Last week as I was driving home from church the cooking show Milk Street Radio was playing on my local NPR station. A caller asked about a French bread he liked to bake and how to make it last longer since it would quickly grow stale. The caller said, “The pain de mie I make has a very low shelf life. What am I doing wrong?” The host Christopher Kimball’s answer struck me and I’m writing it down here not to forget it. He essentially said the caller wasn’t doing anything wrong, but was expecting this French bread to do something it was not designed to do. He was baking pain de mie the right way, but apparently if you’re baking pain de mie the right way you can’t expect it to last long. If what the man wanted was to bake a loaf of white bread with a higher shelf life, the solution wouldn’t be to adjust the recipe or his technique but to pick a different kind of white bread, one actually suited to that objective. (If you were wondering, the host recommended a Japanese milk bread.)

I’m not a baker or even much of a cook, but this answer struck me because it suggested a broad principle that would be true in many other areas of life. Sometimes the thing we are doing isn’t achieving the desired effect not because we are doing that thing wrong, or because there is anything wrong with that thing, but because we are expecting the thing to do what it isn’t designed to do. Instead we should use each thing according to its own capabilities and capacities, and recognize and appreciate the different ends each one can achieve.

In other words, we need to respect the telos of each object, craft, and institution. Otherwise, we will be like the kid who is frustrated that his tricycle can’t fly; or the writer who struggles to capture a specific story, message, or feeling on the page because he is working within the wrong genre or form; or the newly-elected politician who can’t fulfill his campaign promises within a four-year term because deliberative democracy is necessarily slow. Tricycles are wonderful toys for toddlers, but make for terrible airplanes. Poetry can be a powerful form of communication, but it will serve well only those writers who understand how to tap into what it does best. Deliberative democracy can achieve many good things, but if someone wants to move fast and break things, maybe he should be the CEO of a tech startup instead of a politician.

We can also think about how this principle applies to relationships. Maybe that friendship, marriage, or church is actually doing fine—or as well as could be expected of fallen and finite people. Maybe you are already doing the best you can to be a good friend, spouse, or church member; maybe your friend, spouse, or fellow church member is doing likewise; maybe you aren’t failing them, and they aren’t failing you. Could your uneasiness or dissatisfaction instead stem from expecting these relationship to do for you what only God can do? Are you focused on what these relationships do not and cannot possibly give you instead of attending to and appreciating what they do?

I love this paragraph that begins Chapter 7 in Edward T. Welch’s thoughtful, practical, encouraging book on ordinary Christians counseling one another, called Side by Side (Crossway, 2015). Welch writes:

“I had been keeping my recent fears to myself. My wife knew, and she was helpful, but a good rule of thumb is that when you are stuck in hardships or sins, you keep enlarging the circle of those who know until you are no longer stuck. I think this is a good rule, but I had decided I could get through it on my own” (p. 67).

It may not seem like much—it’s nothing flashy—but this is a great piece of writing. I say this because of its elegant simplicity and because of how the form matches and serves the content.

This is a book about Christian counseling, written by a Christian counselor to be read by Christians giving and receiving counsel. So it’s appropriate that, throughout the book, Welch shows a gift for writing in a way that approximates the way I imagine he would talk in a counseling session or with friends. Reading the book, I can imagine Welch talking to me and one or two other listeners in a comfortable, non-threatening living room or office. His writing style conveys a feel for the kind of atmosphere that would support the personal, sensitive conversations Welch wants Christians to be able to have with one another.

Because he is writing to an audience of ordinary Christians who may not have formal theological training—precisely to convince them that they don’t need that advanced training to be competent to counsel one another well—he uses uncomplicated syntax and simple words. There are only three sentences in this chapter-starting paragraph. The first one is short and to the point; it brings us right into the heart of Welch’s story. Though the second one is a long one with several clauses, it isn’t jumbled at all; it has a progression that is easy to follow. The third sentence is of medium length compared to the other two, and it closes the thought opened by the first sentence. If William Zinsser, the author of the classic book On Writing Well, had read this paragraph, I think he would have commended it for its sturdy sentences and lack of clutter. Zinsser might also have pointed out that this is a paragraph made up almost entirely of one- and two-syllable words. The only three-syllable words are ‘enlarging’ and ‘decided.’ If Welch had used larger, more technical words or a roundabout syntax, it would have undercut his purpose of communicating the accessibility of counseling for all believers.

The simplicity is also important because in this passage Welch is demonstrating some vulnerability. He is sharing about his own weakness. When we confess to something, we can’t dress it up in niceties. We have to be direct and plainspoken, and Welch models that here.

Finally, I notice his use of repetition. ‘Good rule’ appears twice. ‘Stuck’ appears twice. “Knew” is echoed by “know,” and “get through it on my own” is a restatement of “keeping … to myself.” This is another feature that reinforces the conversational immediacy of the text. In conversations or speeches, repetition is needed for underlining main points more than it is in writing.

Being me, I also notice this repetition creates a pattern that is suspiciously chiastic:

I had been keeping my recent fears to myself [A’: the problem of self-reliance]
My wife knew, … but a good rule of thumb is that when you are stuck [B’: ‘knew,’ ‘good rule,’ ‘stuck’]
in hardships or sins, you keep enlarging the circle [X: the solution at the crux of the matter—puns intended]
of those who know until you are no longer stuck. I think this is a good rule, [B”: ‘know,’ ‘stuck,’ ’good rule’]
but I had decided I could get through it on my own. [A”: the problem of self-reliance]

Probably the chiasmus was unintended, but isn’t it interesting that he uses the word “circle” at the very point that the paragraph turns around to come full circle itself? But a chiasmus doesn’t have to be deliberate for it to exist. This is a form that is embedded in our patterns of thinking and speaking. Again, this paragraph is so effective because it seems so ordinary. But this is extra-ordinary craft in writing. But this level of intentional craft can be learned through observation, imitation, and practice, just like Christian counseling.

Wisdom from the Mouths of Bakers

Welch Writes a Paragraph: A Rhetorical Analysis