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"If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light." (Victor Hugo)

One of the small joys of my childhood was to visit my maternal grandmother at the house on the hill.

"If I were tortured, I would confess to anything. I would confess to being the Sultan of Turkey," says Goya in a film by Milos Forman. "No, you wouldn't!" Father Lorenzo contradicts him, but Goya insists: "I would confess anything to avoid torment."

A common source of jokes and stories with subtext, the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law appears to be characterised by particular sensitivities.

Recently, I went trekking in Nepal. Sometimes upon returning from a trip, I feel the pressure to return with exciting stories—the near-death experiences and anecdotes that leave people wide-eyed and laughing.

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.

As Christians we are interested in a perpetual spiritual, moral, general human perfecting. But can we really succeed without perfecting our way of thinking, our capacity to understand, and thus without increasing our intellectual capital?

In recent weeks, Afghanistan has become a tender spot for the whole world. The Taliban's new and newly offensive rise to power is a novel situation for the international community, and every international player wants to know how to position itself in this new pattern of dynamic, bewildering forces.

During the holidays (but not only then), our budgets often go off the rails as we exhaust ourselves searching for gifts that will at least make a good impression, if not unlock the deep joy of the recipient’s heart. In this frenzy, however, we must not forget that we are teaching our children, consciously or unconsciously, valuable lessons about the meaning of giving.

“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).

Marquis Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827), a mathematician and astronomer and one of history’s most influential scientists, once had a meeting with Napoleon Bonaparte. Laplace came to offer the first consul of the republic a copy of his book, “Traité de mécanique celeste” (Treatise on Celestial Mechanics)—an analysis of the solar system that expanded on Isaac Newton’s conclusions.

What do you think of when you hear the word church? Perhaps your mind conjures up images of ancient cathedrals, resplendent with gothic spires, stained glass windows, and vaulted ceilings.

The idea of hell takes up a dark corner in most of our minds, whether we think about it or not.

"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do...

The Anabaptist creed emphasised the premise that Bible truth was accessible even to secular readers and listeners, who had a rudimentary education.