Paideia Conversations, Ep. 8

Spending the season of Advent cultivating an atmosphere of Savior-centered conversation is a goal many of us mamas have, which can honestly feel a little counter-cultural during the weeks before Christmas when the world around us is spinning with gharish decorations and messages of materialism under the guise of incredible sales your holiday can’t exist without. In Cindy Rollins’ book Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions With Handel’s Messiah, we are encouraged to keep things simple, humble, doable. She writes, “I highly recommend that you do not complicate it too much… Advent is a time of anticipation and joy. What I love most about using Messiah as an outline for the season is that it is just so simple.”

For this paideia conversation, Melissa and Jenn get to visit with Cindy Rollins to talk about the changing dynamics of life seasons from year to year while seeking to cultivate the foundation of a family culture which fosters familiarity, community, and anchors us in Christ. Cindy encourages us that “we do all these things, and we want to be faithful, but it’s Christ that gives the increase.”

While you are wrapping Christmas gifts or taking a walk on a crisp Advent morning, listen in and be encouraged. As Cindy said, “the plodding along as a mom with a family is more important than the actual accomplishing of some great feat of getting it all in during the holidays.”

Links to Resources

Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions With Handel’s Messiah by Cindy Rollins

Redeemed Reader’s thoughts on Hallelujah

Blue Sky Daisies

Blue Sky Daisies’ Resources for Hallelujah

St. Martin in the Fields

Jesse Tree

Behold the Lamb by Andrew Peterson

Greg Wilbur music

New College Franklin

Waiting on the Word by Malcolm Guite

Love Came Down at Christmas by Sinclair Ferguson

The Dawn of Redeeming Grace by Sinclair Ferguson

Bright Evening Star by Madeleine L’Engle

Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope

The Christmas Books of Charles Dickens

Cindy’s Website, Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Instagram

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Patreon

Episode Transcript

Melissa: joining me today for this paideia conversation is my cohost Jenn Discher from Paideia Southeast, and our guest today is Cindy Rollins. We invite you into this conversation with us we continue to practice, pursue, and implement paideia.
From Day 1: Isaiah 40:1-5 “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
And from Day 25: Revelation 5:12-13 “Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.”
My friends, these are words of the Lord and we give thanks to God.
Today as we get to visit with Cindy Rollins, the author of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions With Handel’s Messiah, this is the reason, this is the point. In her book, Cindy says, “this is one thing I appreciate about the liturgical year. When it becomes a part of your family culture, it can have a stabilizing effect. As life swirls around us, we have the familiarity of the same activities, traditions, smells, sounds, and words to keep us anchored. And what better to be anchored to than the Church, the Bride of Christ, and as the Bride of Christ, to Christ Himself.” She also says, “we will straggle through the week after Christmas, celebrating one birthday and the new year, but the major festival of the year is now over. I enjoy a couple weeks of recovery by reading, reading, and reading. We are then all ready to return to normalcy. But not without the memory that we are a Christian family, and we have a Messiah.” I’m delighted to introduce to you today my friend, my mentor, Cindy Rollins.
Cindy, have you met Jenn?

Cindy: have we met, Jenn?

Jenn: you know, we actually did. A few years ago at a CiRCE conference in North Carolina. It was a long time ago.

Cindy: oh okay, I know your name, and I know you’re familiar. But I’m, I have a hard time keeping up with that kind of thing.

Melissa: so, Jenn is working with Heather Tully and some other friends down north of Atlanta doing the Paideia Southeast stuff. So…

Cindy: I know! Okay. That’s awesome.

Melissa: so it’s really fun. And Jenn has been so gracious and we’ve had a lot of fun chatting with some people on this sort of medium. But yeah, you look beautiful, by the way, Cindy.

Cindy: oh, thank you, I need to hear that because I’m having a big birthday this week.

Jenn: that’s right! It’s the sixth! Because I just read it in the book yesterday!

Cindy: yes, I’ve announced it to the whole world.

Melissa: St. Nicholas, right, yeah?

Cindy: yeah, St. Nicholas’ Day.

Melissa: so what are you doing for your birthday?

Cindy: oh I don’t know. I’m just gonna go… well we’re going out to eat somewhere. And we’re having like a birthday here and a birthday there. Just different people, college boys coming home.

Melissa: nice.

