old enemies. As Draven makes plans to escape royal life, a deadly sickness sweeps the kingdom. Rumors of enemies and traitors abound. With the king distracted by secret troubles, the elk stand to lose everything, including their very lives. To save the kingdom, Draven must face what he has long feared, and new terrors he could not have imagined. But first he must remember the old tales, before there’s no herd left to rule.

And that brings today’s conversation to a close. You can find more conversations on paideia at PaideiaNorthwest.com and PaideiaSoutheast.com for more resources and practical encouragement. Join me again next time for another paideia conversation. And in the meantime, peace be with you.

Paideia Conversations, Ep. 5

For this Paideia Conversation, Jenn Discher from Paideia Southeast joins Melissa Cummings from Paideia Northwest to dialogue with today’s guest, Mystie Winckler. Protecting family margin on the calendar, prioritizing Lord’s Day rest & fellowship, and picking soul-filling books like God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis are some practical ways Mystie encourages us to pursue godly paideia as well as rest… and don’t overlook her tips of quieting the mind by learning how to nap and honing the skill of brain dumping! 

Links to Resources

Every Moment Holy

Scholé Sisters

Simply Convivial

Trinity Psalter Hymnal

Simply Convivial Brain Dumping

Teaching from Rest

Bible Reading Challenge

God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis

Episode Transcript

Melissa: joining me today for this paideia conversation is my cohost Jenn Discher from Paideia Southeast, and our guest today is Mystie Winckler. We invite you into this conversation with us as we continue to practice, pursue, and implement paideia.
It’s so much fun, yeah, to sit on opposite sides of the country – you’re in your basement, I’m in my closet, and we can come together and just chat about things like creating a culture for our children…

Jenn: yes!

Melissa: to further the Kingdom of God, and ask His blessing on it. It’s so great!

Jenn: yes!

Melissa: so, this, Every Moment Holy is something that both Paideia Northwest and Paideia Southeast, and our respective people, have loved and used and recommended; and I just want to read a little bit from A Liturgy to Begin a Purposeful Gather. And, dare I say, a Purposeful Conversation.

“So we are gathered here, uniquely in all of history, we particular people in this singular time and multiple place, accomplish Your purposes among us, O God. Tune our hearts to the voice of Your Spirit, wake us to be present to You and to one another for in these showered moments we are given You, O Lord. You have gathered us from our various places and You alone know our hearts and our needs. O Father, enlarge our hearts, O Spirit, expand our vision, O Christ, establish Your Kingdom among us. Be at work, even now, O Lord, and may Your will in us be accomplished. Amen.”

So as we continue our chatting about paideia across the country and with a variety of different events and things coming up, I know Paideia Southeast has had one event recently. What did you call that?

Jenn: yeah, we called it a Moms’ Encouragement Night.

Melissa: Moms’ Encouragement Night. Yeah, so that was a panel and fellowship and sort of your introductory event. And now in another couple weeks you have another event, a nature walk, right?

Jenn: yes, yes! It’s a… we’re calling it a Moms’ Enrichment Day. It’s a, it’s a nature walk at a local botanical garden.

Melissa: okay.

Jenn: and so there will be some nature journaling, kind of time for personal reflection, connection, fellowship, and then a lunch afterwards.

Melissa: yeah. Think I can, you know, just, be a fly on that wall maybe?

Jenn: yeah, we would love that. [laughter]

Melissa: so on this side of the country, we’ve got the Paideia Northwest conference coming up very soon, so today we get to have one of our speakers join us for our conversation here about paideia and about rest, which is the theme of the upcoming conference. Jenn, do you want to just sort of tell Mystie what we are up to, what we are doing?

Jenn: yes! So we are just chatting, Mystie, about the concept of paideia, being representatives of Paideia Southeast and Paideia Northwest. And then we’re also gonna chat a little bit about the topic of the upcoming Paideia Northwest conference being rest.

Melissa: so I’m Melissa Cummings from Paideia Northwest up in northeastern Washington, and I’m here today with my friend Jenn Discher. Tell us where you’re from.

Jenn: I’m from north Georgia, north of Atlanta.

Melissa: and you are with Paideia Southeast.

Jenn: yes.

Melissa: yeah, so we’ve got one from each coast today, which is fantastic. And we are welcoming our friend Mystie Winckler, who is going to be speaking at the upcoming Paideia Northwest conference in just a couple of weeks. So, Mystie, thank you for taking the time to join us.

Mystie: thank you for inviting me.

Melissa: yeah. Jenn, do you want to go ahead and ask Mystie to tell us about who she is and what she does?

Jenn: yes, Mystie. Please do. Tell us a little about who you are and what you do.

Mystie: well, my husband and I have been married for twenty years this year. We had our twentieth anniversary. And we are in eastern Washington state in the Tri-Cities, and we both were homeschooled from the very beginning. So when it was very uncool, or even just very unknown. And then my husband and I both did dual enrollment at the community college which is about the age that we met each other in early high school. And we got married at nineteen, and now we have five kids. And our oldest is about the age that we were when we, like, were interested in one another. So that’s weird. So I have an eighteen year old, a sixteen year old, an eleven year old… um, I skipped the thirteen year old, and an eight year old. So we’re kind of in those older grades now, but they have all been homeschooled from the beginning. My oldest graduated last year with his AA from the community college, and my son is currently in that program, my second son is in that program. So I’m really only homeschooling three actively every day, but we’re in a different phase of life now. It’s a little bit strange.

Jenn: and tell us, you also, you work with, out… beyond homeschooling… Scholé Sisters.

Mystie: yes. So I am a cohost of Scholé Sisters which is a podcast and an online community for classical homeschooling moms. And then I also have my own blog and podcast and online, like, mentorship type community for homemakers. For Christian homemakers to overcome overwhelm and perfectionism and establish habits in their homes.

Jenn: I’m glad you mentioned that. I’ve been blessed by your work in all of those areas over the years, so I’m very glad you are doing all those things. To bring it back to paideia, there’s this idea, and it comes from a chapter in Ephesians in the Bible where Paul is talking to the Ephesian church, and he’s telling parents, specifically fathers in that passage, to raise their children in the paideia of God. Melissa and I have been talking about this a lot lately, we’ve been talking with other folks about this… what does this concept of paideia mean to you? How would you explain that to someone?

Mystie: well, one of the things that I love about the concept of paideia and the word and then how it’s used in Ephesians is that it was a known word to the Greek and Roman culture of the time. It would have been their word for education. You can look back through some of those classical education sources and they talk about education being paideia, and they didn’t have the categories that we do today about education where it happens in a schoolroom during certain set hours. But their idea of education that they used the word paideia for meant your whole life, everything about the whole society and culture was shaping people to become the kinds of Greeks and Romans that they wanted to raise up. So it includes the kind of typical hours, sorts of activities and education but it includes, but it’s so much more than that as well. It’s really all the pieces of life and how everything goes in to shaping our children’s loves and their desires and raising them up in that nurture and admonition of the Lord, is how it’s usually translated about where we can take this… they would have called it, enculturation could also be a translation of it. So becoming a part of a culture, and the culture that we’re supposed to be passing on to our children is the culture of the Lord.

Jenn: mhmm. I love that. It’s very holistic. I think when I finally got a handle on it… which, I mean, I don’t know that I’ll ever fully get a handle on it. But when I really started to really chew on that, it was kind of mind blowing and really encouraging. And I think, very reflective of, I mean, if a Christian worldview is supposed to be holistic, then this is, these are like holistic actions we can take, you know, by God’s grace within that. It’s exciting. So then, how does your understanding of paideia- how does that kind of flesh out in your home?

Mystie: I think as homeschoolers, one of the advantages that we should recognize and work with is the fact that we do kind of administer the whole life picture. And so we can make sure that all the pieces of life are working together and in balance with one another and give our children an education that is not just, you know, a check list, and not just passing tests or getting grades. But it is a working towards loving God in all that they do, and that includes schoolwork and it includes service and it includes work and play and everything. And since we are there all the time in all those pieces, we have to kind of keep them all working together and not compartmentalize. And then if, you know, for those who are… have their kids at a school and then they’re at home, they can really focus on the home element of paideia, because it is, I think, more enculturating. The home is really where people are formed. So it’s not optional even if your kids are at a day school, you are still a huge part of raising them up in the paideia of the Lord.

