Around the Web:

Encouraging vocation

This is an article aimed at helping pastors to encourage people in their calling / vocation. I think one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is a good theology of vocation, so this is helpful!

We tend to focus on salvation, evangelism, or basic personal discipleship (Bible reading, prayer, fellowship) but ignore what most people do 40, 60, or 80 hours a week.

Great stuff. Read more.

This one’s for all the lonely writers

Our friends at the Rabbit Room have a great post from Jennifer Trafton about loneliness, introversion, and creativity. You may fit this mold or you may have a child who does. This is beautiful stuff.

“When you were our age, were you ever lonely?” Her eyes were so direct, her question stated so simply and honestly, that it was perfectly clear what she was asking: Were you ever like me? Is it possible to feel so alone, so different from everyone else, and still grow up to be the kind of someone I want to be? I couldn’t, in that room full of a hundred children, run to her and throw my arms around her. And I doubted very much that she was the only one who harbored such a question in her heart.

The mother-of-all swear words

Jen Wilken writes a good perspective on helping kids as they are exposed to words that maybe we’d rather they weren’t exposed to.

“What bad words are the kids using at school?” He hesitated for a second and then said, “The “S-” word,” a look of anxiety on his face. “What’s the “S-” word?” I asked, hoping I could cover my own rising panic. “I can’t say it.” “Sure you can. You can say it to me. “ Another pause, and then, whispered: “Stupid.”

I think we’re at our best when we get to work these things through in community. Read more.

Every noise at once

This is a fun thing to think through. This is a computer analysis of different types of music, based on their similarities to each other.

Go check it out.

Around the Warren:

Stories that lead by example

James Witmer led the week talking about fear and helping our kids.

My little boy is awesome. Logan is three, and taller than a lot of four-year olds. He loves to roughhouse, to be outside, and to ride roller-coasters. He’s also afraid of the dark, the vacuum cleaner, and bugs small enough to be bullied by bacteria. Knowing myself as I do, I shouldn’t be surprised by his fearfulness, but I kind of am. Even more surprising is how much I’ve struggled to encourage him.

Coffee with Jenny Youngman

Julie Silander continued with an interview with Jenny Youngman discussing how her art, faith, and family intersect.

Is there a gap between your good intentions and your actions (or lack thereof)? Do you want to live boldly out of faith, yet struggle with what it means to protect and provide for your family in the process? Are you able to see the hand of Providence in the midst of what feels like the mundane? In her recently-released album, The Girl With Good Intentions, these are a few of the questions that Jenny Youngman unpacks and explores.

On Mario Kart and the ghosts we chase

Guest poster Jerel Law talks about some of the lessons to be found in Mario Kart.

Before those games, though, came what I consider to be the pinnacle of my own personal video game success – Mario Kart Wii. We used to play this cartoonish driving game together as a family. I found it to be a great opportunity to exert my fatherly dominance over my children. (Is it bad to BOO-YAH in your four-year old’s face? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question.) I rarely lost the tournaments we played, and had no problem making my young children cry on occasion, but time moved on, and they have progressed to technologically superior games.

We like Mario Kart in the Mackay household, too. I needed the deeper reminders, too. Read more.