Cindy: but some people not. So, my husband’s going to celebrate with me on Monday, and then with my daughter and my mother, and then when the college kids come home we’ll do something with them.

Melissa: yeah! Oh fun! Well, it’s nice to see sunshine in both of your…

Cindy: yeah!

Melissa: …both of your rooms. Because I mean, here it’s still dark. And I’m in my closet with my closet door closed.

Cindy: yeah.

Melissa: it’s gray, right? It’s the darkest time of the year, and here up north I feel like it’s darker than where you are.

Jenn: yeah.

Cindy: yeah, definitely.

Melissa: well thanks for taking some time just to – it’s so nice to see your beautiful smile, but then just to chat for a few minutes this Advent season. So both Jenn and I have been encouraged by your book Hallelujah. I have the, I have this one, but then I also, I realized I still have this one too – oh look at that, Jenn and I have both of them right here. [laughter]

Cindy: I have both too.

Melissa: nice! So, was it just last year in 2020 that the second one came out?

Cindy: yes, it was. We redid it last year. Blue Sky Daisies. And they did a fantastic job on it. I got to upgrade some of the essays, which I’m very pleased about. Got a poem from Thomas Banks, that was really fun. And I just love the new, the new one.

Melissa: yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. Well, Cindy, could you take just a moment to briefly introduce yourself and maybe tell us why you wrote this?

Cindy: okay. Well, I’m Cindy Rollins. I’m a mother to, I have nine children who are all grown up. And just about to have fifteen grandchildren, so I’m excited about that. And I wrote Hallelujah because I love the whole Christmas season, and when I first wrote it – when I first started celebrating Christmas with my family, I was coming off Christmas traditions with my, you know, my family of origin where I came from. But I didn’t really know anything about this idea of Advent. But slowly as I read and was thinking and really reading cookbooks, I started to realize that there was a different time of year called Advent that led into Christmas. And I just loved that idea. And I had a little book called, a Lutheran Advent book, that I used, I loved it, I picked it up on some table somewhere. And I used it for years. It was just this little family, it was not that dissimilar to Hallelujah. And we had done that for years. So then you know, I decided, as I was… I don’t know if you’re asking me about the book, or about actually Hallelujah the Messiah and all, the whole shibang, but…

Melissa: well, we can get to the whole shibang, yeah.

Cindy: okay, yeah, so then I just decide, I had made up a little, you know, Hallelujah, Messiah, schedule for my family and we used it every year. And then one day I realized, well, I love this idea of putting this in a book like the little book I used, and I’d like to do that too. So that’s sort of how the book was born.

Melissa: yeah, I love that. Jenn, do you want to ask her about how she’s cultivating – how she did it differently as a mother versus a grandmother?

Jenn: yeah! What does that look like now, Cindy? Do you have any opportunities to cultivate Advent traditions with your grandkids? I don’t know how close you live to some of them. Like how has that transition looked now with most of your kids being out of the house?

Cindy: right. No, not really. I mean, with my grandkids, I gave a few of them a copy of Hallelujah, the older ones, when it came out, the new one. I gave them a copy of it so they could kind of remember it. You know, maybe have that – I signed it just particularly for that child. And I don’t see my grandkids a lot during the holidays. I usually see them either, you know, a couple weeks before or a week after, and, or I visit them. But yeah. I still have college kids that come home for Christmas, so my husband and I just don’t pick up and go. And our house is small. And I wish it was, I wish we had gotten a bigger house. I love my house. But I wish I had a bigger house in a way, because then it would make it more conducive. Now if we all want to get together, we really just basically have to rent something somewhere. So we concentrate a lot on Thanksgiving and then everybody kind of does their own Christmas things. But I do, I do have books and stories, I send them Christmas stuff, I send them Christmas packages, and that sort of thing. And I send them cookies because…

Jenn: aww, well… cookies! That’s great.

Cindy: yes, my love language has always been cookies.

Jenn: that’s awesome.

Cindy: and that’s one way I can… I love that. A couple years ago, one of my grandsons said, oh Cece, you make the best cookies! So I feel like I wear that badge very proudly.

Jenn: oh that’s great. See, I love hearing that the book, the Hallelujah book, was born out of a tradition that you were already doing and sort of compiling on your own. I didn’t know that, and I love that.

Cindy: oh yeah, definitely.

