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For parents, Christmas is always a stressful time: how to satisfy the child's desires without spoiling them and giving them the impression that they deserve to receive whatever they want, just because their decibel level exceeds the parents' level of calm and patience.

What do you do when things go wrong and everything around you seems to crumble? Do you keep your eyes forward and try to find a solution? Or do you fall into endless complaining?

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3).

Jesus's words could not have been foreign to the Jewish people of His day. In an eminently oral culture, narratives, stories, parables and metaphors occupied an important place.

What is left of me after I shut down my computer, turn off my phone, or wipe away my makeup? What about after I quit my job, after I move, after I lose my health, after I get older? What if no one knew me—would I still be someone?

Have you ever felt like there was nothing to your story? Like your life wasn’t anything worth sharing? Or like it would set you further apart from others?

Each day we are confronted with situations that make us wonder how human life can have such a low value in the eyes of some of our contemporaries—those contemporaries who live in freedom and (at least feigned) democracy, who are educated and socialised in the same civilisation as ours, often even in the same community or under similar civil laws and with broadly...

Noemina is a graduate of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, where she majored in health care. She is working in her field as of 2012. The journal excerpt she sent to us reflects her week-long experience at the epicentre of the battle with the new coronavirus in the intensive care unit, where serious cases are admitted.

I thought to myself: Is there an alarm or is it an end of day signal?

This seemingly innocent question has probably caused more unrest in the last 2000 years than any other. It is, in fact, an echo of the concern of the ancient Jews to determine whether or not Israel was God's only people on earth. It also represents the echo of history that has witnessed wars born of the desire to legitimise a supreme deity.

An article in the New Yorker[1] explains why we tend to not change our convictions, not even when faced with contrary evidence. 

Although we experience more positive than negative elements in life, we are still more intensely and more quickly affected by the unpleasant ones. How can we protect our joy of living despite the problems that beset us?

As Christian parents, the most important legacy we want to leave our children is faith in God.

Many had not yet finished clearing away the leftovers from the New Year's Eve table, almost no one had returned to work, politics was still numb and journalists yawned with boredom because almost nothing of interest had happened on 2 January 2015.

JS: What is NAIDOC Week? Why is it significant?  DG: NAIDOC Week celebrates Indigenous culture—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their achievements and their contribution to the nation.