Analysis

Even if there were a thousand people in a room with Pastor Jim Ayer, you wouldn't be able to miss him. He towered over most people by at least a head and always wore a black hat with a wide brim. I recognised him as the friendly host of a programme on Adventist World Radio, for which he travelled to the most unusual...

Elspeth Muir’s brother, Alexander, died from drowning. It was 2009, and he had just turned 21. He died from drowning, but his death “was not foreshadowed by his love of water except that it explains why he was near a river, alone, with a blood-alcohol content of almost 0.25. My brother died because he was drunk, and because the drink made him stupid.”

They say that "all roads lead to Rome". This famous saying originated in ancient times with the extensive network of roads built by the Romans to facilitate communication and travel throughout their empire.

Adults who choose not to have children are often portrayed as selfish people, so preoccupied with their own lives that the prospect of the sacrifices that raising a child would entail seems repulsive to them. Is this view fair or is it just an unfair judgement?

In a cynical world, just as certain otherwise healthy nutrients could cause cancer, correct formulations develop cynicism because they are easily suspected of hypocrisy. In order to believe again, cynics need different, experiential perspectives.

Five hundred years ago, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. How are the motives that led to the Reformation viewed today?

What if we weren't allowed to use more than 140 words a day? If we entered this game, among the useless words we would give up there would probably be words that convey encouragement too. The sad irony is that we use too few words of encouragement anyway, although the emotional and relational benefits are too important to neglect.

Next to family and health, friends are among the top reasons that make us happy. But what if we are solitary, recluse or shy?

“When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window,” poet Ogden Nash once said, encapsulating one of the most common sources of intergenerational conflict—the role grandparents play in the upbringing of their grandchildren.

When we try to understand our fellow human beings, to grasp their thinking, the reasons behind their decisions, and the purpose of their actions, a familiar adage from popular wisdom comes to mind: “Put yourself in their shoes.”

After more than a decade of civil war, during which more than 300,000 civilians have died, Syria is hit by a new crisis. People are digging graves again, for the adults and children who managed to survive the war.

In the early decades of the 18th century, America was in the throes of an identity crisis. The new American lifestyle had earned New England the nickname of “the new English Sodom.”

When I was 20, my spiritual life felt like an exam where I had been given a topic I hadn’t prepared for.

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.

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”