Jenn: do you remember what specifically, what kind of grabbed you and led you to do the Messiah in the first place?

Cindy: I do. I remember that very well because, and it, years and years and years we did it before I even thought of turning it into something to sell to other people. And I love that… the thing is, like, I got up this morning and did the Hallelujah, I did my Hallelujah devotions. And I used, I had to pick up the book and think, what day are we in? As a matter of fact, I was a day behind. So I had to do two parts today which was fine because I had time to do that. But that’s one reason I love it so much. It’s not something that gets you behind. You don’t feel stressed or worried. But we, I one day – it was… so we had all these Christmas devotions that we would do in our family. Morning Time during the whole month of December was always all Christmas the whole time. Reading aloud Christmas books, reading Christmas passages in the Bible. And I would use different Advent materials and they would always be focused on the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ in the future. And as I was listening to Messiah one day, well, I bought a CD of the Messiah which is the St-Martin-in-the-Fields Messiah, and Blue Sky Daisies has a resource page for Hallelujah, so if you’re wondering what Messiah to use, I won’t go into that here because it’s confusing, but go to Blue Sky Daisies, go to their resource page, hit Hallelujah, and you can find that there.

Melissa: I will link that to make it easy.

Cindy: yes. My Messiah had a libretto of the words each day, I mean, it wasn’t days, it was just, this is, this one, this one, this one, this one. And every year I’d be looking over that, and then one day it just clicked with me, well these are the prophecies that we’re doing in these devotions. What if we just did these devotions with the CD? And so I started to just read the Bible passages and play the CD. And of course then the CD became, you know, an Mp3, and then it became a streaming. You can find it all over the place, but it was just – it was just a no-brainer at that point. And really, I just feel like it was the Holy Spirit just bringing a bunch of things together that kind of, in a way that I don’t know, it just kind of all came together and I was just, duh. Well this is, you know, this has already been done by Handel, putting these verses together. And what I also love about Messiah – some people use it for Easter. I mean, you can listen to it all year round.

Jenn: yes.

Cindy: but I like the idea of remembrance. So we remember the things in the past. The prophecies that concern the coming, the first coming of Christ, but Messiah takes us beyond that to remember that we have a future hope in Christ. We’re gonna have a second coming, and it ties us both together so beautifully that Christmas really is a wild celebration of this coming of Christ. Not just that He came, but that He is coming again.

Jenn: I love that!

Melissa: I love that!

Jenn: me too! I did not grow up with Advent at all, and I think the things that I’m most attracted to use for my family are the things that do that: putting Christmas in a broader context of, okay, the past and then His coming, and then the future. So like the Jesse Tree and even Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb, that music, seems kind of in the same family.

Cindy: yeah. Right, and that is – those were some of the resources I was using before. Especially the Jesse Tree stuff, I was using some of that. And then, it was like, oh, this Messiah really fits perfectly in with those ideas.

Melissa: so something you say in Hallelujah… you say, “our family has done this year after year after year so that Messiah is part of our hearts and minds. In addition to this simple method [that you use in the book], I sometimes have the whole oratorio in the background just as a remembrance.” So there’s that word again: remembering. And I love that because it does, it’s just a beautiful way to hold those words and the tune as well in our hearts, in our mind, and have it playing in the background and in the forefront. But you say, “Advent is a time of anticipation and joy. What I love most about using Messiah as an outline for this season is that it is just so simple.”

Cindy: yeah.

Melissa: and it’s true! It is. It’s so simple. It’s available everywhere. It is Scripture. It’s familiar and yet when we spend the time to meditate on it, to focus on these details that this book helps us walk through, it’s also profound.

Cindy: yeah.

Melissa: but I love that balance of simplicity with the profound. It’s so encouraging.

Cindy: a couple things happen. First of all, music touches our emotions as well as our, you know, the Scripture touches our mind in a way, and the music touches our emotions, and it kind of brings it all together in a very, very simple way so that, you know, we’re not… sometimes we get these devotions for our families and we’re reading these long passages and then, then we’re, you know… the kids, it’s just like, the kids are just uhh, they’re just tuned out. But this is something ongoing so that each year as they’re hearing this same music over and over and over again, and it’s becoming instilled in their hearts, and hopefully it will be tied to some of the joy of Christmas that you have in your family, because joy is a very compelling testimony…

Jenn: I love that there’s a musical element. It is music. But that helps so much with the remembrance. The remembering versus memorizing kind of concept is, I fee like this is more on the remembering – the remembrance end of that. Or not requiring the kids to memorize the songs. We’re just playing them. And we’re doing it year after year, and they throughout the year will sit around chanting all we like sheep, we like sheep! [laughter] Even in the… it just happens… even in the Shakespeare, I mean, other things besides the Messiah that you’ve included in the book, will come to mind for my kids throughout the year.

