Analysis

For the average punter, rugby league had its beginnings in a school at Rugby, England, when one William Webb Ellis, “with fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time at Rugby school, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the rugby game.”

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

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.

The promise to live with our loved one “until death do us part" has gradually lost its meaning. Today, it is considered unrealistic to get married with the idea that the relationship will last forever.

When I watch chicks hatch in a nest and begin to perform the instinctive behaviours of their species, I think about what we might understand about ourselves, the human species, if we had the perspective of such a privileged observer.

Happiness must come naturally – and this is true for success: you must let it happen simply by not obsessing over it.

“To be fearless may be a gift. However, the most precious one is, probably, the courage resulting from developing the habit of not allowing fear to dictate your actions”, says the renowned Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy activist in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, in her essay titled “Free from fear”.

“I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).

We’re born ready to laugh. In fact, as part of a normal baby’s development, they will begin laughing at about the age of three months. That’s long before we begin to say our first words—older babies begin to start speaking at the age of nine to 12 months.

Responsible, achievement-oriented and highly principled – this is what a brief portrait of a perfectionist child looks like, explaining why, up to a certain point, this is the kind of child most parents dream of.

We often treat burnout syndrome as a diagnostic fad. In reality, overworking has become the norm, and its consequences are serious enough to urge us to identify the best strategies to prevent it.

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light” (Hellen Keller).

Socrates is surrounded by his disciples on the day of his death, but he discusses immortality with them calmly. Jesus, on the other hand, only a few hours before His death, asks His disciples not to leave Him alone. Socrates drinks the cup of poison quickly and joyfully, without fear or doubt, while Jesus, troubled, asks the Father to take the cup from...

The Parable of the Sower appears to be the key to understanding all the other parables told by Jesus. It is neither mysterious nor cryptic; it simply provides a starting point. The apostles and all those who read the parable today are asked by Jesus Christ: "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?" (Mark 4:13). The logical conclusion...

To nothing else is the name of God so often linked in our human discourse as to suffering and deliverance. This locus is a huge and complicated intersection of our existence.