I park my car and enter the familiarity of Sycamore Grove. My tangled thoughts are equally familiar. “This is why I need this walk,” I tell myself, “to sort out the tangles.” I put my earbuds in. Chris Renzema’s voice helps contain my thoughts. This day began with a quick chat with my cousin in…
Last fall I dropped by the church office to drop something off. After a few minutes of chatting with the staff, I picked up my keys to go home. One of our interns then asked me the question, “what would you say to someone who thinks it’s not valuable spiritually to read fiction?” I put…
We’ve been taking walks through our woods, my family and I. To my inner Southern child, these Pacific Northwestern woods still seem a place of great magic and mystery. Douglas firs, planted in neat rows intended as Christmas trees many years ago, now overgrown and towering over dark, mushroomy and ferny expanses where the sun…
Last fall I dropped by the church office to drop something off. After a few minutes of chatting with the staff, I picked up my keys to go home. One of our interns then asked me the question, “what would you say to someone who thinks it’s not valuable spiritually to read fiction?” I put…
One of the best ways to practice any discipline is to imitate the work of a master. (This is true when it comes to discipleship, too.) So here is a recent (simplified) effort in imitation of a long-time favorite fairy tale illustration: Edmund Dulac’s ‘Gerda and the Reindeer’, from his illustrations of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. I’ve…
Last fall I dropped by the church office to drop something off. After a few minutes of chatting with the staff, I picked up my keys to go home. One of our interns then asked me the question, “what would you say to someone who thinks it’s not valuable spiritually to read fiction?” I put…
If you’ve been around the Story Warren for any length of time, chances are you’ve encountered the famous passage in CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Lucy asks if Aslan is safe. The beaver replies, “ ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” I usually hear this passage quoted in reference…
Last fall I dropped by the church office to drop something off. After a few minutes of chatting with the staff, I picked up my keys to go home. One of our interns then asked me the question, “what would you say to someone who thinks it’s not valuable spiritually to read fiction?” I put…
NOTE: This meditation by our friend Glenn seems even more needed now than when we first ran it in 2016. Enjoy! At the bottom of the map in the front of the splendid new edition of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, with illustrations by Jemima Catlin, the area devoted to Mirkwood Forest is labeled with the simple…
I can feel my eyes beginning to roll before they actually do. The story, so engrossing mere moments ago, has just overreached what even my imagination deems realistic. I’m too close to the end now to simply give up, but I do so with a skeptical eyebrow raised. Deux ex machina, or “God from the…
I read A Christmas Carol every year. I come by it naturally. Grandpa read A Christmas Carol aloud, in that grandfatherly voice just made for telling stories, a stave each night during one of our holiday visits to Virginia. He and Grandma owned a dozen or more movie versions of Scrooge’s tale. I vividly recall…
The first week of December holds an infamous anniversary for me. This time a few years ago, I found myself flat on my back for nearly a full week after I was hit full-force by a most memorable stomach virus. At the time, pre-pandemic, it seemed like about the worst thing anyone could endure; certainly,…
