Curtis Shelburne

For many years now, almost every year during Christmas, I’ve enjoyed making Charles Dickens’ venerable A Christmas Carol part of my Yuletide celebration. 

When I was a child, our family always watched a television version of that great tale…

“Christmas is saying ‘yes’ to something beyond all emotions and feelings,” writes Henri Nouwen. “Christmas is saying ‘yes’ to a hope based on God’s initiative, which has nothing to do with what I think or feel. Christmas is believing…

This Christmas I find myself wondering yet again about those Bethlehem shepherds.

It’s possible, of course, that the Almighty chose these particular sheepherders as recipients of the angelic birth announcement of his Son because they were a sheep-shearing cut…

What does a time machine look like? Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.

Whatever blurry images are filed in my mind under the category for “time machine” seem to be mostly of the science fiction sort…

As I’m writing on the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving, most of us still have a bit of turkey left. No wonder a giblet or two of the news earlier today focused on a warning. Great Thanksgiving memories are worth…

“O most gracious God,” wrote the eloquent sufferer, “on this sickbed I feel under your correction, and I taste of humiliation, but let me taste of consolation, too.”

John Donne, poet and priest, so wrote in one of his “devotions”…

“Stay with us,” came the morning TV tease, “and we’ll hear from a restaurant critic who’ll help us plan for a stress-free holiday. Coming up is his guide to the perfect Thanksgiving dinner.”

Well, that put a bad taste…

Infracaninophile.

The word above, friends, is indeed an actual word. By the time you finish reading the other words I’m hoping to line up here, my additional hope is that you might have some idea as to what it…

Word salad, here we come.

Miniskirt. Degradable. Scuzzy. Prefaded. Lite. Porn. Salsa. Nucleosome. Cockamamie. Turista. Gigawatt. Interrobang. Bioweapon.

And some two-word entries. Zip code. Fender bender. Tumble dry. Satellite dish. Launch window. Road rash. Log on.

And let’s not…

A “teaser” on the front of the little magazine touted an article inside: “How to Triple Your Answers to Prayer.” I found myself wondering what might be prescribed.

Incantations? A cauldron filled with a steaming potion featuring eye of newt…