Jenn: mhmm. So, well I mean, I referenced this and I think you touched on this too, that it’s a really big, rich concept. And it can be, it can kind of take a while to chew on and think through, okay, how does this flesh out? What does this mean for us as Christians to be enculturating our kids? So can you give us kind of a tangible glimpse of, like, like we call it a glimpse of paideia, or the paideia of the Lord in your home? Whether it’s a schooling, specific to homeschooling or not.

Mystie: yeah, one of the things I think of is how we go about choosing, like, what we memorize or what we sing during our school time. We have a Morning Time where we’re all together and do Scripture memory and singing and prayer time together, and so that’s really the cornerstone piece of our homeschool, and that is a huge part of the paideia of building up a family culture that is centered on Christ. And we choose what we sing based on what we sing at church so that my kids can participate better in church. That’s one way to like tie in those different pieces of our lives and make them one piece, is that the efforts we put in, you know on this one side of our school day, are also working together to build up helping them feel like a part of the worship service as well. We often end our family dinner time together with the Lord’s Prayer. So just when these different pieces come up in different parts of the day and not just, oh, that’s what we do during this time, it’s happening kind of all over the place, that’s one way where I see paideia happening.

Jenn: I love that. I like the idea of being intentional to have those things be crossing paths in different contexts. One thing actually that I’ve found helpful in our Morning Time in our homeschool has been mottos… probably your mottos… [laughter] We’ve adapted! We’ve pulled in… I have a good friend who’s great at that, and then I’ve come up with some, but mottos have been so key for us. Those short, snappy little phrases of little, like, little nuggets of truth or just good things to remember. And that over time, if you practice them, to put them in action, it really does become part of your family culture. Right. I love that.

Mystie: yeah, that’s a great one too. Because they apply, then, throughout life. You might be learning them during one piece but you’re applying them and referring back to them throughout, and it changes your actions, which is making a culture.

Jenn: yes! Absolutely. And you get reminded of them by your children [laughter] when you need to remember the motto. They are so good at that! At reminding you.

Melissa: Jenn, that really goes over into the idea of, it’s not just a culture of our children… I know what we’ve talked about this before is, we’re also in that culture and we’re still being formed. So even as the mama or as an adult, we are still being shaped. And so how, how we are in that culture making with our kids, having those hymns and those Scriptures and those mottos – all of that – or even, Mystie mentioned the word service – entering into acts of service with our children is continuing to shape us. And just like we need to be intentional with our children because they will be shaped whether we are intentional or not, so will we.

Jenn: mhmm

Melissa: so yeah, good thoughts.

Jenn: love that. That’s so true. So I guess along those lines Mystie, what’s one resource, maybe like a book or a website or event, song, poem, podcast, whatever – that you could recommend to others, to other moms who are seeking to raise their kids in a specifically Christian culture in their homes?

Mystie: I do think music can be one of the most powerful sources of enculturation, and so just, each family thinking about what is the music tying you to? What culture is the music tying you to? And what are the resources available to you that help you make, use music, to tie you to your local church body? So we have a huge stack of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal, which is the hymnal that our church uses, and we use that for our Morning Time every morning. My piano students are always practicing at least one hymn from that during their piano time. It has the catechisms and the creeds in the back of it so we use it for reference, and so, that’s not like, oh, use this resource – we’re using that resource because it is what our church uses. And so, you know, whatever, I would recommend finding something that helps you tie your family culture to your local church culture. And just considering your local church a part of your paideia in your family, your extended family, I think is really important.

Jenn: mhmm, I love that. It makes me think of even just as a resource the people. Like, the other older women at our local churches. Like looking at someone else’s family or like, oh, I love what you’ve got going on there, tell me about that, where did that come from?

Mystie: for sure.

Melissa: that’s really good. So talking about implementing these things or opening up the idea of making connections across home and church, and then also you mentioned, of course, education, right, specific homeschooling or day schooling – but connecting all those things, from the perspective of a mama, then, who is stitching those pieces together and encouraging how they all weave in… how do you find, going back to that idea of rest, how do you find rest necessary in motherhood? Because I think so often the automatic, the default, is, oh of course motherhood is exhausting. But usually we’re talking about the sleepless nights or the need for more coffee. What do you think of when you ponder the need for rest in motherhood?

Mystie: I think about the need to enjoy the work that we’re doing it, which, at least for myself, does not come naturally. Even, you know, Morning Time, which is supposed to be the best part of your day or whatever, it often it is, well just honestly it can feel chaotic especially when we had younger kids, it just kind of felt like crazy time. But when I treated Morning Time or meal time or these other, you know, really family building times as just one more thing I was supposed to be doing, was when I felt overwhelmed and exhausted. And I was closed off, really, to being able to enjoy them. And it was actually a good friend of mine, who at one point… I was probably at this point having a bit of baby blues after having baby number four, and was the, complaining to a friend. And one of the things she said has always stuck with me. She said, well, just go do something that you enjoy with your kids. And it caught me off guard because I, it made me realize, I hadn’t enjoyed, like, any of those, these times lately. And it wasn’t because they couldn’t be enjoyable. It was because it was like I had shut off a part of my awareness to the fact that it really was enjoyable and so I couldn’t receive the joy, enjoyment, from those times. And the rest of just being instead of doing. Because of how overinvolved my mental space was with the tasks and with feeling like I wasn’t doing good enough, so I wasn’t letting myself be happy about anything. And so just taking the time to just step back, and you know, a brain dump is one of the things I’m always recommending. Where you’re just writing things out that come to your head. And so, what are the things that really ought to be enjoyable with my family, and it required turning off the constant inner narrator loop of this isn’t good enough, this isn’t what I wanted it to be, there’s still the laundry, there’s still the this, that, and the other thing going on. You have to step back and stop the, that negative ticker tape mind and just see the people and enjoy the food or the singing as a person. And that has been a big game changer for me, in that rest doesn’t have to be always a time away or an escape. I was looking, at the time I was looking for escapes. And the joy and the rest was actually right there in front of me. I just had to accept it and recognize it and put away my anxiety and overwhelm.

Melissa: there’s a quote from Sarah Mackenzie’s Teaching from Rest that I remember revisiting this summer, when I did that with the Scholé Sisters’ read through of it, where she said: what if, instead of trying to make the most of our time, we worked harder at savoring it. And I’ve always loved the word savor. But I feel like that’s the essence of what you’re saying. Like, it is right in front of us, but we need to savor it. So, yeah, really… really helpful reminders. It is. It’s right in front of us. So how, I feel like this is… You’ve already touched on this a little bit but how do you as a specific woman, a specific mother, how do you pursue rest in your home, in your family culture? As an individual, but they also, how do you encourage rest in your family?

Mystie: I think one of the things is, we’re pretty careful with our schedule, and we don’t do a lot of running to and fro, and we’re not involved in a lot of different things. You know, sometimes the kids do need times with friends and community and activities, but it’s really easy to overload those so that as a family we don’t have time to have a meal together or it’s just one thing or another, and everyone’s passing each other. It starts happening just naturally with older kids, because now I have two older teens with drivers’ licenses and jobs. And you know, we don’t see them much. So that’s fine for the stage of life that they’re at, but it reminds me to be careful with the younger kids’ time that they have time to just sit and read or draw or ride their bikes out on the road with friends. And those kind of refreshing activities that don’t involve a lot of hurry and scurry, I guess. And making time for family meals together without phones at the table. Or even just… the big one for me is, when we do, do have, when we do have our Morning Time, putting away my phone during it so that my mind is actually engaged in what we’re doing and able to take the singing and the prayer and the Scripture as a source of encouragement and enjoyment in the morning instead of it being just one more thing on my list that we’re doing but I’m also thinking about what’s coming later, you know, this, that, and the other thing. It’s really, you know, looking at that whole day and the week as a whole, and trying to balance that making sure that the kids are each getting what they need while not going crazy as a family.

Melissa: how do you purpose to set aside the Lord’s Day as a day of rest?

Mystie: yeah, that’s been a big growing space for me in the last few years, just trying to figure out that question. Because it seemed like a lot of the advice for making the Lord’s Day a day of rest seemed to come from men who didn’t understand homemaking. [laughter] Because it’s like, well, just don’t work… I mean, we do need food, and we do need all these other things, they are, that’s like your ox in the ditch. But then, that’s my whole week. Like, so? How is this a thing? [laughter] And I really have come to a place where I do enjoy the Lord’s Day as a day of rest even when I have to make food and get the kids together and in the care on time and to church… because I make it a point to not move my own agenda forward on that day. That’s kind of become my reference point for it being a day of rest. It means I’m not trying to get ahead. I’m not making a to do list. What needs to be done, we do. And I don’t let myself have a bad attitude about it. And that makes it restful. It’s the bad attitude that makes it not restful. And that has been a big help for me, is just thinking about it in terms of letting my agenda go, and you know, usually we get together with friends or something, but I also sometimes – because we’re getting together with friends – have to clean the kitchen or sometimes have to make food. But it’s for the fellowship and it’s for enjoying as a family and it’s not because I have this plan that I am making happen.

