Around the Web:
Wonder is Not Just For An Artistic Elite

This, from Bruce Herman, is beautiful.

• Our ability to remain childlike is crucial for human flourishing. Recall the words of our Lord: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). We know that Jesus did not mean that we were to act like children—indulging childish desires and attitudes.

  What, then, did he mean? He wanted to remind us that the capacity to see—adding insight to eyesight—is contingent upon our capacity for wonder. And wonder is the instinctive awe we feel in the presence of great beauty, great complexity, great wisdom, or great truth. When we are in a state of wonder, we are open; we are in the posture of receptivity. And since wonder and humility go hand-in-hand, the willingness to welcome the not-yet-known requires a kind of intellectual hospitality.

  Creativity is hospitality to the genuinely new.

That's good stuff right there. Read More.

Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt

Glennon Doyle Melton talks about contentment, her kitchen and desiring new things. It's great.

• Recently I posted a picture of myself in my kitchen, and I immediately started receiving generous messages from people wanting to help me “update” it. Along with their messages came pictures of how my kitchen could look, if I’d just put some effort and money into it.

  I’ve always loved my kitchen, but after seeing those pictures I found myself looking at it through new, critical eyes.  Maybe it was all wrong. Maybe the 80′s counters, laminate cabinets, mismatched appliances and clutter really were mistakes I should try to fix. I stood and stared and suddenly my kitchen looked shabby and lazy to me. I wondered if that meant I was shabby and lazy, too. Because our kitchens are nothing if not reflections of us, right? I decided I’d talk to Craig and make some calls about updates.

  But as I lay down to sleep, I remembered this passage from Thoreau’s Walden: “I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes and not a new wearer of the clothes.” Walden reminds me that when I feel lacking- I don’t need new things, I need new eyes with which to see the things I already have. So when I woke up this morning, I walked into my kitchen wearing fresh perspectacles. Here’s what I saw.

  You guys. I have a REFRIGERATOR.

Really good reminder. We're blessed. Read more.

Family Builds Secret Room

This mom and dad did something awesome for their four year old. 

• After their child’s third birthday, these parents decided that they were going to do something extra special to celebrate the kid turning four. They certainly succeeded. Outside of a tyrannosaurus rex or a tyrannosaurus rex that shoots lasers, there’s nothing a little boy wants more than their own secret treasure room.

  Utilizing the unused storage space attached to their son’s room, Sarah and her spouse created a wonderful place…

All the crawlspaces in my childhood were… terrifying. This is way cool. Read more.
 

God Uses Two Gardens…

J.D. Greear writes about how God shapes children.

• An inheritance is what you leave behind for future generations. So when a church thinks about what they are “leaving behind” for their city, they shouldn’t be thinking of ministry plans or church buildings, but kids. The children in our church are the first ones that God has given us to win for the gospel. They are the inheritance we are leaving for our city.

  That means our primary responsibility for our children is to teach them the gospel—and to equip them to teach it to others. That is the most important task any parent has. And I don’t exaggerate in saying it’s the most important task of any church.

  God has two “gardens” in which he intends to grow our children—the home and the church.

Really good stuff. Read more.

Around the Warren:

Seeing in the Dark

Liz Cottrill… well… just go read it. So good.

• There are some disadvantages to having a blind mother. My children found them all.
  They found, for instance, that when they pointed to something out the window and asked, “What’s that?” I usually had no answer. I was also no good at teaching them their colors, or showing them how to draw, or driving them around town. They gave up asking for a night-light, as I was heartlessly unsympathetic to the desire for such a thing.
  But they didn’t seem to find these disadvantages to be a loss. Once when my son was asked about the difficulty of having a mother who couldn’t see, he said, “What do you mean? She knows everything. I can never get in trouble without her finding out. She can hear a banana peel next door.”

So, so good. Read more!

It's not just the sacrifice…

Lovely words from our own James Witmer, designery by P. Boekell.

Get a closer look.

There's a Monster at the End of This Post

Scott James talks about an old classic from the world of Sesame Street.

• My youngest daughter left some books out on the back porch the other day. Sadly, I didn’t find them until after it had rained all night. Hey, it happens. No big deal. But when I gathered them up from the wet table, the ruinous state of one book in particular made my heart break a little. For me to feel that kind of pang over the destruction of a children’s book, you’re probably thinking it must have been an heirloom copy of some classic work of literary genius, but no. It was a simple and rather silly little book—a Little Golden Book, more precisely. Nevertheless, it’s one that holds a place of deep nostalgia for me.

  The book was The Monster at the End of This Book, starring Sesame Street’s “lovable, furry old Grover” in all his awesome blueness. 

Grover was always one of my favorites. Read more.

Red Bird's Song

Glenn McCarty writes and Aedan Peterson illustrates. It's good:

• Deep in the jungle, high in a tree, lived a small red bird. More than anything, Red Bird loved to sing. From the first light of dawn to the last light of dusk, her songs filled the air. They drew turtle from his shell, urged giraffe to reach the high tree tops, and cooled crocodile’s sun-baked skin.

  One night, in her walnut-tree nest, Red Bird lay awake in the silence and began to wonder. What lay beyond the spreading limbs of her leafy home? What other kinds of birds sang on the fringes of the vast, green jungle? She knew she would not be happy until she found the answers to her questions. 

Go on, read more.
 

Something to Do with Your Kids:

This post was way up my alley, from Melissa Taylor at Imagination Soup: Storytelling games to spark your kids imaginations. Check it out!
 

And Something Awesome to Watch

This video is just awesome. I grinned the whole time I watched it. Gleaming the cube.

Thank you for reading. We're on your side.