Around the Web:
How Stories Work

Justin Taylor featured a couple of important links this week about Christians and Literature.

• Why do people tell and read stories?

  To tell a story is to

  (a) entertain and

  (b) make a statement.

  As for the entertainment value of stories, it is a fact that one of the most universal human impulses can be summed up in the four words tell me a story.  The appeal of stories is universal, and all of us are incessant storytellers during the course of a typical day.

  As for making a statement, a novelist hit the nail on the head when he said that in order for storytellers to tell a story they must have some picture of the world, and of what is right and wrong in that world.

Read this post on how story works, then read this post about foundational literature. 

Teach Your Kids Hospitality

Joanne Kraft at The Mom Initiative writes about hospitality and kids.

• Do you enjoy having friends over for lunch or hosting a neighborhood Bible study? Is your house where family gathers on Thanksgiving? Or, maybe you’re the one who opens her home for the Christmas cookie exchange?
  If you said yes to any of the above, chances are you have the gift of hospitality.

I love it. Read more.

How to Get Through Hard Times as a Family

Angela at Together With Family reflects on recent hard times and draws some lessons for us all:

• It is always great to write about the fun things we can do as a family and all the wonderful things that go with family life.  But in reality, there are also HARD times!    We live in a fallen world and with that come sin, struggles, and trials.  Life doesn’t always run as smooth as we like and sometimes our families hit HUGE bumps along the way!

  My husband has recently been let go at his job.   He is in the IT field and a factory he does work for is closing and now the downsizing is happening. 

Really good suggestions. Read more.
 

Divorce Statistics Are Overstated

Gene Veith links to research about divorce:

• It’s often said that 50% of marriages end in divorce.  A new book says that the real number is between 20% and 25%.  For churchgoers, the rate is somewhere in the single digits or teens.
  The author of The Good News about Marriage, Shaunti Feldhahn, says that hopelessness–which is nurtured by the discouraging but wrong statistics about marriage–is itself a major reason for divorce.  Actually, the institution of marriage is not in as bad a shape as people assume it is.

That feels like good news. Read more.

Around the Warren:

Playing a Role

James Witmer writes about helping children understand the roles people play.

• Quick, what’s a doctor like?

  Smart? Friendly? Caring? Clean?

  What’s a teacher like?

  Stern? Patient? Funny?

  What about a policeman? Cowboy? Priest? Magician? Mother?

  From an early age, we come to understand people by the roles they play.

Read on!

Create Without Condemnation

Beautiful words from S. D. Smith at Inkwell, image and typography by Paul Boekell:

Get a closer look!

My Favorite Bible Verse

Randall Goodgame talks about a passage of scripture he loves.

• If I have a favorite Bible verse, it is Luke 12:36-37. Strangely, it is a verse I never heard as a kid.

  I grew up going to Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, and like most Baptist Churches, they were high on Bible teaching. Sunday School really was a mini school where you actually learned more about the Bible every week. We did Bible drills, memorized Bible verses and were generally dipped and soaked in ancient stories whenever we walked in the doors (I didn’t always enjoy it, but I was always there). Every kid brought a Bible to youth group, and to this day I still feel funny going to church without a Bible in my hand.

We love Randall Goodgame. Read more. 

The Noisy New Neighbor

James Witmer returns with another tale from the Big Old Garden, with a great illustration by Will Kelly.

• In a big old tree in a big old garden behind a big old house, lived the happiest grey squirrel in the world.

  Well, that’s not quite true: He lived in three trees. And one morning in early spring, he was sleeping in his snuggest hole, deep in a thick beech tree. The morning was cold, and Sammy slept in late. His bed of dry leaves was fluffy and deep, and his tail, held over top of himself like a quilt, was even fluffier. The morning sunshine was bright and yellow, but it couldn’t crawl through the small hollow branch and down, down to the heart of the thick beech tree. Sammy’s nest was as dark as it was snug, and nothing ever disturbed him there.

  But this morning – noise! 

Read more.

Something to Do with Your Kids:

Life Hacker has 10 free summer workshops for your kids: Read more.

And Something Beautiful to Watch

Erosion makes for beautiful video.

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