Analysis

Raising a child is not easy at all. Raising someone else’s child is even harder. But raising six children who are not your own, giving up your life, sounds crazy to most of us.

It has been more than ten years since my first job interview ended with the classic: You did a great job, but we have chosen someone else. Since this memorable moment, other closed doors have followed: employers rejecting my application, people not sharing my interests, groups giving me the feeling of not being accepted.

Dr Peter Landless presents a fascinating history of transformation within his native South Africa, a transformation which has impacted the world.

Much of the Bible was written by prophets, so it is full of prophetic revelation. Most of these revelations are about mysteries of the past and present that we would not otherwise have access to.

In the opening scene of The Good Place, celestial being Michael (Ted Danson) explains that most world religions and philosophies get their respective understandings of the afterlife only about five per cent right.

I once heard a Christian warn his community: "God only has children, He does not have grandchildren!" In the postmodern context of relativising values and truths, diverse, strange or syncretic religious forms have emerged and continue to emerge. This is happening to a large extent within Christianity.

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.

God gave Christians a message to spread. The whole Bible talks about creation, about the fall of the world into sin, but also about the existence of a Saviour, in the person of Jesus Christ.

Temperance was once upheld by philosophers, saints and stoics. In a world dominated by indulgence, its call to balance feels more relevant than ever.

Two popular songs in the second half of the twentieth century have influenced entire generations, to this day, with a message we can call at least provocative: "Non, Je ne regrette rien" ("I do not regret anything"),[1] crooned to us by Edith Piaf, and "My Way", Frank Sinatra's melodic boast.[2]

Loss begets pain, but pain is not one-size-fits-all, so there are no recovery methods that work in all situations. We do have at hand, however, explanatory models of pain, studies that dismantle myths about grief and, above all, "a psychological immune system" that helps us recover from painful experiences.

One night while checking on his patients in a palliative care centre, the therapist risked asking a confusing question to a person whose universe had shrunk to the size of his sickbed: “What brought you joy today?” The answer was immediate: “Being alive.”

When professional activity causes constant stress, it is necessary, as part of a strategy for better communication, to identify the traits of a toxic boss and decipher problematic behaviours.

This imaginary interview is intended to convey that life and its meaning is subject to a never-ending process of change and that we as humans have a sacred duty to decipher this dynamic puzzle, and to play our roles with all the joy and seriousness we can muster.

The miracle of modern technology today is idealised by almost everyone. The way in which technology has placed the world at our feet, ensuring that we are at the centre of the universe even while lying on our couches, and that we find solutions simply by swiping our finger along a screen, has irredeemably conquered us.