Cindy: right, right.

Jenn: And I’m not requiring that they memorize any of that. I love that they are. But it’s just this very gentle kind of repetition over that week and then you move on to something else. But then year after year, it builds.

Cindy: amen. And really, that’s the point of memory. The point of memorizing is not so that we get these facts down or we get this word perfect ideas, but that we have something in our heart that flows through and comes out appropriately. And I like to say that it’s available to the Holy Spirit also in the lives of our children to use when needed. We don’t know when that is, and it’s so much more important than, I’ve gotta memorize this passage, you know. We want the passage in our hearts in love, not, oh yeah I remember that time my mom beat me so that [laughter] I could remember this Bible verse.

Melissa: you say in here actually just echoing what Jenn just said. The entire Advent season is one of remembrance. We are remembering the birth of Christ, but we are also remembering that His birth was foretold over and over again in the Old Testament.” And so that’s where you go back to the prophecies. In Isaiah, and I’m trying to think… obviously Isaiah, but is it Micah and…?

Cindy: Malachi.

Melissa: yeah, Malachi.

Cindy: almost all of the prophets, the psalms, all of Scripture from beginning to end we have… I mean, the entire Old Testament is filled with foreshadowings of Christ and Messiah captures a good portion of that.

Melissa: yeah. Well I was gonna say, the idea of that liturgical year, the Church year – this is the beginning of the year. This is, Happy New Year, Church!

Cindy: yeah.

Melissa: but not having grown up with a liturgical aspect, right, to that calendar, to that thinking of this is new year, this is the beginning and yet this is looking forward… What has that looked like to cultivate that for you, not even necessarily in your motherhood, but just as an individual? What’s that like to have that perspective now?

Cindy: well it’s become more and more important to me the older I get. And one of the reasons I believe it’s so important is it ties us to the worldwide church of Christ. That we don’t stand alone. You know, we’re not the last man standing, as you know, Jesus said, God said to Elijah… was it Elijah… when he said, I’m alone left on the earth. The liturgy reminds us that there are people all over the world that follow these traditions and follow this calendar, and that our reading these verses and our, you know, singing these songs at the same time that we are, and we belong to Christ – all of us who call upon the name of Jesus – belong to Christ! And the church calendar just ties us together a little bit, it just gives us a little solidarity. And I love that it does that, and it increasingly important for me. it gives me so much joy. If I get out like the Book of Common Prayer, and I’m reading for the day those verses, to think, I’m not reading these by myself, I’m reading these with other people in the world that are reading these verses today. So there’s – that is one aspect of it. And I think it brings some majesty and some, the idea of worship that, to our lives. I think the church calendar reminds us that it’s not about us, it’s about something far bigger than us. And that, I like it for that reason. Just as I grow older, and -like you- I didn’t come from a tradition that even knew what the church calendar was. I genuinely was reading a cookbook when I, she had all these feast days, and do this do this do this… and that appealed to my heart in some ways. And we see that God has made that in the Bible. He set up this idea that there are days for feasting and there are days for fasting. And those all… because as humans, He’s made us this way, in His image, so I think this very much appeals to our spirits.

Melissa: I like how you remind that there’s the time for both feasting and fasting in Scripture. And I know reading about, sort of the history of Advent, I think you talk about that in the book – how in some traditions, or in some families even – there’s more of a penitential side to Advent. More in line with what a lot of people do with Lent leading up to Easter, Advent can be more of a penitential season of fasting and pondering and putting off the celebration until Christmas Eve. And then focusing on those those twelve days of Christmas. I love that it’s not prescribed, right? That we can use the book Hallelujah in a different way depending on your family, depending on how the Lord is leading that particular household to honor and set aside and make these days special in remembrance. So I love that too. That it can be used in different ways. I happen to use it the same way you do, but I know not everybody does.

