The Warren & the World, Vol 3: Iss 40

The Warren & the World is Story Warren’s weekly newsletter, providing a round-up of our favorite things from around the web as well as a review of what was on our site over the past week. We’re glad you’re here!

Howdy all! Andrew Mackay checking in — I’m subbing in for Carolyn C. Givens this week. It’s been a good reminder that this is hard work. Carrie is an excellent writer and selflessly does this work every week. You should make sure you’re following her on Twitter and over at her site, too!

Around the Web

Permission To Be Messy

Kristen Pittman talks over at the Church At Charlotte blog about one of the big challenges we face as we try to build community and live life together:

“Don’t even think about cleaning your house. If I get there and see it spotless, I won’t come in.”
My friend’s words echoed in my head while I waited for her to arrive. I had just laid my daughter down for her nap, and I warily surveyed the evidence of life lived that morning. The place wasn’t a disaster, but it certainly wasn’t in its usual company-hosting state..

5 Warning Signs for the Church in a ‘Facebook Culture’

Michael Kruger at the Gospel Coalition talks about the challenges we face as we get “facebooked.”

One of my favorite childhood memories is watching Star Wars in the theater in 1977. I (along with an entire nation) was awestruck. Nothing like that had ever been done before. We were all sucked into a new world of spaceships, lightsabers, strange creatures, and distant galaxies. But of all the things that caught the average viewer’s attention, the amazing technology of the future was doubtless near the top of the list. What would it be like to have robots with personalities, to hover above the ground on a “land speeder,” to play “chess” with virtual holographic images, and to have lost limbs restored with robotic parts?

Any time they start on Star Wars, you know it’s going to be good. Read more.

10 Things All Good Moms Have In Common

One of the best ways to combat comparison is to talk commonality. That’s what Paula Rollo does in this piece at Beauty Through Imperfection:

It doesn’t matter if you’ve literally written the book on parenting (or at least read every book on the subject), you will still have cranky and dare I say it, naughty, kids from time to time. Your child misbehaving or throwing tantrums doesn’t kick you out of the “good moms club”. If anything, it’s a requirement for membership, as it shows that you are, in fact, parenting a human child.

I may know a thing or two about that, too. Read more.

Around the Warren

True Fiction

Kathleen Shumate writes in defense of fiction — and it is excellent:

We were gathered around our dinner table with friends and a home-cooked feast, and the conversation turned to reading. My friend mentioned that in the past twenty years he has read, at most, three fiction books—out of hundreds of nonfiction books. “With so many things to learn in the world, I don’t have time for fiction.”I barely held back my cry: “Who has time not to read fiction?
Warm apple pie and the knowledge that I wouldn’t change his mind cut short our discussion, but I have thought about it since.

Can we learn anything from fiction? Is it profitable to read something that is “all made up”?

Play!

Paul Boekell illuminates Emerson’s words.

In Praise of Paper: One Parent’s Pledge

Loren Eaton talks about why he’s choosing print:

I’ve never despised electronic books. Let me make that clear from the outset. Yes, I remember expressing some ambivalence when e-books started becoming mainstream. After all, I have chronic dry eyes spend most days staring at a screen for hours on end. Still, I’ve almost come to prefer pixels over paper in recent years. Thanks to the Overdrive app, I can have an entire library’s worth of titles on my phone in an instant. Forget driving to my local branch before starting a long trip or schlepping ten extra pounds of high-fantasy escapism across the country. Add to that the opportunities e-books afford for independent and out-of-print titles and the situation looks rosier still. All the same, I’m making a pledge here and now with you all as my witnesses that I’m swearing off of them. Yep, you read that right: Adios, e-books. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Horace and Oscar Visit the Lake

Glenn McCarty introduces us to Horace and Oscar. I love it!

“Oscar, where do you think the colors come from?”
Oscar the giraffe thought for a moment, his soft, checkered blanket snuggled against him, and considered his reply. He sat beside his good friend Horace the rabbit on the window ledge of Baby Henry’s nursery, facing the crisp green grass of the front yard and the narrow lane beyond. Henry – a happy, diapered little chap of nearly six months, was the most recent arrival in the Wilson house. Most evenings, while Mother and Father played games like peek-a-boo or got-your-toes in the next room with Baby Henry, Oscar and Horace repaired to the window ledge for a few quiet moments of conversation before they were tucked in beside their small friend in his portable crib for the night.