Are Children a Good Idea?

My neighbor answers this question. And other reads from the past few months.

I’m still figuring out precisely how I want to format these posts, so if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears… comment below! Should I ditch the short reviews and add more quotes? Should I organize by topic rather than format? Should I feature podcasts and blog posts I appreciated? Should I add in children’s books? These are the questions I’m asking myself, ha!

For now, I’m only featuring favorite books with a short review and quote, plus links to thought-provoking articles and a key quote from each article. I hope you enjoy.

BOOKS

Holiness Here by Karen Stiller

“These days, brokenness feels more comfortable to discuss than holiness,” reads the jacket copy of Stiller’s book. Oof. Karen, however, invites her readers to reconsider how we think about, talk about and pursue holiness in our daily lives through sharing personal stories (both witty and poignant) and reflecting on Biblical passages on holiness alongside church teaching. This is an accessible, lovely, practical book that I hope to read within my church community sometime soon.

“Holiness has a public relations problem, even within the church. Being holy is deeply associated in our culture with being a pain in the butt rather than a balm to the soul. Attaching the word holy to a person, and even in our very best moments we are more likely to imagine them being insufferable or so different from us.

We have been taught to accept our whole selves just as we are, which is an important message indeed. We need so much to know that we are loved by God and others just as we are. But we can get stuck there. I can wrap myself up in the feeling that it is okay to be just as I am forever, like a cocoon comforter, swaddled and safe.

But we were never supposed to stay just as we are. We get to change. In that new place, we are loved still, just exactly as we are. The ever-loving God and the ever-changing us.”

Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament by Christopher Wright

Scholarly yet warm, Wright considers how the story of Israel found in the Old Testament shapes the identity and mission of Jesus. This title (along with the next book on this list) was one of my favorites from my Covenant Theology class. I loved learning more about how Jesus would have understood himself through his own knowledge of the Old Testament

“In the New Testament, of course, as Christians we believe we see God’s big and final answer to the problem. But in the Old Testament God had really begun to sketch in the dimensions of his answer through successive acts of redemption in history, with the exodus as the prime model. Here we come back to the importance of treating the Old Testament as real history. Christians tend to say something like “the Old Testament is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ.” Carefully explained, that is true. But it can lead to the prejudice that dispenses with the Old Testament itself as little more than shadows, or a kind of children’s picture book, of no significance in itself but only for what is foreshadowed. And then we can spiritualize and individualized our interpretation of the work of Christ in such a way that it loses all touch with dimensions of God’s first works of redemption in the history of Israel.

But the exodus was real redemption. It was a real act of the living God, for real people who were in real slavery, and it really liberated them… Now of course, the exodus was not yet God’s last word or act in redemption. Yes, a greater “exodus” and a complete redemption still lay in their future. But within the limits of history and revelation up to that point, the exodus was a real act of the Reedemer God and it demonstrated unmistakably the comprehensive scale and scope of his preemptive purpose. The exodus was God’s idea of redemption. How big, then, is our “New Testament gospel”? It should not fall short of or be narrower than its Old Testament foundation, for God is the same God and his ultimate purpose is the same.”

Far As the Curse is Found by Michael Williams

Tracing God’s ongoing relationship with mankind, Williams beautifully and thoughtfully unpacks the Biblical covenants throughout the pages of Scripture. This is an excellent primer on covenantal theology that finds that tricky balance of combining theological depth and rigor with accessible writing that helps the reader see how the subject applies to daily living. 

“Relationship and blessing alike, alongside deliverance, are at the heart of redemption.”

Giddy Up, Eunice by Sophie Hudson

This is a re-read for me as I cohosted a discussion on this with women in my church. I read this book back in 2016, and no other book that I’ve read has helped me in the work of building friendship like this one. It is a memoir with lots of stories and it’s a little dated, so you have to take it on its own terms. But Hudson’s stories synthesized with her Biblical observations and her reading of her culture make for thoughtful, winsome, and practical reflection on friendship. And like all of Hudson’s books, give this one a listen.

“At every age and stage of life, women need other women who will listen, confirm, teach, bless and pray.”

House Rules by Myquillyn Smith

When we moved into our house nearly nine years ago, I thought furnishing and decorating it would be intuitive. I was wrong and mistakes were made. It’s been a skill I’ve needed to learn and Smith has been a helpful guide. I found this book practical, relatable, and accessible, and of course, lovely. My only frustration with this book is that my tastes differ dramatically from Smith’s, so it’s hard to imagine how to apply some of her very good advice. I’d love to see her curate a book/resource featuring homes that apply her rules but have styles different from hers.

That said, I really liked these three mantras she put in her book, and I’ll likely write them on a notecard to ground me not only in my home efforts but also life…

“Do what you know. Use what you have. Finish what you started.”

On the fiction front…

I read the most recent Veronica Speedwell, “A Grave Robbery” by Deanna Raybourn and “The Women” by Kristin Hannah. 

“A Grave Robbery” was, ahem, dark, so be warned if you embark on this series. I love plucky Veronica, thoughtful Stoker and have enjoyed their character arcs set against Victorian England.

Though I’ve only read “The Nightingale” by Hannah, the general vibe I get is that she writes a story you don’t want to put down. That was my experience with both “The Nightingale” and “The Women.” While I flew through “The Women,” I thought the pacing off, the main character one-dimensional, there was a notable lack of historical grounding in the Vietnam War narrative, and few too many clichés. That said, I walked away from my reading wanting to know more about the Vietnam War and with a deep respect for the men and women who served, and that’s no small thing.

ARTICLES

Are Children a Good Idea? by Mary Ellen Mitchell @ Comment

“As self-fulfillment, leisure, and personal accomplishment become the water many in the upper middle class swim in, it’s no wonder that both the affluent and the aspirational think children will be a slog. I’d argue that for any woman to wholeheartedly say yes to children, even as more and seemingly better things can be done with time and money, we all need to say a wholehearted yes to children.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I should have ten children, or that you should have any at all. Saying yes to children doesn’t mandate freezing eggs to guarantee later fertility or engaging in any number of challenging things to have your own biological children. Saying yes to children means celebrating every new life, planned or unplanned, and understanding that our work as humans has always involved caring for children, whether ours or someone else’s.”

Teach Us to Number Our Days: Health Anxiety and Faithful Anticipation by Brewer Eberly and Ben Frush @ Mere Orthodoxy

“One can imagine a new year’s resolution or Lenten practice that is motivated not by more yoga or experimenting with athletic greens but by a commitment to the sick—following the imperative found in Matthew 25: “I was sick and you visited me.” We wonder if Christians showing up at the bedside of the sick will not only help them wake up from themselves and heal from health anxiety, but teach them the practices necessary to die well by having first accompanied the dying themselves. We don’t claim this simply because we are in health care and therefore enjoy projecting our vocations onto the whole church. We would go so far as to say this is one of the foremost ways the church can recover her witness in a season of de-churching and deep loneliness.”

Biblical Literacy in a Postliterate Age by Brad East @ Christianity Today

“Christians exist within a larger social environment. If visions of daily discipleship are contingent on both technology and the wider culture, and those influences are vastly different than they were one or two centuries ago, then we should expect discipleship practices to differ as well. This does not mean we compromise on doctrine, the necessity of spiritual discipline, or our duty to love God and neighbor. It does mean that our disciplines and duties will take different forms in different circumstances—and that we must carefully discern whether we are clinging to longstanding forms because they are essential to our faith (e.g., prayer) or simply because we are nostalgic.”

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What’s something you’ve read the past few weeks that you’ve enjoyed and/or can’t stop thinking about?