Taking the plunge
The little boy must have been about four years old. I watched with interest as his dad walked to the edge of the diving board at the deep end of the pool and showed him h... »
Personal Accounts
A single step
A couple of years ago, I took an English teaching training course. My first language is Croatian, and I had been working as a professional translator and interpreter for... »
Live today!
Someone has said that today is a marvel of opportunity, crucified between two thieves, yesterday and tomorrow! Today, this very day, is one of the most wonderfully precio... »
Holding on
As a young child, I would lie in bed at my grandparents’ house, listening to the sounds of the television downstairs and looking at the pictures on the wall. One was a pi... »
New Year choices
I’m quite excited about my New Year’s resolution, and I think it’s going to work. No, I know it’s going to work. It’s got to, because I see now that my future hinges on i... »
Mallory’s mountain
When someone asked the famous mountaineer George Mallory why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he simply stated: “Because it is there.” Didn’t he know that staying home w... »
Notebooks and planners
Ever since my school days, one of my greatest thrills has been to start a new notebook. That first nice-smelling white page, all clean and perfect, without wrinkles or de... »
Shiny red apples
Christmas 1984 was our family’s third Christmas away from Europe, and the remote village in eastern India where we had moved to help as volunteers had become a second hom... »
He came to us
Recently, I was reading about the history of Christmas and where our various Christmas traditions come from, including ones that may have originated in pagan rituals or f... »
Repainting the angel
The statuette of an angel holding the hand of a little boy had been placed on a neglected back shelf in an antique shop. It was covered with soot and dust, lost amidst th... »
The Christmas shoes
The Christmas season—undoubtedly my favorite season of the year—holds many unforgettable memories. It was on a snowy December day when I was six years old that our family... »
Sky ballet
It was Christmas morning, and my wife and I were enjoying a break at the end of what had been a hectic December. The view from our hotel balcony—a pristine lake surrounde... »
1,001 gifts for Jesus
Last Christmas, the magical spark never came. I was bothered by all the commercialism that plagues our city months in advance. Somewhere between the flashy ads in magazin... »