Melissa: now, I know, Jenn already asked about a resource for encouraging the enculturation, that paideia, in your home – and so I think the answer of a psalter/hymnal or something from church couldn’t overlap here. Bit what is a resource or an idea for pursuing that rest in the Lord as we labor for the kingdom of God? And you’ve already given some really good glimpses of how you incorporate that. But are there, are there any other last thoughts that you have on that subject?

Mystie: well, I think going to church on Sunday and letting your mind and heart be engaged there, and reading the Bible every day on your own and then also with your children somehow – those are the cornerstones. Like, no other… every other resource has to come after those, and then I know, one thing I have noticed more and more lately is that the homeschool moms of my mom’s generation all do take naps, and did take naps. And I am a bad napper. [laughter]

Jenn: it doesn’t further your agenda!

Mystie: no, it doesn’t! And I have a hard time turning off my mind!

Jenn: I get it, yeah! [laughter]

Mystie: and so I’ve been thinking about the a lot lately. The ability to take a nap, even if it’s just a twenty minute downtime in dark and, you know, my kids are old enough now that if I close the door, they can not bother me for twenty minutes. But how that is a giving up of the agenda and the feeling of, like, I have to be all that and supermom and do all the things. It’s an act of trust and faith sometimes to take a nap, and so it’s not lazy. It can be a spiritual exercise of faith.

Melissa: it’s so encouraging to hear, you know, from the perspective of, yes, we need to fill our souls, we need to be in the Word, we need to prioritize those things – but also, I mean, the Word, the psalms are full of references to physical rest and how the Lord uses that to nurture our bodies and our souls. And that’s something that we can receive from Him, and I think, you know, you mentioned, Mystie, putting a hedge around your family’s time, and that’s a gift that we can also give to our children then. To say, you get to have this space of rest. And my kids don’t always appreciate it at a gift. [laughter] Sometimes it’s, you know, I have to lay down? Usually, you know, if I let them have a book, it’s always good news then. But it is, it’s a gift we receive from the Lord and we can then pass that on to our children. I think also a little plug there for the Bible Reading Challenge–that’s something that Paideia Northwest and Paideia Southeast, that’s something we love and we have as a habit and we like to share that. It’s restful. It’s that daily nourishment and, you know, we’re talking about the, the Living Water and the Bread of Life. Man does not live by bread alone, but it’s the Bread of Life and the Living Water, and that’s what gives us that inner spiritual nourishment. So really, really good reminders there. So a final question before we head off is, what have you been reading lately that specifically has brought the blessing of that godly culture, godly nourishment to your soul?

Mystie: right now one of the books I’m reading is C.S. Lewis’ God in the Dock, which is a collection of essays. So that’s always a nice kind of a book to have in the rotation because you don’t have to keep the thread through a long book. It’s like each chapter stands alone. And I wasn’t, I mean I wasn’t going into it thinking, that’s the book that’s going to be a paideia type of book, but C.S. Lewis is so good at identifying the spiritual problems in culture and in questions, and a lot of the cultural and political issues that we see around us today, you know, in a way that’s a part of our paideia. Like, it does, whether we like it or not, the society that we’re in is a part of our surroundings. So our paideia has to address it, and living in that in a godly way.

Melissa: yeah

Mystie: and reading C.S. Lewis and God in the Dock – he’s addressing these cultural, you know, atheistic or other ungodly cultural assumptions and questions, in such a clear way, and it helps me right now to see that some of the problems we see in the world around us today have been a long time coming. Like, they’re not just, where did that come from? C.S. Lewis saw all of this coming and was answering them in his day and we can continue those… there are good answers, and there is a right Christian response to living in the world that has its issues today. So that’s kind of where my mind of paideia thoughts have been lately. Encouraged by C.S. Lewis.

Melissa: yeah, always timely. Always good.

Jenn: yes.

Melissa: well, Mystie, I’m really grateful you took the time to join us for a short conversation today, and… you know, Jenn won’t be here for our conference on Rest next month, but I will get to see you and I’m looking forward to hearing your practical applications for how to pursue and apply that rest and not give in to overwhelm, which we can so easily fall into. So thank you for taking the time to be with us. And, Jenn, it was great to catch up with you today

Jenn: yes, always. Good to chat, thank you!

Mystie: thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Jenn.

Melissa: thank you so much, ladies. We’ll talk again soon.

Paideia Conversations, Ep. 4

This conversation between Melissa Cummings from Paideia Northwest and Kristen Kill, author of Finding Selah, is a contemplation of beauty, Christian culture, and making space in the midst of busy life to purposely rest in the Lord. If you are anticipating the upcoming Rest conference with Paideia Northwest, this ought to really whet your appetite. To the Kingdom!

Links to Resources Mentioned

Finding Selah by Kristen Kill

Pollyanna with Hayley Mills

Westminster Shorter Catechism

Songs for Saplings

Our 24 Family Ways by Clay and Sally Clarkson

Jesus Storybook Bible

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

The Gospel Comes with a Housekey by Rosaria Butterfield

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton

Rewilding Motherhood by Shannon Evans

This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson

Episode Transcript

Melissa: okay, and joining me now is my new friend, Kristen Kill. And she’s going to be speaking to us at Paideia Northwest at our upcoming Rest conference, and we get a little peek into a conversation beforehand. So, Kristen, I’m delighted you took the time to join me today for a conversation – thank you so much!

Kristen: oh, thanks for having me! It’s really fun to get to know you ahead of meeting you in person and speaking to all these wonderful women.

Melissa: yes! So, could you just introduce yourself, your family, your background and your current work? Just all the things.

Kristen: sure! Yeah, you bet. Okay, so. I’m Kristen Kill, and I live in Portland, Oregon. Before we lived here, we – well, we’ve lived all over the place, but before we lived in Portland, we raised our kids for about seven years in Manhattan. I have five kids now, our last was born two weeks after we moved to Portland, so that’s a whole story. But my oldest is a senior in college, she’s twenty. And then I have a daughter who’s a senior in high school, who is almost eighteen. And then I have a fifteen year old son who’s a sophomore and a thirteen year old daughter that is an eighth grader, and then our little guy who just turned five. So we’re kind of all over the place with kiddos. My husband and I have been married twenty-two years…

Melissa: praise the Lord!

Kristen: which is just crazy, it’s so fun! And it really does get better and better. We got married really young. Well, not so young: twenty and twenty-one. It felt… it feels young now that I have a twenty year old. [laughter]

Melissa: of course, right? [laughter]

Kristen: yeah, she’s like, sorry guys, I’m not on the same path. [laughter] We’re like, step it up, you’re behind! We’re always giving her a hard time, we’re always making jokes: she really is not in that place right now. So we are, we’ve been married a long time. Our families have known each other, our great grandmothers worked together in the same town – it’s so bizarre. And so it’s really, really sweet. All of our family’s in the same town in Wenatchee and Cashmere, Washington, which are not far from where the Paideia Northwest conference is. And that was one of the reasons we moved back to Portland, to be able to be in driving distance of our families, and back in the Pacific Northwest after almost a decade away. Let’s see. I am an author. So I’ve written a book that came out with Zondervan in 2018 called Finding Selah, and a lot of what I’m sharing about at the conference is from that book. It’s on rest, and it’s about finding rest kind of right in the middle of things, not as an end of something that we work towards and then we get to take a break. But what it looks like to experience the rest of God in the rhythm of our real life. And what it looks like to abide in Him. And so I’m really excited to talk about that. I have taken off a couple of years from professional writing and speaking, really, to study creative writing at Oxford University in the UK. And so I just began on my second year in a program there that I’m loving! And so that’s really where all my time and energy is going. I say yes to speaking things and little things are going on locally, and then things that I just feel really called to, like this conference! Which is so exciting for me to be able to do something in my region that’s accessible right now, and share about this thing that I haven’t been able to share about in a little while. So I’m kind of immersed in literary critique and poetry and drama; right now I’m in the middle of a six week course on short story. And I’m just absolutely floored, getting to study writing and story in this context academically, and seeing the way that God’s story has been crafted for us by the Lord, and the way that all story ties to His story. Like, it’s phenomenal to be able to even learn about connecting with readers and seeing so much of what we know to be true of the Gospel and how God connects to us in a lot of these principles. But I’m really, really finding my heart in poetry, and so I think that my next book will be about poetry in the life of the church.

