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In Europe, few people know Gwyneth Paltrow as anything other than an American actress. In the United States, however, her "modern lifestyle" wellness brand called goop is growing her reputation—in a negative way.

Money is essential in our Western world. It allows us to purchase the necessities of life—food and shelter, for instance. It pays the bills for heating and cooling. There may even be enough for some luxuries.

Most often, when we think of a couple, we imagine unity and harmony: two people moving forward together, ready to face any obstacle. But the truth is that life as a couple is probably only a perfect world in some films, books, or, more recently, on social media.

“The newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street...and the devotees of the weird doctrine... work themselves into a state of mad excitement...They claim to have the ‘gift of tongues’ and to be able to understand the babel”.

If life were merely about money, it would be like a game of Monopoly. At the end of the game, you’d count your cash, add up the value of your assets and find out whether you’d won or lost. Then you’d breathe your last.

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, there is a scene in which the brilliant mathematician John Nash reveals how he manages to function, despite the schizophrenia that has tormented him for years. “I still see things that are not there,” said Nash, “I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I just choose not to indulge certain appetites.”

Roberto Badenas is a Seventh-day Adventist who specialises in Bible studies and is a New Testament teacher, with a theological leadership career that reflects his concern for people.

Psychologists call it "learned helplessness". People just call it "it is what it is". Both terms describe the same phenomenon: the exhaustion that comes from trying to maintain the belief that their efforts matter.

"Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love," said Mother Teresa. Hearing such words from a stranger might seem meaningless. They could easily be dismissed with the well-known proverb, "One swallow doesn't make a summer." But uttered by Mother Teresa, they take on immense power.

The controversy surrounding organic foods is far from being resolved. Some argue it’s merely a marketing tool aimed at emptying consumers’ pockets, while others believe they’ve found the path to better health, provided they can afford the luxury.

Some say that of all the opinions we can have in life, the most important is the opinion about ourselves.

The nativity of Jesus gives meaning and hope to all the stories about us and the world in which we live. In the bundle of narratives that have ever been imagined and told, it remains "the most beautiful story in the world."

From Europe to Asia and from Africa to the Americas and Australia, none of the culinary traditions, not even those acclaimed by scientists, generate an optimal supply of nutrients. Moreover, the food we eat daily kills 11 million of us prematurely every year. So then, what should we eat?

Born in 1999, Alex is on the cusp of the millennial generation. We're 12 years apart, but we have a lot in common. One is an unhappy time at school. Back in my day, it was called being an "emo": a kid who was too sensitive, too sad, too lonely, too shy, too everything.

"One Thousand Gifts" describes the beautiful revolt of a soul that does not want to be crippled by what it has lost, but to pierce its own suffering like an arrow springing from the bow of grace, a leitmotif of the whole book.