Dec 24
As I write this, the first major snow of the season is falling in southeast Michigan. Christmas songs are playing on my tablet. There is a pot of homemade soup simmering on the stove. Calder is on his cat tree and playing with the toy that hangs on a string from the top. I’m thinking …
Dec 16
In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge was obsessed over the accumulation of wealth. He was greedy, hoarding his pennies. He was mean, complaining about the poor. He was nasty, wishing ill on others. No one wanted to be around him. His main problem, however, was that he had lost his joy. Wretched behavior grew …
Dec 16
“I’ve got pageant on the brain.” It’s a temporary affliction that I most recently revealed to my friends one evening while we were playing Euchre. The conversation had been swimming around careers and responsibilities, and at some point I squeezed in my earth-shattering news: I’m directing the Christmas pageant at my church and am preoccupied …