Melissa: oh, I can’t wait for that!

Kristen: I’m so thrilled! It actually has been until really the last 150 years or so such an integral part of our spiritual formation and expression of our hearts before the Lord, and in church history more of a formal way. And so I think that I’m going to probably end up doing a Master’s thesis on that and being able to research a little bit about tying in church history and literature and poetry and then… and I’m really hopeful to be able to write and share about what that looks like in my next book, especially because I think that in the United States in particular we’re just having such a crisis of beauty. And to be able to write and understand our church history through the lens of a poetic heart and poetic speech I think just will increase our wonder that we have before God. And I think that that’s something that we really need right now in our culture and in our churches.

Melissa: absolutely.

Kristen: so year, it’s still a little bit away because I still have a year left of this first program. But that’s where I’m at now, what occupies my days.

Melissa: wow, wow – and what does education with your kids look like right now during this season? Because I know it kind of can change year to year.

Kristen: yeah, it can. So we have our kids – one of them is at a private Christian high school, and we kind of have taken the view of, like, we’ve homeschooled everyone up until like that middle school high school time, and we start looking for co ops or outside classes or kind of partner programs that they can do that allow them to have some time with their peers, some time to be exposed to like classroom settings and tests which have not always been a piece of our life at home. Just some things that are a little bit more traditional as we prepare to launch them. And then for a couple of them, that has meant going to, like, partner programs or, like, this private Christian school. So I have one obviously in college, she homeschooled all the way through. And then this other at a private school. Our other kids are at a private Christian classical school that is, that just partners quite a lot with parents. And then our little guy is doing homeschool with us at home as well, and then does like a co op preschool where the parents are there really every day doing things together with them…

Melissa: you have a lot of different irons in that educational fire.

Kristen: it is really crazy, yeah! So they’re… it’s a weird thing. I don’t know if I would have ever thought that this would happen as my kids grew. But their education really has – the older ones especially, because you know, eighth grade and up, a lot of, and pretty much what they’re doing is really independent with the courses and the classes that they take part in. I don’t think that I ever thought that my kids would, like, know how to read, let alone handle so much independently, but they really have, and we’ve really turned over quite a bit for the high school kids over to tutors, and get to take on more of a coaching role and a supportive role. And they’ve been able to focus on areas and passions that they have, and it’s been so beautiful. I love, I loved kind of crossing that boundary with them where we really, I feel like I just get to be right alongside and coach, and it’s been really really great for this stage of their discipleship as well. So yeah, it’s – we’re kind of all over, doing all kinds of different things.

Melissa: that’s beautiful though. It’s like a mosaic.

Kristen: it is! It’s a mosaic. An educational mosaic. And a lot of driving! [laughter] But it’s so good, and it’s so sweet. I don’t know, I don’t know that I could ever be satisfied not having everything for our kids so tailored. Like, it’s just been such a gift. So to see the…

Melissa: to educate them as individuals, is that what you mean?

Kristen: yes. Yeah. And to see the fruit of that in them. To be able to say yes to things that they care deeply about, and to see them each kind of take up a mantle in areas of giftedness that they have or areas of interest that they want to explore. I just can’t think of any other time in life where they’re gonna have the freedom to do that, and so to be able to watch that and see things come alive for them as they go about that has just been really rich and really beautiful, so yeah, we’re bopping around all day long over here. But it’s, but it’s really sweet.

Melissa: so you mentioned, obviously, you mentioned the word education. Then you also mentioned the word discipleship…

Kristen: yes!

Melissa: so then that kind of leads me right into that question of paideia.

Kristen: yeah!

Melissa: so what does that word mean to you? Is it new to you? Is this a word that… yeah, like, I love this word, but I’ve been told I’m a little it geeky about that. So-

Kristen: I love that you love it! I maybe had to google it. [laughter] And be sure that I understood it in its context. And, you know I asked you about this before we recorded today. I had been familiar with the word because there is another classical partnering, partnership homeschool program here in Portland that is called Paideia. And so I had known some about its roots and its connection to the word education and its, you know, the way that it’s used in the Greek in the New Testament. But in talking to you about it, and in seeing a lot of, even the posts that you have on the Paideia Instagram account, this idea of enculturation is one that I just love, and I think I’ve been using the heart of paideia without knowing the word for a really long time. And I think I would’ve, I think it does come down to discipleship. It’s thinking about discipleship of the whole person, you know, looking at who God has made them to be, like, who our family is, where we’re called to live, like, the things that we’re passionate about just in who we are in the culture of our home. Which a lot of times of course is always fueled by Mom and Dad. We say often, if we’re called to this then you’re also called to this. You know. If we have a baby when you’re in high school, you’re called to experience what this is all gonna look like, as a teenager in our home, etc etc. But there’s this idea of your family culture, of like who you are and also developing and uncovering, like, the work that God has you to do in the world. But that pouring in and also uncovering of a person is really beautiful, and I just think it’s so… we were talking a little bit before we started recording as well, about this idea that it’s so easy to kind of, as parents especially if you have lots of children or are homeschooling or are working or have whatever responsibilities are happening in your life that are overwhelming, it’s so easy to start box-checking. Like, okay, we did math today, okay we did this today, okay we did this- like, we’re doing good. Or to start, you know, just looking at life in sort of a flat way like that. Like this two dimensional life instead of having this vision for something that is so much bigger, that is so hopeful, that’s so rich. And so I think to be able to consider, like, that the way that you’re opening up and pouring into the soul of a person in the math lesson, in the way that you set a dinner table, in the way that you help them learn how to greet someone or smile when they’re out at the grocery store, or share with a friend- like, all of the beauty that is being created in your home and all the little habits that are being created. As well as the appetites that are being formed, in literature, in film, in art. It’s these deposits into our children that let them feel that they’re so part of something, giving them a sense of self, but giving them a sense of who God is, and opening up their divine imagination. But there’s this piece of uncovering, too, in that, in being able to – I guess that’s what I would say in terms of developing a divine imagination about all of those things, that they’re connecting with the heart of God through academics, through the things that they’re learning, through all the things that they’re being exposed to in your home, and that.. and even just letting them be free to be able to interact with all of those things and learn who God has made them to be. Our kids are, all five of them, are so different. Which is funny. You kind of think after like three kids, you’re like, okay, we’ve got like some variety here. [laughter] We’re just gonna go back like, it’s an A-B pattern or something, but they’re all like so different, and yet there are these things that like us, that are like, these are the Kill family things. These are the ways of our family. These are the things we love, these are the traditions we hold, this is the way that we interact with one another, this is the way we interact with the world, this is the way we see things. Like, you’re developing a grid and a lens for life as you disciple a person, and it, it’s pretty great, like, to see adult kids now in our family… I mean, the hardest part is that you basically get to raise kids who love all the same things that you love- or don’t, and make fun of you for it! [laughter] But they really do typically. My kids are still kind of funny about certain music and tv shows or, like, movies that I loved and I thought that they would just adore. I thought they would just adore Pollyanna, and they just tell me I’m so dorky.

Melissa: oh that’s so funny!

Kristen: I’m like, are they even my children? I don’t even know. [laughter] It’s so funny, but there are certain things like that that they’ll sit through and they love, and then they’re like, do you want to watch that, Mom? I know. And I love that old Hayley Mills movie, you know. And they, and I think they secretly love it, but they just love to moan about it when they’re teens.

Melissa: right.

Kristen: and yet it’s like this thing that we do. And it’s just really fun to raise kids who have similar appetites and kind of are your best friends, because they love doing all the things you love, and then you have to send them off somewhere… which is absolutely horrible. And but it’s yeah, it’s just such a gift, just to share so… like, you really do kind of raise best friends, like, by the time that they’re adults. It’s so fun!

Melissa: oh amen, my mom is still my best friend.

Kristen: your mom is what?

Melissa: my best friend.

Kristen: I love that.

Melissa: which is one reason we live next door to my parents.

Kristen: oh, I love it. See? That’s the dream. We need to buy a place where there’s enough property for the kids to build a house next door. That would be perfect. We live in the middle of a really busy city, but you know, the dream is still alive.

Melissa: the dream is still there, yeah.

