Curtis Shelburne

When I start writing about the weather, my readers might logically suppose that I’m feeling uninspired, dull and unimaginative, and short of things to write about. They would be right. My apologies.

Strange. I just looked back at a…

I may need to apologize to a penguin.

Are you aware that Friday, January 20, 2023, was Penguin Awareness Day? I wasn’t, either, until I ran across a “news” blurb flashing across one of my screens late that day, and…

Toothpaste, Toilet Paper, and Marriage

By Curtis K. Shelburne

Forty-seven years. That’s how long my wife and I have been married. It probably seems longer to her.

I’m counting pretty heavily on the fact that breaking in a new…

A new year. In the dance of the universe, the annual calendar flip always seems to me to be mostly a non-event, plastic hype, modern media “News Alert” news. I never notice much difference between 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31…

Well, here we find ourselves again in January, and maybe some reflection is in order.

On the one hand, author Thomas Mann is right: “Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare…

And here we are. One more year. Almost as far as you can get from Christmas Day.

I hope your Christmas has been, and is being, filled with everything good. I’m quoting me to me here: “Christians who know…

Four candles. At church, we lit four candles this morning. I’m talking about Advent candles. One for each of the four Sundays before Christmas. And now, only the “Christ candle,” the large white one in the center of the…

I’ve been enjoying reading Stephen Nissenbaum’s fine book The Battle for Christmas. Most Americans tend naturally to think that the Christmas traditions we share have been relatively unchanged for a very, very long time. Not so.

For example…

In 1850, which was before she wrote her classic Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a story for Christmas. One of her characters describes the difficulty of buying gifts, Christmas presents:

“‘Oh, dear! Christmas is coming in…

I am writing, or trying to write, in a turkey-induced stupor.

Well, that’s at least partly correct. But not, I think, the turkey part.

Our family had a really nice Thanksgiving. I hope you and yours did, too. Into a…

Saying grace.

It’s an interesting term. What about . . .

Saying mercy. Saying hope. Saying love.

We don’t “say” those things. But we “say grace.” And we know exactly what we mean.

Wikipedia says that “the term comes…

You are reading the words of a man who feels, at least for the moment, that he’s done what he can to provide for his family. And I feel good about that. Warm, even.

A quick look out into…