March 1 - Karen Kern: Tales That Have Stayed In My Mind An introduction to our topic and how the stories of two women named Elizabeth have impacted my life and motherhood.
March 8 - Emily Hill: How Every Good Story Has Its Sad Part It is not only an unavoidable but an imperative part of every story to walk through sorrow and suffering. This is what keeps me awake at night and I’m learning to see this as a mercy. The severe mercy. Emily will discuss this through the lens of some of her favorite stories.
March 15 - Renee Mathis: Six Stoves and a Good Ending: Learning to Cook, Coming Home, and Finding Things All Right There are a lot of life lessons to be found in front of the stove and behind a mixing bowl. No matter where you are in your own journey, no matter the path that has been laid for you, I firmly believe that we can all learn to grow and thrive in the process of preparing, serving, and enjoying a meal together.
March 22 - Andrea Lipinski: Day and Night: God’s Love for His Children What is a father’s love? Where does it reach? The story I tell myself impacts how I see my earthly father and my Heavenly Father. The story impacts the roles, relationships, and reconciliations. Yet, despite the lies I tell myself, the Father’s love for me continues and stretches beyond these city walls, beyond my imagination, and beyond my dreams. God’s love for and presence with His children is all day and all night.
March 29 - Angel Parham: Sailing the Sea of the Imagination What do Emily Dickinson, Anne of Green Gables, and Jane Eyre all have in common? They can be great companions of childhood and adolescence, shaping the imagination and priming us to delight in beauty and goodness. By following both the literary and historical aspects of their stories, we can help our children to travel from the moors of England, to the squares of New England, and down into the cultures and climes of the Caribbean.
April 5 - Katerina Kern: Images of the Mother in Story The archetype of the Great Mother has appeared in the stories of diverse peoples and tribes throughout history. In this talk, we will explore the symbols which express this universal archetype and attempt to discover what the stories mean, why they are strikingly similar from the Native Americans, to the West Africans, and to the Medieval Europeans, and why humanity has not been able to forget them. To that end, we will primarily focus on Fairy Tales, Myths, Literature.
