We stared down at Him in horror, the tiny Infant with the shattered foot and the severed head. The legs of His manger lay under our dinner table, and a round chunk of bone china shaped like a tightly-curled fist had made it almost all the way to our living room. The Baby Jesus’s broken body spread out in all directions, and we had to be careful not to step on any shards as we crept nearer. My older sister Tricia was the first to snap out of her stupor, making a sudden dash for the broom closet and muttering something about “before Dad wakes up and freaks.” My younger sister Diana, who had been the unintentional vessel of the Christ Child’s wild ride, puzzled silently over the pieces as if they were bird entrails or dried bones, holding the clues to her uncertain future.

"The Christmas we killed the Baby Jesus”--that’s what Tricia and I would call it later, to lighten our memory of what had been an awful weekend. It would be years before we knew the reason Diana found so little humor in our joke. Once, I even saw her start crying, and asked, “What? You’re still beating yourself up about that gaudy old Nativity set?” Maybe if I’d had her faith in signs I might have seen the signs in her.

This is an excerpt of one of my short stories.

Growing up, religion was always a major part of my life. Whatever my beliefs may be now or in the future, I think it's my mission as a writer to expose both the beautiful and the painful aspects of religious belief, and its impact on the way people live their lives. I think it's especially an issue for many teens and young adults. At least, it was for me.