Analysis

I'll leave my heart as payment among the coins, and pass... – Nichita Stănescu

"Rays of sunshine in the global economy we saw earlier in the year have been fading, and gray days likely lie ahead", says Ayhan Kose, deputy chief economist at the World Bank Group, summing up predictions for the global economy after several overlapping crises ended a nearly three-decade period of economic growth.

Sexual extortion or “sextortion” is a form of blackmail where someone threatens to share an intimate image or video of you unless you meet their demands. Often, they’ll intimidate you by threatening to send the compromising content to everybody on your contact list unless you send money or more explicit images or videos of yourself.

“In the works of Comenius one feels that a prophet is speaking; he was indeed a colossal figure, but only in recent years have his ideas received the respect they merit”.

Young love can be intoxicating, exhilarating and filled with passion. While many young relationships are healthy and positive, some can take a concerning turn. 

Traces of the ancient kingdom of Israel occasionally emerge from the dust of the Holy Land. These discoveries are immediately and inevitably followed by fierce controversies among archaeologists. As amateur spectators, Christians are eyewitnesses to these debates and, in one way or another, their faith is shaped by them.

"What is this life if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare." — from the poem "Leisure" by William H. Davies.

The sermons. My mother’s stories. The little sand table and Sabbath School for children. Adults’ conversations about religion. All the information I absorbed in childhood helped me sketch an image of Jesus with one major flaw: it was rendered in far too many shades of grey.

Around 10% of Americans and 7% of Brazilians believe that the Earth is flat, that the moon landing was a hoax, and that those vaccinated against Covid-19 unknowingly received a microchip along with the vaccine. Several more percent remain uncertain about the veracity of official information.

I’ll never be able to separate the memories of childhood from that of books. They intertwine like colours in fabrics, in a jumble of real and fantastical, bitter and sweet, joy and guilt.

Concern for the planet's climate and its ecology has occupied the world's attention for many decades. In the 1980s, the ozone layer depletion caused by chlorofluorocarbons and similar gases was observed, and in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was finalised.

After a chance meeting of mutual friends, I was introduced to Tim and Sonia in a restaurant in central Toowoomba, Queensland, eight days before their home was washed away.

I love books as much as I love people, but if I’m honest with myself, sometimes I find a little more comfort in the company of books than in the presence of my fellow humans.

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God...

I was standing in the supermarket queue, pushing my daughter in her pushchair, when a man well past his prime wearing camouflage trousers gave her a long look. Then he turned to me, as if continuing a conversation about parenting we'd started long ago, and said, "You know, this little girl is going to heal a lot of things in you."