Cindy: no. It can be used in different ways, and I, I truly believe that the more simple your traditions are, the more likely they are to get repeated. And that’s gonna give them way more power. The way we complicate it, the less powerful they become because, for one thing, we’re stressed out and worried and we’re trying to get these things in that we can’t. You know, the family things are going to happen to interrupt things. That’s why, it’s – there’s nothing wrong with finishing… like if you get to Christmas and you’re only halfway through, why not just keep going? You can go into January. Excuse me, you can go into February if you want! You know, I think the plodding along as a mom with a family is more important than the actual accomplishing some great feat of, you know, getting it all in during the holidays.

Melissa: amen.

Jenn: well, kind of on somewhat related… Cindy, how do you – how did your Advent celebrations sort of change over the years as you, as your kids started, you know, getting older, leaving home, and maybe kind of like any tips or perspective you might offer in kind of rolling with those changes and the flexibility that’s needed there?

Cindy: yeah. Rolling with change is – I always say: adapting to change is really a key to happiness in life. If you can’t adapt to change, you’re not going to enjoy life at all. Especially as a woman. Because our lives, I believe that in the lives – women’s lives change more drastically often than men’s lives. Men, you know: a man goes and gets a career and spends his life doing it, then he retires and that’s a major change for him. But a woman. You know, she’s nursing, I mean she’s pregnant first, she’s nursing, she’s having children. You know, she’s building a home in the early years and then just about the time she gets that home all perfect and the way she wants it and she’s got Advent going the right way… somebody grows up! And then it has to change again, because it’s a drastic change to lose even one member of a family because everybody’s role changes. And then that person, you know, everybody settles back and then boom! there it is again. And Mom is in the center of all this change. And then she’s caring for her parents and maybe even her husband’s parents, and all these things, and she’s a grandmother. This is just massive change. And sometimes we can feel like there’s something wrong… change often feels wrong to us, because it’s a change, it’s different, and we don’t know how to adapt to it. But adapting to change is really, really important. And accepting the changes as they come, some are gonna be good and some are gonna be bad and some indifferent – just things you have to adjust to – but just knowing that it’s okay if your life looks a little different one year than it does the next. I’ve had seasons where it looked like my nest was completely empty and it was going to stay empty. And right now, out of the blue, three children – two college boys that had lived in apartments downtown ended up moving back home, and my daughter’s here too, so all of a sudden my totally empty nest is now filled with you know, more people. And that’s a change. I mean, I’ loving it, but it is a change, it is – oh, suddenly, I you know, I have to rearrange my schedule to fit the change. And I can’t, you know, I have to be willing to adapt to that. So all of life is like this and we don’t know. For women I feel like it’s much more, life is much more fluid and I just, I know that some changes can feel really hard, and they can feel like you can’t adapt to it. But if you’re all alone, you can still do many of these things. This is where the church calendar comes in. And I was all alone for several Advents, and I was doing these things that reminded me not only of my time with my family but of my primary relationship which is with Christ. And that’s always gonna be there, always gonna be the same. He is changeless. So if we cling to Him, then we can get through all these changes so much better, so much more peacefully than if we’re, like the Bible says, what is it, torn by every wind of doctrine. You know. We can become very fragile and easily pulled to the right or to the left if we’re not centered on the Changeless One.

Jenn: I love that. On a practical note, as you kind of backtrack even from kids leaving the house and just, you know, maybe even like, high school kids getting jobs and schedules looking different, homeschool schedules looking different, and needing to kind of flex there. Did you find yourself flexing to include those kids? Or was it kind of different in different seasons? Would you hold off on the Advent celebrations until they were home? Or how did you, I don’t know…

Cindy: all of that. At first, I was very reluctant to let anything go. Like Morning Time, I was reluctant to let anybody fly away to let anybody change, let anybody go to work. I found myself saying, well we’ll wait until they get home. And then one day I realized, oh, you know, this is the beginning of the end. They’re not coming home. Not all the time. [laughter] So you’re gonna have to adapt here. And I think sometimes it’s okay just to say, you know what, everybody’s not gonna be here for this. It’s better to do a little bit in the morning, maybe with whoever is there, whomever is there. And then just be okay with the fact that, hey, this other, the other child that’s like flown the nest or not available or at work or whatever, is still benefitting from the rhythms of the family even if they’re not there. They see that those rhythms are going on, and that means they’re important. So you kind of just have to take solace in that, and then…

Jenn: that’s sweet.

