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Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke

Many years ago, while I was still in high school, our Romanian language and literature teacher assigned us the task of writing a framed story, complete with characters and a plot of our choosing.

Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

Vaccination allows the creation of an effective and long-lasting defense of the body against the disease. In the confrontation with the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination, with its pros and cons, is currently one of the solutions that science has offered to humanity.

When we are stressed, our sympathetic nervous system prepares our body for one of two possible responses: fight or flight. It does this by channelling most of its resources to our vital organs and muscles. The unknown, along with the absence of the familiar, is a major source of stress.

I had a ringing in my ears due to that unusual inner silence which I was paradoxically experiencing at the same time as a thought-storm that made me scream on the inside. 

When it comes to dealing with grief, psychotherapist Francis Weller points out that "it takes outrageous courage to face an outrageous loss". By supporting those who are bereaved, the Church shows that it possesses the qualities needed to balance concern for current suffering with faith in the ultimate victory over death.

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.

When one pays attention to the finer details, any life story can be interesting. When you go into detail, any common or mediocre story that could have been summed up in only a few words, becomes a confession. I realise that my own story is no exception, although it has often seemed to me that I live a banal and predictable life.

Henry Ford is believed to have said: “Sometimes a mistake can be all it takes to make a valuable achievement.” Apparently paradoxical, the statement says a lot about us and what we consider at any given moment to be “a mistake.”

In the early decades of the 18th century, America was in the throes of an identity crisis. The new American lifestyle had earned New England the nickname of “the new English Sodom.”

When we think of gratitude and a lack of gratitude, the biblical scene that comes to mind is the healing of the ten lepers, of whom only one, a Samaritan, returned to thank the Saviour, worshiping and praising God in a loud voice (Luke 17:15-16).

Yelling at children—especially younger kids—appears to be effective. They stop whatever they’re doing (or not meant to be doing) and start obeying you.

In grief, acceptance and rebellion intertwine, and meaning emerges from tears, faith, and the hope that death does not have the last word.

I was there, I saw him. He was coming towards me mechanically, impassively, coldly. He suddenly stopped in front of me and waited for me to speak. For a moment, I froze. He was tall, thin, his face oval and his eyes blue, slightly sunken under his eyelids. I had met such people before, but there was something special about him.