Kristen: if anything goes up for sale around us, we’ll think about investments.

Melissa: there you go.

Kristen: but it really is true, because you’re shaping their appetites with all the things you introduce to them. You know, the way that they view the world, the way they understand the things of God, but also all the fun things. All the cinnamon rolls and favorite recipes and things that you do in the fall, and it creates a culture and a team that is just such a stabilizing force for, not only your children, but for you. You know, it’s so fun to get to kind of have your team that, you know, love all the same things. And, like I said, it’s not all the time that they love all the same things. But there’s things that are just built into the warp and woof of your life that are so special.

Melissa: you’ve said habits, and you’ve said appetites.

Kristen: oh, okay.

Melissa: and I love those words. Those are so good, because we all have habits and we all have appetites.

Kristen: yeah, right.

Melissa: but training them and honing them, turning them toward things that are communal or lovely, praiseworthy… yeah, so good.

Kristen: right. Yeah, that’s hard! Because the whole, I mean… if you get on… I mean, you go to the library and there’s a lot of, what did Charlotte Mason call it?

Melissa: twaddle! [laughter]

Kristen: twaddle. There’s a lot of twaddle out there. There’s a lot of twaddle in terms of things that you may consume: art, music, books, movies. And so being able to discern what is beautiful and introducing that to your children and having them sort of, like, choose from a feast of beautiful literature, and a feast of beautiful art, and you know, even taking the time to… we’ve been remodeling our kitchen, so it’s been mayhem. And we’ve had our kitchen in our… we had to be out of our house for six weeks, and when we came back, since, I don’t know, mid-August, we’ve been in our laundry room as the kitchen. Now we can’t, we don’t have our kitchen fully back, but we have it back enough that we can cook in there even though there’s no oven. We have like a countertop oven. It’s a whole situation with these cargo ships that are all over the place right now! But I laid out appetizers the other night before, while I was cooking dinner. And it was just like hummus with vegetables on top, like, and a bunch of pita bread and some fun little things just for the kids to nibble on. And my thirteen year old goes, are we having people over? And I was like, nope, this is just dinner. You know? And it was, her eyes just lit up. And it took thirty seconds longer to put out a beautiful serving dish and light a candle and have them be welcomed in and be hosted, you know, by us for a meal. Which, I think, in the absence of that, we’re just very aware of the hunger that we have (no pun intended) for that kind of dinner together. But it’s sort of like, those small choices that you make in the way that you lay out a feast for your family in whatever it may be, the books that you read, the music that you listen to, you know- all of my kids, my five year old has been obsessed with Vivaldi since he was three. Like, he just loves Vivaldi! Like he thinks just, kids that are, you know, really into TikTok and all these fun music things, like, are listening to that beat drop, you know, in rap music and everything else? Vivaldi is the original beat drop! [laughter] He just had that, and then, so the kids are able to see that and go, oh my gosh, this is so cool! This is so good. But there’s this, I mean, when they hear something rich and beautiful and true, it’s almost transcendent in terms of opening up their world to the Lord, I think, and to all the gifts that He’s given. And it’s that simple, as turning on something beautiful to listen to or… and it doesn’t always have to be Classical music. We love rap music. But it could be, you know, or lighting a candle before dinner so that they have a sense of home and a sense of place, and that they begin to desire beauty and connect that with your heart for them, connect that with home and connect it with the Lord. And it changes, like, if they’ve been raised in an environment where they have been loved and accepted and cared for and heard, and where there is so much beauty and connection happening around them, like I really think that is probably the greatest safeguard in when we send them out into the world and the kinds of relationships that they have and the places that they want to inhabit. Because they will instantly recognize something different in people who are not listening, who are not respecting, who are not safe. And places that they occupy that aren’t like that. And not everything has to be over the top, but I think there is really a security in that, in the way that we shape the things that they love and the things that feel right and true to them, that tie into a broader picture of eternity and into the heart of God. So it’s a really sweet privilege to get to introduce them to things. And it also really nurtures your own soul as a mom, because you get to feast on all the delights of God as well! And yeah, it’s just, it’s a beautiful way to pour into your own soul in the midst of days that can get harried.

Melissa: yeah, yeah! So, you know, you mentioned obviously books and movies and food and candles and music, all of these atmospheric and engaging things. What is something recently, you know, with, I don’t know, a child or as a family- that you’ve noticed sort of that philosophical idea of a paideia reaching the practical, seeing it lived out and enfleshed, fattened up?

Kristen: oh that’s a really great, that’s a really really great question. I think that it’s actually been interesting with our five year old, because we have started, and this is one of my resources I really want to share with your listeners too- he’s at the age where he, we’ve traditionally started introducing our kids like to the Westminster Shorter Catechism at this age, and a lot of that is just rote memorization. We sing a lot of it and Songs for Saplings is one of my very favorite resources! It’s actually created by some of our closest friends, James and Dana Dirksen, and I’m actually on the board of the nonprofit for Songs for Saplings. So there’s a plug. But I love it! And I’ve loved it for forever, even before we knew them. And Dana’s a musician, and she sings biblical truth. And so we’ve had that playing in our car, we have it playing at bedtime, we’ll have it playing in the background while Harris is playing so that Scripture is just pouring into his heart. And he is at the point now where we’re driving in the car and he’ll look somewhere and have a question about eternity, have a question about… he asked another parent in our preschool co op, he said, do you know Jesus? And they said, oh yes, I know Jesus. And he goes, or no, he said, do you know about Jesus, I think is what he said. And then he said, but do you trust Jesus and love Jesus? And I thought, that is a huge concept for him to understand the difference between knowing about Jesus and trusting Him with your life and loving Him. And it’s like all these truths about who God is and about, you know, truths about who he is before God, are turning into the conversations that he is prompting and initiating with us and with other people. And it’s really interesting because, you know, you just kind of have these things on in the background, and we do talk about them, but not, I mean, he just turned five two weeks ago. So it’s, it’s like, we’re talking about them once or twice a week, really intentionally, and like, let’s sing those songs together and remember these truths about God. But to see him begin to apply that to his own heart and life, to be able to ask questions that are really rich theological questions has kind of blown me away actually. And they’re insightful, and it’s just like, okay this truth about who God is and this truth in His Word that has been pouring into his heart is not returning void. The Holy Spirit is doing something in him that we get to watch and participate in. And I would say, too, a big piece of that that has been important for us is to make sure that there’s space and room for those conversations. We really have to be intentional with everything with five kids, which only four are at home. But in terms of just making room to talk, making room for our kids to ask questions, to know when they can connect, to know that we’re unencumbered by other things and want to receive them and be welcoming to them and the questions that they have and the conversations that they want to have. But it’s been really cool to see something like that that we’ve presented begin to take real root in his life.

Melissa: yeah. It just really drives home what Jesus said about faith like a child.

Kristen: yes.

Melissa: you know, it’s that unencumbered wonder of, yeah, this child who is embracing and questioning and wanting to learn and wanting to grow…

Kristen: yes! And that that’s an innate part of who God made them to be. That there is a natural inclination to play and to explore and to be engaged in wonder and beauty already in our kids that God has placed there. And so we get to be kind of… Sally Clarkson always says, conductors of beauty. And I would say, too, like conductors of all the things that are going on in your home. If you almost, like, imagine all the beauty, all the people, all the things that are a part of that paideia in your home as like musical notes… like, you’re the conductor who gets to make sure that all these things are coming together and then… really, God is the Conductor of all of these things that are happening… but to be able to see, kind of, and cultivate what all of those pieces look like and just see fruit and see what bubbles to the top for each of your family members or for yourself, the things that they’re interested in or that they want to look at and ponder and bring to you is just really, really beautiful. So, yeah.

Melissa: so you mentioned the Songs for Saplings, are there other things that come to mind when talking about something that you would recommend to those who are raising their children in a specifically Christian culture and home?