Cindy: …eventually when they start their own homes and their own families, they’ll find those things coming back.

Melissa: I feel like that addresses that idea of purposed cultivation of family traditions, and the blessing that that is. I mean, you can try to do all the things, you can throw it all out there and see what sticks.

Cindy: yeah.

Melissa: but I feel like that idea of purposely cultivating, purposely planting and seeing what the Lord brings from the harvest… I feel like that’s what you’re talking about.

Cindy: yes, I do too. That you purposefully do these things. And that is, once again, why Messiah is so perfect for this season. Because you can easily do this every year and it not grow old, it not become something stale or, you know, it’s not just Mom yakking away in the background about, you know, this and that and the other thing. It’s really centered on Christ, really centered on the Scripture, and the music is beautiful. So it’s a simple tradition that can easily be repeated. Whereas sometimes, I mean, we had years where we were doing whole crafts around the nativity. You know, we make this this day, we make this that day… and those were fun years. But those aren’t the years that are going to be continually repeated year after year after year. Because it would be hard. And it would be inappropriate at times, whereas this is appropriate in every season whether you have an infant in a crib or you’re all alone like me in the mornings with your devotion.

Jenn: I hadn’t honestly thought of that element of it, but it’s true. It is something that you grow into, and it’s age appropriate the whole time! And it also doesn’t get old, I mean, because like you said, it’s straight Scripture. It’s all Scripture, and Scripture never gets old, so that’s – I love that.

Cindy: yeah, living and active. So you can’t go wrong with Scripture.

Jenn: yep!

Melissa: what was your connection with Greg Wilbur, speaking of the connection to the music? Because he talks in the book about the actual listening, what to listen for. What’s your connection with him?

Cindy: he’s my friend. [laughter] And I said, Greg, can you do this? And he said, sure, I’d be glad to. I’ve known Greg a long time. In fact, he was our… we went to Parish Pres in Franklin, Tennessee. It was our church and Greg was the song director at that church. He’s at a sister church to that at this point at Cornerstone, also in Franklin, Tennessee, now. And Greg is a composer, he has written church music, he has several albums that you can get on iTunes of church music -very beautiful church music. We like to listen to his music on Sunday mornings, put him on and listen. But, so, Greg – we had gone to church with Greg, and, I continued knowing him over the years, so I just, he was the first, my first go-to person. Who could do this, who could explain this music? And Greg did that for me. And Greg, we, this summer, I had my moms’ summer discipleship course which I run every summer. And we have a, we always do a composer, we always study a composer during that time. And this year we did Vivaldi The Four Seasons, and Greg – I asked him to do a class on that for during the summer. He came in, he blew that music wide open! I mean, I love the music and the music stands alone. But for someone to explain the way he did, the music was so phenomenal. So he’s just a very talented musician, he understands classical music and he understands church music. So he was just the go-to guy.

Melissa: yeah.

Cindy: and he is heavily involved in New College Franklin, which is a great place if you’re looking for somewhere to send your children to school or… that that is a very wonderful place.

Jenn: I’ve enjoyed, I’ve liked his commentary on the, in the Hallelujah book a lot. I don’t read it all aloud to my children but I’ll pull out bits, and it gives them something to look for and when they’re listening, just things to recognize. And their understanding has grown over the years. It’s been neat to see.

Melissa: starting tomorrow we’ll be using little bits of that in our weekly co op for the next few weeks during Advent

Jenn: oh, fun.

Melissa: during our Collective, we’ll be listening to the Messiah and so I’ll be sharing bits from Hallelujah, and specifically sharing some of Wilbur’s perspective in what to look for. So I get to share that a little more broadly

Cindy: that will be great.

Melissa: well, as we wrap this up, what are you reading and listening to besides maybe Hallelujah and the Messiah this Advent season?

