It’s December! Can you believe we’ve nearly turned the corner on another year? As we enter this season of waiting in the darkness, may you look forward with joy to the hope of Christmas and the Prince of Peace.
Around the Web
Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus
Hannah An shares a memory of Christmas and what she’s learned through it.
- As a Korean American growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, I remember celebrating Christmas in our tiny first-generation Korean church. Each Christmas Day, we would gather as a congregation, young and old, sing Christmas carols, listen to a sermon in Korean (much of which I did not understand), and end our time in the fellowship hall breaking bread together.
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How to Give Our Kids of Any Age the Gift of God’s Grace in Words
Sally Clarkson shares her wisdom as a parent.
- So, back in 1999, we moved from Texas to Colorado, to the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in Monument, a bedroom community twenty miles north of downtown Colorado Springs on Interstate 25.
Two miles west of the interstate and Monument Hill, sitting at about the same 7,000-foot altitude, our foothills home was wedged into a man-made hillside cleft with only sprawling acres of national forest for a backyard.
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Pursue Obscurity
R. Lucas Stamps points us to the wisdom of obscurity.
- Craig Bartholomew, who has been a friend and mentor to many of us younger Christian scholars, often repeats the admonition: “pursue obscurity.” It is not enough simply to accept obscurity, if it happens to be our lot. Rather, there is virtue in positively pursuing obscurity, in seeking anonymity and nonrecognition. I have thought about this proverbial advice a lot over the years.
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The Gospel According to Augustus
I’ve waited five years for a recording of “The Great One” from Son of Laughter. It’s here, and this one needs to get added to your Christmas playlists. Read Chris Slaten’s introduction to the song and listen today!
- Providence, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us [Caesar] Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things […] The birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good tidings for the world that came by reason of him. [9 BC]
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Around the Warren
Learning to Give Space for Imagination
Lara D’Entremont explores how to give space for imagination.
- Each night after supper, we gather our three toddlers, lace up our sneakers, and walk down to the old railroad tracks. My husband pushes the twins in our double stroller and I push the four-year-old on his tricycle, and we bump along down the path through potholes, puddles, and large rocks. On the way home, Daniel plows ahead with the stroller, but the four-year-old climbs off his trike at the bottom of the hill across from our house and meanders along behind me.
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Picturing My Fluffy, Crispy, Silent, Impatient World
Laura Peterson reviews three books illustrated by Ashley Barron
- Reading picture books as an adult is fun for lots of reasons, but one reason I’ve found is that I appreciate the different styles of illustration much more than I did as a younger reader. These days I’m especially finding myself drawn to paper collage illustrations, and one artist who always catches my eye is Ashley Barron.
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Gradual Emancipation: A Parent’s Sacrifice
John Sommer walks through what it means for our children to grow up.
- From the moments they begin to crawl and take their first steps, they are inching into a broader world.
The first time they take the spoon and go after the peas and carrot on their own or eat the spaghetti with their chubby little fingers from off their high chair tray, they are gaining independence. We clean up the mess, because they have to learn to feed themselves.
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4 Gorgeous Christian Allegories
Théa Rosenberg introduces four allegorical titles.
- When it comes to allegories, people have Opinions. Some readers find them unbearably cheesy, which is, I guess, understandable: few things grate on the nerves like a story that’s too handholdy—the kind that tells us what we’re supposed to think about every element of the story. And allegories can certainly come across as handholdy. There’s no dodging it: every allegory mentioned in this post features characters whose names explicitly tell you what they’re meant to represent within the story.
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Something to Do with Your Kids
This lovely lace painting technique can make beautiful art!
Something to Watch
I know Thanksgiving was last week, but this video made me laugh hard enough to bring it forward into December. Happy belated Thanksgiving from the students at Fulham Boys School.
Thanks for reading. We’re on your side.
–The Story Warren Team
You can find her at carolyncgivens.com or on Facebook or Instagram at @carolyncgivens.
- The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 30 - September 16, 2023
- The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 29 - September 2, 2023
- The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 28 - August 19, 2023
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