Kristen: yeah! I just mentioned Sally Clarkson. She and her husband Clay have written a book called Our 24 Family Ways, and I have used that with all of our kids. So probably, oh I don’t know, because of the spread of our kids, there’s probably been like four or five distinct seasons where we pull it out and we’ll, it’s twenty-four ways, and we’ll go through one way a week. And it has, you know, a Bible story, it has verses to memorize. We actually have photocopied – Clay gave me this idea, actually – to kind of photocopy and then cut out these strips in the way that the book is laid out, because it’s like a two page spread for one, you know, Way 24, or whatever. And we’ll slice them up and be able to pull out a verse or a story or something to read. There’s one for every day of the week. And we’ll put them in a big vase on the kitchen table so that during dinner we pull one out and then pull out the Bible, and then read about the Way in that context in that Bible study. So it’s lent itself really well to family devotions for the kids, but it’s been about things like… one of the Ways is that, you know, we really respect one another in our speech, or we, you know like, it’s all kind of the character training that you really want to pour into your kids, but it’s done in a way that you can discover together. Like we’re hard workers. And they’re longer. It’s like a whole sentence. But it addresses things like, you know, working together, having a joyful attitude, welcoming others in. You know, the ways that are our posture of heart before the Lord and before each other. And so it’s been neat to kind of explore those Ways together and to feel like we’re part of a team together. So for primary, like, character training, that’s been really big. And it’s been fun as the older kids, like, I guess we’ve done it probably three times. We’re about to do it again, because Harris is just at the right age now. And the older kids in the past have done it, like, knowing those Ways and being able to talk about them with the younger kids. That’s such a huge piece too, if you have a spread like mine, where your older kids are able to point out and create word pictures for the little ones about the different things that you want to teach. We also are big Jesus Storybook Bible lovers, as is everyone I’m sure. And then there is, like, anything that is… you know, Scripture Lullabies or like Songs for Saplings that we can have in our car or in our home that just adds to hearing God’s Word in a beautiful way, and pouring it into our hearts is a big deal. And then probably just countless books that we’ve read that all shape who we are and that we love so much and it’s, I mean, a list of hundreds I think. That’s one of my favorite parts about having homeschooled my kids. And now even in the older kids, I try to always have a read aloud going, and in seasons where they’re like, Mom, I don’t have time to sit here, then I just make sure we have something life-giving in the car. Because it’s such a communal kind of attentiveness there, and it creates so many conversations later. And it’s just delightful to have something more fun, I guess, fun reading or inspirational reading that is separate from their schoolwork that we’re doing together that they look forward to and enjoy. And there’s just so much about reading aloud that’s so important even for our teenagers. So we incorporate a lot of that. And there’s certain books that are for certain seasons, like, have you ever read Understood Betsy?

Melissa: yes!

Kristen: so I always think that is like the best book for like a third grade girl that’s starting to like not want to do chores [laughter] or needs some independence. Like, okay, you are like moving into a season. It just is like clockwork in third grade. There’s something about it.

Melissa: I read that with my daughter right around her eighth birthday. [laughter]

Kristen: yeah, it’s perfect! And it’s like, okay, we… I need to help you, like, have a sense of what you’re actually capable of and grow in your capacity. And it’s the perfect book for that. We just love it. I have kind of an ongoing list of books like that, that I’m like, ooh it’s time for this. And pull out often.

Melissa: I would like a glance at that book, or at that list! That sounds fantastic!

Kristen: it’s kind of mostly in my head. But it’s, it’s one of those things. Or like, you know, if you have a first grader who doesn’t want to take a bath, I always love Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Like I love doing as much as I can with humor and joking with my kids and just sympathizing and connecting with them. And sometimes books can do that. They can allow us to discover alongside and laugh…

Melissa: yeah, it’s a communal experience, but then you can also develop those inside jokes.

Kristen: yeah, it is… and then… yes, so many inside jokes! And so there’s things like that that are just special to read. When my older four kids were in a season of quarrelling, I read The Railway Children…

Melissa: oh!

Kristen: which I just love. And it’s about these four children whose father is like falsely imprisoned in English. I don’t even know, was it the eighteen hundreds or early nineteen hundreds?

Melissa: right around the turn of the centry?

Kristen: yeah, and they end up having to go to the countryside with their mother who is overburdened, trying to write a book to save them economically, and they end up having all these adventures in the countryside and waving to people on a train and getting kind of excited about the railway that’s near them, and all these different events happen. But they really have to learn fortitude together and bond together and be a team together that works together, that cares for each other. It’s four children, so they… or maybe it’s only three children… anyway, they have a younger sibling that they kind of have to watch out for and care for, and it’s just really beautiful. Like, they can’t, your kids kind of can’t stay mad at each other or not have a vision for teaming up and conquering the world together after they read that book. And so there’s things like that that I just kind of have in the back of my mind that are tied to the things that will spark up or, you know, that I see that need attention in their character. And that’s kind of been my secret. I don’t know if… I have a lot of other little things but that’s probably the main one, where I say okay, it’s time for this!

Melissa: that’s fantastic.

Kristen: yeah!

Melissa: okay, so one thing that I know you have spent a lot of time pondering and researching and writing about and sharing is that idea of pause and rest and selah. I’ve read your book a couple of times and then I listened to the audiobook at least once through…

Kristen: oh, thank you!

Melissa: I just, I’m so… I find so much in there where I’m just nodding my head and going, yes, yes! Underlining all the things.

Kristen: yeah.

Melissa: so how do you see rest or pause or selah in motherhood? Where it’s so easy to not have a pause in a day or in a routine.

Kristen: yeah, and it’s huge. And I think that that’s kind of what I was saying when I was introducing myself and saying hello, is that the idea that rest is something that only happens, you know, at the end of something. Like when we finish a task you get to rest. As though it’s a reward, and not the place where we begin. If we don’t, you know, it’s interesting in the context now after the Resurrection of Christ, we begin the week on the Sabbath. We’re not… we get to begin in a place of rest and abiding so that we’re trusting God in all the work that He has given us to do. And we’re working from that place of abiding in Him instead of this, we get to fall apart now because we have a bunch of output and we’re worthy of rest now. That was a really big transformational shift for me. To realize that this was the place that God wanted me to begin, was in Him, and abiding in Him, and allowing the Holy Spirit to breathe into everything that I was doing instead of going on my own steam and striving and then crumbling and needing rest because I was falling apart. So being able to kind of switch that perspective can be really helpful. The idea of selah, for me, came when I was reading the psalms and saw that this word selah happens, you know, it kind of pops in and out. Sometimes it’s at the end of an entire psalm, and oftentimes it’s right in the middle. And if you’ll notice, there’s even a pattern within the psalms, not always but often, where it’s… there’s this pouring out to the Lord about anguish, about, you know there’s lots of psalms of lament, there’s… there are psalms of ascent as well. And there’s this pouring out with vulnerability to the Lord, and then there’s a selah, this rest. It actually means rest or interlude. And then being able to, often, see that there was like this bolstering of the psalmist after the rest. Like, the circumstances hadn’t changed, you know, you look at the psalms of David. He’s still in hiding, nothing’s different. But he has a renewed sense of confidence in the Lord after this pause, and it’s musical, it’s metaphorical, right? But there is something there to be able to say, what does it look like in my middle minutes, as Sarah Hagerty always says, to be able to engage in the rest of God right now when I need Him most, when I’m pouring out my heart vulnerably, when I’m being honest with how weak I feel and how spread thin I am? And to experience His rest and renewal in this moment right now, to go forth afterwards with a renewed sense of hope and trust and equipping. And so I started to explore what that looked like, and it began a little bit for me with looking… the book is kind of separated into multiple, like, three real themes. The first is about really being honest with God about the things that you’re carrying. You know, not, like looking at the vulnerability of the language of the psalms and recognizing that God can handle it when you tell Him that you’re burnt out. God can handle it when you talk to Him about what you’re carrying that feels so big, the areas where you’re angry, like, this is sort of the heart of confession. That we are not holding on to these emotions and circumstances and carrying the world on our shoulders. But we’re bringing that to Him and He’s meeting us in that. And the second part is kind of looking at areas where we seek rest that are not of Christ. So there’s so many things that we all, you know, have as idols in our lives. Sometimes it’s even looking back or looking forward towards what will be if I get all of these things done if I’m productive or what I want my life to be, what we’re working for, toward, or sometimes looking back at, everything used to be perfect, I’m… personally, I’m sentimental, so that’s a shift that I usually have is looking backwards and kind of wondering if I can still trust God. Or looking at all the things that we think will fill us that are not Him. And then the last part is kind of looking at what is true rest, and how do we see true rest in the Person of Christ and the way that God has established it and ordained it in our lives. And actually, if true rest is found in Christ alone, then it’s not something that is just beautiful, it’s not something that is just delightful for us, but it’s actually a Person that we are subject to. And so being able to engage in the lordship of Christ is something that we are obeying, you know, we’re obeying laying our lives down and surrendering them to Him. And so it’s kind of, opens up, yeah, what it looks like to follow the Lord in those things and in our own… I guess, we kind of, in our own uncovering of, why am I so harried in my heart? You know, when I think for a lot of us, it’s because we’re not honest about where we really are with the Lord. We struggle with confession before God and before others. A lot of us are looking for rest in places that are hollow, that we think are going to fill us but actually like fill us with air. My editor actually added a line in my book that I loved and I kept, and she said, it’s almost like having Coke and like having a big belch when you think you’re full, but it’s actually just like this fizzy false sense of being full. And then I think also examining the way that we are obedient to Christ, and see rest and beauty and fullness and all things in who He is and our choice to be subject to Him. So it’s a big question, but I think that there are ways that we can, in small things in our lives, even in the small minutes that we have that feel exhausting, where we feel like I need rest, I crave this. What those notions really tell us, you know, those inklings, those feelings, those triggers, for lack of a better word, I think bring up is our need for Jesus. And so being able to rightly recognize that this feeling I have of needing X, Y, or Z, of needing time alone, of needing a day to myself, of needing this type of meal or this type of home or this type… things to be like they used to be, or hope for things to be this way in the future. Those are all like windows into the areas that God wants to meet in us, and if we start to name them that way and find satisfaction in God alone, then I think everything begins to really shift and change. So I would say it almost begins with being willing to take those pauses and those moments in the middle of our day, and consider the way that God wants to meet us. So anyway, I was just thinking, if you have those times during the day, the things that you feel like you’re drawn to or that you need, like, realizing that those are all sort of shadows of what you need in Christ and the way that He wants to meet you. And so being able to see the gifts that God has given in the things that we were talking about before that build beauty and appetites and culture in our children as gifts of God, delights of God, for your heart and your personality… that those things matter to the Lord! You know, He’s given us the taste of food, He’s given us candlelight, He’s given us sunsets and hikes and walks and all of these delights to fill us. But not to fill us alone. To point us to true beauty. And we can’t fully experience deep soul rest until we see that He is our true beauty and our true rest.

