Winter
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Winter
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Light and Darkness
December 2024 - February 2025
Like Advent, the season of winter is a season full of darkness, cold, and waiting. Winter creates limits–the days are shorter, we’re stuck inside, and the sun itself (or at least its warmth) is elusive. Often we can even be closed off in our own minds, as the dark and cold work their way inward.
But the story doesn’t end there. The limits aren’t just a challenge–they are an opportunity.
The constriction–of time, space, and everything we do with both–gives us a chance to work within it. To create concentrated warmth and cheer. To make rich food and hot drinks. To tell stories. To linger. To see each other more fully, in long conversations by the fire.
This is a poignant picture of the life of the church. We see darkness and cold all around us. But with our redeemed imaginations, we can not only acknowledge these things; we can live in intentional defiance of them, for the life of the world.
In this abbreviated quarter before we launch our first fully planned quarter in March, our content will focus on this theme–the reality of the darkness, but a calendar full of warmth, cheer, and hope that go out in defiance of it.
FOR THIS SEASON
-
-
Imagination Redeemed
Believe to See (Featured)
-
The Common Room
Saturday, March 1, 2025
12:00pm – 5:00pmMacbeth: A Haunting Fireside Reading and Discussion
Saturday, February 22, 2025
4:00pm – 9:00pmAn Evening of Literary Matchmaking
Saturday, February 8, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pmMidwinter event: Light & Dark Stories & Songs
Saturday January 25, 2025
6:30pm – 9:30pmThe Common Room
Saturday, January 11, 2025
12:00pm – 5:00pmNarnian Christmas Party
Saturday, December 28, 2024
6:00pm – 9:30pmAll Ages Advent Dinner & Short Story Read Aloud
Friday, December 13, 2024
5:30pm – 8:30pmCandlelit Sung Compline
Saturday, December 7, 2024
7:00pm – 8:00pm -
Visual Artist Feature
December 2024
ADVENT
December 2024
ADVENT
Readings for Advent
Podcasts for Advent
Artist Feature
Creating from the Darkness: ISAAC hANS, Photographer
This is the little corner where we’ll be highlighting a visual artist that is making work that interacts with what Anselm is discussing at large.
All Ages Advent Dinner & Short Story Read Aloud
Saturday, December 28, 2024
5:00pm – 8:00pm
Narnia Christmas Party
Saturday, December 28, 2024
5:00pm – 8:00pm
January 2025
epiphany
January 2025
epiphany
For Epiphany
Meeting God Anew in Radiant Rome
The wise men first saw Christ on Epiphany, so it was fitting that this was the day she began to see something new. Everywhere she turned that night, the ancient city revealed a feast of light and beauty.
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (January Episode)
In every episode, we retell one of the great stories, then follow its illumination to delve deeper into conversation about how to enter into the life of the Christian imagination.
The Great Stories (For Real Life)
Join Brian, Sarah, and Christina as they explore the impact of great stories on our lives and faith.
Want to dive in?
Subscribe to Anselm’s Substack to receive the full show notes, which includes: a detailed list of topics covered, resources mentioned in the episode, further recommended reading and listening, and discussion questions to utilize for further thinking and conversation with friends!
Anselm Voices
Scott Cairns’s “Alone in the Busy”
Award-winning poet Scott Cairns, Guggenheim Fellow and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow. Using his own poetry and prose, Cairns explores how we can recover communion in the face of isolation.
Peter Leithart’s “Dostoevsky and the Desire for Freedom”
In prison, Dostoevsky discovered that the desire for freedom was the wellspring of human action. But this wellspring comes from a deeper source.
Engage and Embody
How to Organize your own common room
While this January holds our third Common Room gathering, many are unfamiliar with the concept and asked about its foundational principles. In this post, the woman behind the idea shares the why and the how of creating a Common Room to which all are invited — to write, read, sew, paint, sketch, or daydream.
Artist Feature
Creating from the Darkness: ISAAC hANS, Photographer
This is the little corner where we’ll be highlighting a visual artist that is making work that interacts with what Anselm is discussing at large.
Midwinter event: Light & Dark Stories & Songs
Saturday January 25, 2025
6:30pm – 9:30pm
February 2025
February 2025
What does it mean to be an artist, a writer, a Christian? How do we share the light of Christ through re-igniting the imagination of those around us in story telling? What is stopping us from this task? What support do we need from our community? Dive into these questions (and many more!) with our featured content this February.
For Valentine’s Day
How to love an Artist Part 1
Literary fiction writer Mandy Houk offers tips on the care and feeding of a creative spouse!
Read More →
How to love an Artist Part 2
Painter-sculptor Kristopher Orr offers friends and lovers of artists ways to be supportive co-laborers in the sacred dance of art making.
Coming soon (February 14th)
Featured Content
Imagination Redeemed Podcast (February Episode)
In every episode, we retell one of the great stories, then follow its illumination to delve deeper into conversation about how to enter into the life of the Christian imagination.
always winter
Seasons of winter tend to paralyze us. We think we can’t move on until something changes. How can we learn to live well in those seasons, and participate in God’s work? Drawing from O. Henry’s short story “The Last Leaf,” Brian, Sarah, Amy, and Christina tackle this question in the newest episode of the Imagination Redeemed podcast.
Want to dive in?
Subscribe to Anselm’s Substack to receive the full show notes, which includes: a detailed list of topics covered, resources mentioned in the episode, further recommended reading and listening, and discussion questions to utilize for further thinking and conversation with friends!
Anselm Voices
Rod Dreher’s “Christian Artists: Witnesses in the Destruction”
Anselm Fellow Rod Dreher reminds us of the daunting scope of cultural decay inside and outside the church, and of the vital response of beauty and the sacred to it.
sARAH cLARKSON’S “Beauty: God's Theodicy”
In the depths of our literal (or mental) winters, how does beauty help us see God’s goodness in the midst of pain and suffering?
mICHELLE drAKE’S, “Storytelling: Our Inheritance”
How, as readers and writers, do we delve the depths of stories and the heart of story telling?
Engage and Embody
Writing and the problem of christianity
Being a Christian and a writer is a tall order—whether we’re struggling with the link between faith and craft, or with crippling life habits we’ve unconsciously absorbed from the surrounding culture.
In this webinar, Anselm director Brian Brown draws from Thomas Aquinas, Josef Pieper, Dorothy Sayers, and a decade of working with writers and churches to cast a renewed vision for both your identity and your creative process.
Artist Feature
Creating from the Darkness: ISAAC hANS, Photographer
This is the little corner where we’ll be highlighting a visual artist that is making work that interacts with what Anselm is discussing at large.
Macbeth: A Haunting Fireside Reading and Discussion
Saturday, February 22, 2025
4:00pm – 9:00pm