Analysis

From an early age, we are bombarded with messages telling us to stand out, to make something of ourselves, to do something great with our lives. Many times the voices are religious in nature: God has great plans for us, He will do truly remarkable things with our lives.

“And Who Is My Neighbour?” asked a Jewish teacher of the Law when Jesus Christ told him that eternal life entails observing two commandments: to love God and to love one’s neighbour.

The question, "Is the end of something better than its beginning?" nuances the statement of Solomon, who is considered in the Bible the wisest man who ever lived.

“God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).

The generation born with the tablet and the smartphone in its arms, but which ends up being exploited by big data cultivators and controlled by radicalization and polarization, can become the generation that implements anti-democratic movements.

It is not we who educate our children, they educate themselves. Unique, complete, amazing. Every child and every childhood is a challenge to discover and respect their individuality. Let's enjoy the revelations they give us and grow ourselves by observing and facilitating their growth.

Changing habits is like tightrope walking: an exercise in which the balance is always fragile, but it is the small changes that pave the way to truly remarkable results.

Almost a century ago, writer Virginia Woolf noticed people’s tendency to approach books “with clouded and divided minds, asking fiction to be true, poetry to be false, biographies to be flattering and history to chime with prejudices.”

Every few years, our Christmas lasts for a week. My husband’s family rents a large house and four generations gather from England, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Netherlands, Chile and Argentina. This year there will be more than 30 of us—including two new babies.

“The newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street...and the devotees of the weird doctrine... work themselves into a state of mad excitement...They claim to have the ‘gift of tongues’ and to be able to understand the babel”.

The birth of Jesus Christ is one of the most significant events in human history. Celebrated at Christmas, by some with emotion, by others with indifference, most of the time the holiday loses sight of the main Character. Religious meanings remain in the shadows, while commercial dimensions are pursued at all costs.

Psychologists call it "learned helplessness". People just call it "it is what it is". Both terms describe the same phenomenon: the exhaustion that comes from trying to maintain the belief that their efforts matter.

Ultra-rich Silicon Valley tech magnate Bryan Johnson has been regularly having transfusions of his own son’s blood plasma in an effort to live longer. The treatments are expensive and are essentially still being trialled.

An old saying states: "If youth knew; if age could". This truth is reflected by countless studies showing that lifestyle adjustments made in middle age (or even earlier) favour a transition to a healthier old age.

When we help someone without expecting anything in return, we often forget both the recipient and the gift. But God does not forget, and fulfils—at just the right time—the promise found in the verse that provides the title of this article. He did the same in my case.