Sexvangelicals Newsletter 6/4/24: Our Summer Podcast Series
Why taking a break from certain parts of your life is a necessity for navigating seasons of transition.
Like all of our weekly newsletters, this article is free for everyone! Please subscribe and donate to Relationship 101 so Julia and I can continue to write about sex and relationship education that the church, and so many other systems, didn’t want you to have.
Happy Tuesday! Next Saturday, Julia and I are participating in the Nacht van de Vluchteling, or the Night of the Refugees.
Nacht van de Vluchteling is a 40 km walk (essentially, a marathon) at various points throughout The Netherlands. We’ll be starting in the city of Tilburg and walking to Den Bosch, starting around midnight, and all through the night. I imagine we’ll get into Den Bosch around 8 am.
Nacht van de Vluchetling is a fundraiser hosted by the Netherlands Refugee Foundation. This year, donations will help develop mobile clinics in Iraq, food and shelter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and drinking water for Sudanese refugees currently in Chad. Last year, it raised over 1.4 million dollars.
We would love for you to donate on behalf of me and Julia!
Podcast Episode
This summer, we’ve got a ton of things going on, starting with a move back to the US next month. It’s an enormous transition for us; between now and the end of 2024, we’re closing down our Dutch residence, registering for a new business in the US, moving to a new city, meeting with doctors and social workers about family planning, buying furniture and a new car, and hanging out with the Justice of the Peace for an afternoon. Among other things.
A large part of our work as relationship therapists is helping couples work through stage of life transitions, be that geographical, relationship status, occupational, familial, or some combination of the four. Some transitions, such as a geographical move, you can prepare for, while others, such as the death of a family member, require more spontaneity and upheaval.
Transitions typically require a reorganization of time and energy, which often means that the time and energy available for certain elements of one’s life get deprioritized so that energy can be reinvested in developing new foundations, rhythms, and structures.
Julia and I have worked really hard to determine what we need to invest less in so that we can maintain our connectedness and teamwork during this difficult season. Unfortunately, one of the things we need to step back from is the podcast.
For the rest of 2024, we will be releasing podcast episodes every other week. In the summer, we’ll be doing a series called Taking a Break From, in which we talk more about how, in seasons of big transitions, we can give ourselves permission to invest less in common relational practices.
The Summer Series schedule is as follows:
6/17: Taking a Break From Parenting
7/1: Taking a Break From Sex
7/15: Taking a Break From Weddings
7/29: Taking a Break from Social Media
8/12: Taking a Break from Goals
Relationship 101 Articles This Week
Part of taking a break involves giving ourselves permission to laugh, to step out of the seriousness of life. On Thursday, we’ll talk about the importance of humor, and how relationships can seek out humorous moments.
Picture of the Week
As I mentioned yesterday, Julia and I spent last week hiking through the Bergstrasse in western Germany. Not especially difficult, although walking up and down two or three 1000+ foot hills per day gave us a run for our money at moments. The Bergstrasse is dotted with old castles and ruins, as well as vineyards and tasty wineries. Here’s a picture from the Alsbacher Schloss:
Books That We’re Reading
Jeremiah’s Recommendations:
The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa by Stephen Buoro. This was an absolute heartbreaker of a book. A teenage boy in northern Nigeria dreaming that he can escape the hardships of Africa, all the while attempting to build relationships with family members who dearly love him, even as they have hurt each other, and have a deep understanding and acceptance of the hardships that comes with living in a dangerous, underprivileged part of the world. Excellent reflections on race and racism, both in the colonial sense that we often talk about, and in the local sense, with the Christian/Muslim conflicts happening in the background. 4.5 stars.
Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater by Peggy Orenstein. Peggy Orenstein is one of the greatest contemporary contributors to the field of sexual health through her excellent books Boys and Sex and Girls and Sex, both of which revolve around the scientific process of qualitative interviews, lit reviews, and some social commentary.
Unraveling was...not that. In the least.
I learned a lot about the process of knitting, including how yarn is developed. It was really neat to see Peggy learn about shearing sheep and dyeing yarn (although I wish she had been a bit more aware of her own privilege).
However, the social commentaries that stemmed from her knitting journey were highly disorganized and poorly cited. While it's important to talk about women's work, she relies on gender stereotypes that she worked so hard in Boys and Sex and Girls and Sex to dispel. There is a notes section in the back of the book, but utilizing it requires readers to thumb through earlier sections of the book to figure out what she's referencing. Again, it was a huge mess.
2 stars of 5. The two stars rating speaks to the quality of writer that I know Orenstein is. I'm not sure if Peggy got a new editorial team for this book, but there were attempts at jokes throughout the book that made me wonder if an editor told Peggy, "Write to a younger audience," and these were her attempts at connecting with Gen-Zers. Highly disappointing work from one of the most brilliant contributors to my profession (sexual health).
Let’s heal together!
Jeremiah and Julia