On October 31, 2010, a dozen Islamist gunmen murdered some 60 Christians. John L. Allen Jr. has written about martyrdom, noting that there are about 100,000 modern-day martyrs each year. He wonders why the West seems to care so little about this.

Now that Colorado and Washington have made selling marijuana legal, the question is whether this signals anything of significance. Oliver Sacks thinks so. He smoked pot in the Sixties. Now he denounces it as a shortcut.

In 2005 Larry King asked Billy Graham if “gay people are lesser.” Graham replied “it’s just one of many sins.” He felt the church has bigger fish to fry. Last week I made the same recommendation. A few readers asked for a few more fish. Here they are.

When asked about the status of gay priests, Pope Francis surprised reporters. “Who am I to judge?” Some see his reply as a sign of acceptance – others, acquiescence. There’s another possibility, however. It might be that the church has bigger fish to fry.

We may joke about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) but it affects up to 15 percent of the population. Readers of C. S. Lewis might see SAD as more than a laughing matter. It could be one of many “signals of transcendence” that point to a greater reality.

When promised she would soon be pregnant, Mary asked How can this be? A particular aspect of Gabriel’s message didn’t make sense. It was implausible. Plausibility is a sticking point in the post-Christian world. Mary’s question reminds us that the path to reasonable faith begins with widening the imagination.

The Christmas story includes the “Massacre of the Innocents” – Herod’s slaughter of young male children in and around Bethlehem. Mothers were left inconsolable, like “Rachel weeping for her children,” writes Matthew. But that’s not the lesson to be learned from Rachel. The rest of her story can comfort those who have lost a baby.

We enjoy breaks more than the lectures. David Thornburg says conferences may feature great speakers, but within a day or two, people begin staying out in the hall talking to peers. These breaks are “meeting a need,” he writes. They represent the best learning spaces. Lectures less so.

Sigmund Freud described America as “the most grandiose experiment the world has seen.” But “I am afraid it is not going to be a success.” For the American experiment to succeed, the Senate must be a saucer. Given recent developments, is the saucer broken?

The “holiday blues” are upon us. Dwindling daylight hours can be partly to blame. However, a blue funk can also be due to families expressing grief in ill-advised ways. This creates an unbearable burden. We feel it when visiting family over the holidays.