The Wren Magazine

All Donations Are Matched Through December 31!

We're preparing to launch The Wren Magazine, a beautifully handcrafted publication for tweens, teens, and their families that invites readers to slow down, look closely, and rediscover joy and wonder in the everyday world. Through playful activities, nature exploration, and creative rituals, it helps families connect across generations while cultivating mindful rhythms rooted in attentiveness, gratitude, and curiosity.

We began developing The Wren (think: a magazine Mary Oliver would have loved) because the world feels like it's on fire right now, and in the midst of so much injustice and sorrow, we need to cultivate the practice of noticing beauty and delight—not as an escape, but as a necessary spiritual discipline that sustains us for the work of repair.

The Wren focuses on the more-than-human world because paying deep attention to it has both deep spiritual roots and proven power: research shows that awe and wonder are some of the best antidotes to the anxiety so many young people are experiencing. As John O'Donohue wrote, "When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days."

This will be our next big project in 2026, and we're so excited to bring this magazine to life with your support.

Each issue will feature engaging art, craft, poetry, photography, short stories, seasonal rituals, and invitations to play and incite joy as Ross Gay would say.

The Wren invites families to put down devices, play and explore together, and find renewal in shared discovery and quiet moments that strengthen bonds.

Our storytelling work has always been about holy troublemaking—the kind of holy trouble Bayard Rustin spoke of that commits to nonviolent action to resist policies that harm vulnerable people. The kind of holy trouble we read about in the Gospels that disrupts the status quo. From our documentary films to our children's books profiling holy resisters and profiles in courage, we've shared stories to help us all catch courage.

And now we’ve really started to realize, as parents (and also now as a middle school teacher), that resisting the hustle and bustle, the screens, and the noise is itself an act of resistance. Cultivating gratitude and play is how we teach our children and ourselves to value something different than what's on offer in the mainstream—to choose presence over productivity, wonder over consumption, connection over distraction.

The work of repair is lifelong and multi-generational. As Ross Gay says, joy emerges from how we care for each other through hard things. We need both the resistance and the delight, the courage and the beauty to sustain our children and ourselves in tikkun olam, the repair of the world.

Please donate this month to bring this life-giving publication to families!

Remember: Your donation is MATCHED dollar-for-dollar through December 31—doubling your impact!

Thank you for being part of this work—for supporting stories and practices that help us build the world we long to see and remind us that we deserve beauty and delight every day, too.