Story Warren

Kindling Imagination for Kingdom Anticipation

The Warren & The World Vol 8, Issue 46

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The darkness is growing deeper. Each day it lengthens by minutes. There is a reason that our European ancestors chose the darkest time of the year to celebrate the birth of Christ. He is the light. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can not overcome it. 

Around the Web

How Can I Keep From Singing?

Laura Lynn Brown meditates on what we have lost and the songs we’ve gained during this season.

  • One Sunday morning in November, I logged in at my church’s website for the worship livestream. After several slides of announcements, lyrics appeared, and something inside me did a puppy shiver-wag of joy.
    WE ARE ONE IN THE SPIRIT
    WE ARE ONE IN THE LORD
    This was one of the first worship songs I ever learned, around the campfire at Camp Concern, way back in the 1970s. I loved the repetition and variation of its structure, which made it easy to memorize. I loved the vaguely Native American-sounding minor-key melody, and the way the vocal drumbeat of its 4/4 time felt like walking, especially on the verse “we will walk side by side.” When we got to the final chorus, I waited, yearned, for the moment we would hold the word “love” extra long, for three full beats: “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our lo-o-ove …” I wanted to stand forever in the communal embrace of that vowel.
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Wise Moms Still Seek Him

Kay Fuller reminds us to seek the Lord.

  • Multiple lost-and-found missions are still vivid in my mom-mind. The search for my daughter’s orthodontic retainer in the school cafeteria dumpster and for my son’s hard contact lens in the Wyoming mountains play back readily. Adrenaline-filled quests to locate the misplaced are a regular part of mom/grammy life. We pray, retrace steps, excavate to the bottom of toy bins, and dig deep into car seat crevices. We seek for here-today but gone-tomorrow “treasures” for the sake of our kids, our pocketbooks, and even our own sanity. (Let’s face it, mom needs the bedtime lovey to be found as much as the two-year-old!)  
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Courageous World Changers by Shirley Rae Redmond

Janie at Redeemed Reader reviews a collection of short biographies.

  • Courageous World Changers briefly covers the lives of 50 women throughout the world and history who lived for Christ.
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Jingle Jangle: A Display of Black Hope This Christmas Season

Timothy Thomas explores the value of a new Netflix Christmas special.

  • Other than celebrating Advent, hanging lights, and exchanging gifts, Christmas time is known for its magical stories of goodwill triumphing over hardships and misfortune. And if there’s anything we can use at the close of a tumultuous year such as 2020, it’s stories of hope, belief, and redemption. Usually those stories are told through and by a specifically white cultural perspective. But this year the stories are intentionally more inclusive, especially with the release of Netflix’s Jingle Jangle, which boasts an all-black, star-studded cast. Overall, Jingle Jangle is a family-friendly, fantastical musical picture that adds a unique warmth to the mystical season portrayed by African Americans, which is unusual for a Christmas film.
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Around the Warren

Marigold

Amanda Lennon reminds us of the weight of carrying.

  • To carry is to do something beautiful and intentional. We carry ourselves in a certain way, hung on a certain frame, approaching each new moment and face and place from a certain point, with a certain deposit of grace. We carry the ones we love through seasons of pain – in hugs and in hands held, in flowers and in shabby rooms, we carry the lost job, the dead-end job, the insult, the bully, the sickness and the remedy that is some days, sometimes, somehow worse.
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Consider the Whale… and Herman Melville

Isabel Chenot considers Moby Dick.

  • I made this bookmark for myself for a favorite ‘Moby Dick’ quote, and I wondered if it’s the sort of thing you all at Story Warren might be interested in, as it can be printed on card stock and cut out.
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Something to Do with Your Kids

These printable coloring pages for Christmas are delightfully fun!

Something to Watch

Ever wonder how those cool, old-fashioned globes were made? 

Thanks for reading. We’re on your side. 

-The Story Warren Tea

Carolyn Clare Givens
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