Melissa: yes. So what are some practical ways that you have found, or that you would encourage people to pursue, in that pursuit of rest, of finding our rest in the Lord?

Kristen: yeah, that’s huge. I think there, for me, it really helps to have time in my day that I pause and stop and pray. And that I build into my day. You know, have you heard of the Atomic Habits where you’re like habit stacking?

Melissa: mhmm!

Kristen: so you already have to give your kids an afternoon snack. Why not make it tea? And make it beautiful and have little teacups that pop out and something delightful. And I don’t really make scones lately, I just buy these really delicious ones at Trader Joe’s [laughter], and I pull those out. Or pull out a fun cookie or whatever it might be. And enjoy that in the afternoon and be… and am able to just stop and thank God for those moments. I light candles often. All the things I learned about having to take these pauses through the day are totally from Sally Clarkson. She says all the time, like, wise women copy other wise women. And I’m like, how much can I copy you? Like, how many, how much? [laughter] But I do! And it’s huge! So being able to, to know that there’s times throughout the day that I need to take a pause, like, I learned early on in having a bunch of kids home and homeschooling, that hour before dinner, like, I was going to kind of fall apart. And so taking time, like a half an hour before that, to close my eyes, to listen to music, to read a book or whatever that looked like before it got crazy made a huge difference in what I was doing later. So there’s just like wisdom of being able to say, what are the sticky parts of my day? Where do I tend to crumble and fall apart? You might need to like carry around a little notebook or have something on a notes app in your phone, and say like, where are these? I bet that there’s going to be a pattern that emerges if you look and go, oh! I’m consistently feeling like I can’t stand up anymore at 4:30 every afternoon, so how can I actually adjust the puzzle of my life so that that isn’t happening anymore? Like, do I need a nap? Do I need more sleep? Do I need to, you know, have a little caffeine and sugar in the afternoon? What does that look like for you? So there are certain things that we know about ourselves, ways that God has made us, that help us to enjoy. Like taking walks, being able to light candles. We light candles every single night. Now we’re doing electric candles because my husband has become like kind of afraid of fire, and I am trying to be okay with it, and buying way too many versions of twinkly fake candles. But it’s working and it’s fun. So we just have a time of day where we do that. And speaking of enculturation, my kids- all of them- are like, Mom, is it time to light the candles? Like when it just gets a little twilighty or it’s raining in the Pacific Northwest, we’re lighting candles all day long. But having times built in where you just get to delight and remember the gifts that God has given in the simplest of ways. Also taking time just to pray throughout the day. That’s a big one for me. Because I just need to sit in quiet, even for five minutes. So I have alarms set on my phone that have like those churchy chimes that go on, and I’m like, oh, okay, I’m just gonna take a second. And I’m gonna stop what I’m doing for five minutes and pray. And I have to do it that way because I don’t stop on my own. But that’s been helpful for me to just be like, I just need to just sit in quiet for five minutes and even the toddler can like hang with you or hang with a sibling for five minutes and it’s not gonna hurt anyone.

Melissa: praise the Lord.

Kristen: hopefully! Hopefully, depending on the ages of your kids. Or sit at your feet and do something independently for five minutes while you just sit and close your eyes and pray. That’s a big one for me. Another one is, it’s also really important what I pour in. So there are certain books that I read in the morning, like I will flip through different devotionals or a Bible study time or certain kinds of spiritual encouragement in that time of day. And then in the evening I like to, I love to read like a murder mystery or, you know, who-dun-it. And that really matters to me to be able to have time to read something delightful. I usually fall asleep with my Kindle, reading something like that, because I will fall asleep if it’s like after eight o’clock and I read anything. So it can’t be something really important. But paying attention to what I’m reading or what I’m watching and what I’m listening to, and just being intentional about it. So thinking about the ways that, you know, what I allow to fill my mind and my thought life is really, really big for me. And just something that I’ve just seen sweet fruit from. So I am looking for books that will challenge me and trying to spend time in the Word every day and even if it’s just with my kids, sometimes that’s how it goes in homeschooling if I don’t get up really early. But those times of day to be openhanded and be able – I mean, I wish everyone could see us on Zoom, but just opening my hands to receive from the Lord and to say, like, I’m here. Like, hearing Him speak, being able to thank Him for things that have already gone on in the morning, to ask Him to meet me in those things. For me, too, I am a personality that can live easily like disembodied if that makes sense. I need to be reminded of being fully present. So, when, I guess… I don’t know how you feel about the Enneagram. I’m a seven on the Enneagram. So I…

Melissa: I don’t know much about the numbers.

Kristen: okay, we might get some email hate from me saying that I know my Enneagram number. I know all about the concerns of the Enneagram, I share them, but I’m just looking for language to help. So the seven is a person that, it’s just a personality tick. I’m an ENFP on Meyers-Briggs. It’s just kind of a cheerleader, go-go-go, let’s just have fun. So when something hard happens in our day, something isn’t going well, or something painful has cropped up, it’s really, really easy for me to put that off to the side and just keep going. And almost disconnect from it, that’s what I mean.

Melissa: gotcha.

Kristen: and so for me to be able to make sure that throughout the day in small moments, that I’m really taking those things to the Lord, is a really big deal. So that I don’t just disengage from them but I remain present in them. Sometimes I need to cry about them and really feel that, instead of just casting it off to the side. And so, so yeah, just having those times throughout the day as needed but always scheduled too. So that I don’t miss them.

Melissa: yeah, I love that idea. Because, you know, they always say, oh if you run to the bathroom to, you know, lock yourself in for five minutes, a child is going to find you.

Kristen: yes!

Melissa: but if they’re used to you, sort of having a rhythm of taking space and making time for those moments…

Kristen: yeah!

Melissa: then yeah, you built that into those habits. I think that’s beautiful.

Kristen: yes, you do. And you teach them how to do it too. And as they grow, that becomes a rhythm in their own lives. Like, wow, I just had, I’m finding this math problem, this whole thing we’re doing- I mean, it’s always math for me, because I’m not a math person- but I’m finding this to be really challenging and difficult, I need to just take five minutes and just pray about this. And that becomes a natural part of the culture of your family. That your children know that God is not only interested in these giant things in the world but is interested in giving them knowledge and wisdom for something as small as what they find frustrating and unable to understand in their schoolwork.

Melissa: yes.

Kristen: and that He breathes on that, and that He cares about them in these tangible ways. And so being able to see you do that goes a really long way in our kids learning how to do that for themselves. Like, oh, Mom’s upset about something, and her response is to go and just pray. Like, that modeled is huge. And I wish that I did it perfectly, but I don’t. But it’s something I’ve tried.

