Fairy tales
I deny that biology can destroy the sense of truth, which alone can even desire biology. - G. K. Chesterton, The Long Bow
"Papa, tell...
To reject the soup
In Ireland, my ancestors were offered a devil’s bargain by the otherwise good people during the potato famine. At that time, well-intentioned but misguided...
The Greeter
“Perhaps it was rather rude of me to turn my back, but upon my blessed word, I—I’d never heard such a thing in my...
God be with ye
I was speaking with a colleague, Fred, who is an atheist, and he told me that he preferred to use Xmas on his Christmas...
Cough Syrup
It was coming up to Christmas and I was sitting in the living room looking at the Christmas tree, deciding whether to light a...
All twelve days
“Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten,
But...
Puffballs
“What can go wrong?” I asked, “the book says it is safe, and it shows a picture of the thing. Listen! It says right...
The duty to defend
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!’’ But it’s “Saviour of ’is country,’’ when the guns begin to...
But for the grace of God
Every Christmas my family and I read aloud Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. And every Christmas we thoroughly enjoy it and are impressed with how...
Teaching kids Latin
Whenever the census in Canada rolls round, I suspect that I am one of the few people who, in the box where one reports...