Analysis

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

The world of the homeless is the darker side of our world. It is inhabited by vagrants, drug addicts, and the powerless. This world has its own rules, customs, pleasures, and pains, but lacks meaning and peace. And those who enter this world struggle to leave it.

Until that point in our marriage, my wife and I had shared a car. She worked in the city, close to public transport and wherever we went, we went together. And she preferred me to drive. When we had our daughter, the situation didn’t change much. Covid-19 made it hard to go anywhere and we found our four-door sedan big enough to tackle...

Interpreting Scripture is a book published by the Biblical Research Institute in the USA. It is aimed at people who want to understand the Bible better.

Of the approximately 26-28,000 days (73-79 years) that the average person lives, only a maximum of 10% of that time is actually spent as an adult making decisions about what to do. The rest of our time is spent in activities that are generally unavoidable.

The stakes are high when it comes to homosexuality, promiscuity, alcoholism, violence, and the like. Previously seen as a result of environmental influence and moral choice, they have now become a genetical given.

How much do we know about love? Enough to understand that love is not an obligation—we cannot love by force, nor be loved in this way.

Last week brought about the guilty verdict in the trial of George Floyd’s murderer, Derek Chauvin, causing the topic of justice to once again become a contentious issue for many people around the globe.

“We all feel stronger if we are part of a tapestry. One thread alone is weak, but, woven into something larger, surrounded by other threads, it is more difficult to unravel,” says family therapist Stefan Walters, summarising the benefits of understanding the history of the family we come from.

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.

On the morning of the 15 November 2016, I awoke in a hospital bed, with no memory of how I got there. My favourite pyjamas had been torn from my body, and I lay in a hospital gown, a piercing pain in my head, impaling my brain. I was barely able to think and incapable of speech. I was scared, though this was...

Many certainties and convictions will be swept away. Many things that we thought were impossible are happening. The day after we have won, it will not be a return to the day before; we will be stronger morally.

In terms of short-term benefits to one's reputation, or monetary benefits, the illusion of deceit is intoxicating. But, in the long run, both from an individual and a social perspective, the negative effects of deceitful behaviours should be convincing enough in order to deter any and all from engaging in them.

“Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

While browsing through a folder of old documents, I rediscovered some poems written during my student years. One of them drew my attention because of a verse that resonated with me from the beginning: Only childhood makes us whole.