Cindy: yeah, this year – so I usually read Malcolm Guite’s – for several years I’ve read Malcolm Guite’s poetry book for Advent, which I love, but I’ve read it now a couple times. And I wanted to go a different, you know, a different direction. So I am, one of the things I’m reading is a Sinclair Lewis – I mean, Ferguson, what’s his name. I mean Sinclair Ferguson. He has two different Advent devotionals that I’ve downloaded to my Kindle. And I haven’t started them yet, but I’m excited about those. Because they’re very, from what I understand, they’re very meaty and full of – I’m like, should I read one this year and read one next year or should I just do both? You know, we’ll see. We’ll see how that goes. I’m also, for fun I’m reading this, our book club is doing Christmas at Thompson Hall and other Stories by Anthony Trollope.

Jenn: oh fun!

Cindy: they’re Christmas stories. So we usually, so we, our book club has done like, one year we did A Christmas Carol, and then Dickens’ The Chimes. And we had run out of Dickens’ stories, we did The Cricket on the Hearth. So we’re like, what can we read? So somebody found these Trollope stories that we’re gonna… Trollope has some Christmas stories, Connie Willis has some Christmas stories. So those are just fun side, a side Christmas reading. I’m gonna read the Madeleine L’Engle Christmas book, which is called… oh I forget what it’s called. But I’m gonna be reading that this year, I’ve actually started it but I don’t know the title of it. So, Bright Evening Star: a Mystery in the Incarnation. So I’m looking forward to that. I like Madeleine L’Engle’s books, and I’m excited to read some of that. So those are a few. I tend to overindulge in Christmas reading during the holiday season, so hopefully! But I have actually pulled out some books that I started last year for Christmas for devotions and didn’t finish, and I’m just gonna – I’m not gonna start over on those books. I’m gonna just pick up right where I left off, and maybe I’ll finish them this year.

Melissa: that’s such a good idea!

Cindy: yeah, because you get discouraged, and then next year you think, I’ll start over, I’ll start over. So you’ve read the first five chapters or something twenty times and never gotten to the end. [laughter]

Melissa: that’s so wise!

Jenn: that’s some good plodding! I love it! [laughter]

Melissa: oh, well this idea of building expectation and anticipation during the Advent season – hope and joy and cultivating tradition – it’s just lovely. And I’m so thankful, not only for you spending the time this morning, but the time that you spent putting together this book and for how you’ve shared stories from your own motherhood. It’s encouraging for those of us who are in these trenches, sitting in our closets with the laundry, and the Christmas presents piled over there. The reason we do these things, the reason is Christ! And it’s connecting not just with our children, not just with this season this year, but with -like you said- the Church at large, and the Church throughout time. Because it’s about our relationship with Christ and what He has done for us. And the Incarnation and that miracle. I just really appreciate you taking the time to chat about all of those things with us this morning, Cindy.

Cindy: well thank you for asking me. I love talking about Advent, so it’s always fun.

Jenn: thank you.

Melissa: yeah – well, Cindy, it’s been a joy actually just to get to know you over the last couple years. And just on a personal note, praying for you and seeing the Lord continuing to work – it’s such a blessing because I think we can get caught up in that idea of here and now. And my kids are all still little; we don’t even yet have a high schooler. But that the Lord is still at work in your motherhood, and I love that. And it’s not about what you do, it’s about what He does.

Cindy: amen. The more, the older I get, the more I’m convinced of that. That it is! We do all these things, and we have to, we want to be faithful, but it’s Christ that gives the increase.

Melissa: well that’s, that’s the thing that I remember… I asked you… I don’t remember the exact question I asked you actually. But your answer to whatever the question was is that God is faithful. Stop. [laughter] Like, full stop. God is faithful. That testimony that He brings through you is a blessing and an encouragement.

Cindy: well thank you. And He definitely is faithful. I know that. This I know!

Melissa: well, Happy Advent, Cindy, and Merry Christmas, and God bless you! We will talk again.

Jenn: thank you.

Cindy: thank you.

Melissa: okay, buh-bye.
You can pick up your own copy of Cindy Rollins’ Advent book Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions With Handel’s Messiah. It’s published by Blue Sky Daisies and can be found anywhere your favorite books are sold. And you can find Cindy at her website. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and in her Mere Motherhood Facebook Community Group. Her favorite place to connect with people is in her Patreon Group.
Thanks for joining us today, and thanks for listening in with Cindy as we talked about Hallelujah.
Cultivating an Advent tradition is just one way of cultivating a godly paideia during this particular season with your children, for yourself, and continuing to pursue an atmosphere and a culture of Christ.
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. 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.

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