Analysis

Immersed in contemplation, I eagerly remove the gnarled, wet roots. As my thoughts drew closer to the tenuous yet vigorous spring beneath them, a word intersected my search like an intense beam of light. Harmony. I felt as if the tips of my thoughts had reached the source of the experience I was trying to decipher—happiness.

I don’t remember ever doubting that, beyond the limits of the ensnaring, visible world, there is another reality that can only be accessed by those who speak the language of faith.

In a society that is more concerned with form than substance, character ranks second. It is the power of the image that dictates things.

I was born into an Adventist family. This meant feeling that pretty much everything I knew, including my religious tradition, was the sole truth.

In 2004, we experienced firsthand one of the most devastating tsunamis of our century. It was early morning, on Boxing Day.

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. – John 14:6

By 2030, epidemics will be eradicated; life, rejuvenated by injections, giving lifespans of 150 years; and cars almost obsolete with aeroplane ownership common. These were the 1930 predictions of FE Smith, a British politician and friend of Winston Churchill.

Making any choice denies the possibility of at least one other choice. When confronted with this truth, young people often find themselves unprepared for life’s big choices.

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.

Most of us have been urged since we were little to not give up, to carry on, and to “go our own way”. The idea that giving up is a negative choice, a synonym for failure, or a sign of cowardice or inability, is deeply embedded in our minds.

On any given day, a typical person checks the clock several dozen times.

“No doubt equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men have made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might; so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good....” (Blaise Pascal, Thoughts)

In a dilapidated shack in Nairobi, a young woman makes her confession to the BBC reporter eager to hear her story: “I don’t know why God allows some people to be poor while others are rich.”

The Bible is not the product of an event or a circumstance, but of time, study and especially of the journey that humanity took on its way to its development. But could it be that all the time that has passed has also eroded its relevance? How much confidence can we still have in the Bible, in the 21st century?

At 28, the world was hers. Ellie Finch Hulme was engaged to the man of her dreams, and a lifetime of experience lay before her, like an open field in which one could run freely in any direction. Then came the diagnosis.