Melissa: that’s sanctification.

Kristen: yeah, it’s something I’ve tried to do, and that God has used quite a lot in my life. And I don’t want to, I’m not shy about what I’m doing either. Like if we’ve hit a little bit of stickiness relationally, people are bumping up against each other, I don’t want them to think Mom disengaged and just went somewhere to get away from us. I want them to understand, like, guys, I need five minutes to take this situation to the Lord, I just need to go talk to Him about what’s going on here so I have wisdom to come back and return and do this well- please watch your little brother. Like, whatever that looks like. And I think that’s important too. Because I don’t want that to be something assumed. Like, oh Mom went and closed the door to her room and just left us every time anybody fought about something. And it’s not every time by any means, but it’s… it is, there’s just… or it’s in front of them. I don’t always leave. So that’s important too. But that habit is important. It’s not that different from, like, the Book of Hours, you know. Being able to go through like, hey, we’re eating… and those are also natural times to include your children in that, especially if you’re homeschooling. You have your kids fully a part of mealtime, like, and they’re a captive audience to be able to pray, to be able to read God’s Word, you know. Those are really natural times for those readings, those hymns, all of those things. Any time their hands can be busy with playdough or kinetic sand or Legos or food… don’t waste them.

Melissa: yeah, absolutely wise words. Wise words. I think you mentioned, you know, reading books and different types morning versus evening. What is… can you think of a title, even if this is on the spot, but can you think of a title of something that has really brought a specific blessing to your soul?

Kristen: lately?

Melissa: lately.

Kristen: lately… Oh gosh, it’s gonna sound so nerdy. I’m reading an encyclopedia on poetry. And it’s actually the Princeton… it’s literally an encyclopedia. One of my friends who lives in California, who I met on Instagram actually and then has come to visit with her family when they were passing through, she was like, I’m gonna read this with you, and she bought it, and I only had it on Kindle at the time, and she’s like, Kristen, it’s actually an encyclopedia. And I’m like, I know, I’m so sorry. And she’s like, are we just going front to back? What are we doing? And I kind of am. I’m just loving it. It’s giving context in history to different forms of poetry, different poets, themes, and just the way that it all works, like, that it’s woven into, you know, traditional history. It’s called The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. I’m also rereading Rosaria Butterfield’s The Gospel Comes with a Housekey. And I love that book. And my husband just had me start a book called The Architecture of Happiness, which is kind of all about the life of a house. We’re remodeling a huge house, and so it’s… well, it’s a huge remodel project, I should say… and so that’s been really fun to read too, kind of as we consider the soul and feel of home and what home is.

Melissa: the atmosphere of your family culture.

Kristen: yeah, totally, so those are some of the…. and that’s why I was reading Rosaria Butterfield’s book too. So those have been huge. I’m also halfway through Rewilding Motherhood. Have you heard of this? I actually have it right here.

Melissa: that is a new one to me.

Kristen: it’s by Shannon Evans. Yep, and I love it. So Shannon is a Catholic, she writes in a Catholic contemplative tradition. And it’s really, really beautiful. She’s talking about all kinds of things that are tied in to what it looks like to be… the subtitle is, Your Path to an Empowered Feminine Spirituality… so discovering spirituality in the midst of motherhood and a lot of it ties in with some of the themes of Finding Selah. But more tied in to identity and how some of that sense of who you are can be lost in this season, and why it’s so important to recover your sense of self. I don’t know if sense of self is the right word. I think she uses that term. But sense of who you are before the Lord so that you can pour back out into other people.

Melissa: your identity is in Christ.

Kristen: your identity, yes. Exactly. And not necessarily in a role. And so, how does your identity flow out of your identity in Christ into that role? But it’s wonderful. She has, like, it’s this idea of like this gardening metaphor of rewilding a place where it sort of goes fallow and then has purpose and it… oh, ha, someone’s hollering in the background… but it’s really beautiful, and the end of every chapter has incredible questions or practices, like, to be able to sit with and think about and even like sitting in silence in certain pieces.

Melissa: something to put into practice.

Kristen: yes. So I’ve really liked that. It’s hard for me to suggest books because, especially books I haven’t finished yet and I don’t know the author of, because I feel a sense of shepherding and like, I don’t know if I want to send you to places where I can guarantee they’re a perfect fit spiritually…

Melissa: right.

Kristen: so this is written from a Catholic contemplative one, so keep that in mind. But there’s a lot of really great nuggets there. Maybe a book more for, well, I think it’s wonderful actually. But probably for more of a discerning believer. Just theologically, I’m not, I can’t say yet because I’m not done with it yet. This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson is also absolutely lovely. I read that, actually over a year ago because Sarah sent me an advance copy and I got to endorse it. So it’s not a recent… but it is recently out in the world, and it’s…

Melissa: that’s what I was thinking.

Kristen: if you don’t know Sarah Clarkson and aren’t following her, like…

Melissa: then you should!

Kristen: you should! She’s so incredible, and she’s written this absolutely gorgeous book called This Beautiful Truth. And I don’t even know what to say about it. It’s probably the best book I’ve read in a decade.

Melissa: I’ve heard that from multiple people, actually.

Kristen: Sarah is such a gifted writer, and this is also the first time that she’s really opening up about her own story. And it’s just, it’s just beautiful. I am so thankful she’s written it and that her words are out in the world. I have… she writes about OCD and some invasive thoughts, and she writes about it right away, I’m not giving anything away. But I have a kiddo with OCD, and so Sarah has been a constant guide for me for a very long time. And now I’m, but I’ve never been able to share about that with others, and so now it’s a go-to book that I hand to every other mom that I know, or any other teen or adult I know, who’s dealing with that. And that’s not what the whole book is about, but it’s… if you know anyone who deals with anything like that, I can’t recommend anything better.

Melissa: I love it.

Kristen: it’s so beautiful. And it’s about a lot what we’re talking about today. Like being able to experience the beauty and grace of God as transcendent, and opening up our divine imagination to the wonder that He has for us and in who He is. You know, it changes your whole world when you look at flowers and trees and leaves changing color as gifts from God that are revealing His beauty and character and delight. It shifts our whole hope.

Melissa: would you tell me where we can find you in the world? I know you mentioned your book of course, Finding Selah, and I know- because it’s been one that I’ve enjoyed on audiobook, I know you can have paperbook, you can have audio… it’s probably an ebook as well, isn’t it?

Kristen: I actually don’t know. I think it is. It’s on Amazon and anywhere books are sold. You can find me online at KristenKill.com I do have dreams of updating my website at some point here. And then, but it does have everything there. And you can also find me on Instagram at KristenKill, and anywhere is KristenKill. I’m on Pinterest. That’s it, I think. Those two places, yeah. So yeah, that’s it. And it’s Kristen with an E. I don’t know, all the, I’m an E-N Kristen, which is fun.

Melissa: well, I’m so grateful that you were able to fit this conversation into your busy schedule and family life and everything. I just feel so personally blessed.

Kristen: oh, I’m so honored to! So fun.

Melissa: and I’m really excited, I get to meet you in just a few weeks and give you a hug.

Kristen: I’m excited! I mean, I don’t know which one of us is more excited. [laughter] And I love Spokane. I can’t wait to be there. My cousin lives there and just had a baby, so it’s gonna be extra fun.

Melissa: oh, perfect timing.

Kristen: it is, yeah. So I’m really thrilled to be with you all and just honored to get to spend time with you.

Melissa: yeah. I’m delighted. Well, thank you so much, Kristen. I really appreciate it.

Kristen: oh, you’re welcome!

Melissa: and that brings today’s conversation to a close. You can find more conversations on paideia at PaideiaNorthwest.com and PaideiaSoutheast.com for more resources and practical encouragement. Join me again next time for another paideia conversation, and in the meantime, peace be with you.

Paideia Conversations

Have you wondered what the philosophy of the Lord’s paideia might look like when implemented and pursued in real Christian families in our own era and locale? Paideia Conversations is a casual podcast where Christian mamas from Paideia Northwest and Paideia Southeast dialogue about all things paideia: interviewing others, discussing books, sharing their own glimpses of practical paideia around the home. Currently shared only on Spotify while we stitch up a few loose seams by knotting off some lingering threads, please chime in with your own thoughts, suggestions, or experiences. The paideia of the Lord is such a gift, and there is so much freedom. Our intent here is to increase joy, offer encouragement, share resources, pursue wisdom. We are eager to explore the vast array of ideas here. To the Kingdom!

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