Culbert Report

Recently I've been thinking a lot about miracles. We throw the term around quite a bit. When asking my husband to define miracle, he appropriately replied, "happy, happy things that happen, especially at Christmas!" Precisely, I thought. This exactly summarizes what we would like miracles to be. Two summers ago, Colorado was bursting at the seams with the miraculous: "It's a miracle that the Colorado Rockies made it to the World Series!" Also miraculous, our ability to come up with such a catchy term marking the month of their success on such a short amount of time, " Rocktober ." Although the Rockies' success was yes, far-fetched and incredibly unlikely, miracle is still a bit too hyperbolic to use in this instance. Wikipedia (well reputed source on miracles) tells us that a miracle "is a sensibly perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can only be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated w...

We've recently enjoyed the company of some dear friends of ours out in the bustling metropolis of Junction City, Oregon.  Our friends were delighted to introduce us to their darling girl, Elizabeth, whom we hadn't had the opportunity to meet these last six months of her existence.  While we savored watching her small hands, busy feet, and endlessly changing (often humorous) expressions, we enjoyed so much more watching these new parents glow in the joy of their daughter. As visits with these dear friends are rich, but seldom, we jokingly began a yarn of folklore to assuage the sadness of living far apart, missing more moments with Elizabeth, the new source of daily life and chaos for our friends:  Crazy Uncle Dan.  Crazy Uncle Dan lives in Russia and does Crazy Uncle Dan things, like hanging his wet clothes on the clothesline outside in negative 40 degree weather, then shattering his jeans when he tries to put them on immediately after taking them off the line.  Or like learnin...

An attempt to modernize this moment in the gospel of Luke. Herd of Pigs Luke 8:26-39      It was that same smell that always smacks into you on that same corner: that revolting blend of stale alcohol and dried urine. We always quickened our pace around that corner, a sort of unspoken pact, anxious to get to the light and cross to the cleaner side of the street. But he was there today, marinating in his own filthy odor and trash. As he sensed our approach, he began spewing his senseless fragments:      “Adime t’day? Shum change?”      “How abow shum help for a body down on he sluck.”      “You kids got shum money?”      I looked over at my brother, who stood staring unabashedly at the desolate man. This corner, this man, seemed, for my brother, as much a part of our Friday routine as swimming at the Y, candy at Michelle’s, and reading magazines at the library. I could see the subtle fascination creep over his face. He just lives like that. Lives. Why doesn’t he do something for...