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Douglas Jacobs has a long pastoral and academic career, as well as many hobbies and interests. An accidental witness to an armed incident that changed his perspective on life and death, he shares his surprising experiences and lessons learned.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

We know their stories, or we think we know them. Theirs are stories of success that earn the admiration of the entire world. We see the moment of victory and wish we could be in the place of the victorious ones, without realising the effort and sacrifice that are behind that moment of glory. If we truly grasped this, we might become more...

I was born and grew up in Haiti, a country located in the Caribbean, about a one hour and a half flight from Miami. Haiti occupies one third of the island Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic occupies the other two thirds). 

Out of the endless series of events we experience, some we remember, and others we do not. Some often come to mind and we relish recounting them, while others we wouldn’t reveal for anything in the world.

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

The generation born with the tablet and the smartphone in its arms, but which ends up being exploited by big data cultivators and controlled by radicalization and polarization, can become the generation that implements anti-democratic movements.

We live in a world in which the news is far more pervasive than the events it reports. An event happens in one place but is almost instantly repeated and echoed in millions more. And while the event might be shocking, tragic or horrifying, a wider and sometimes greater toll is exacted by its reportage, by the slow-motion replays, by the breathless punditry...

I am visiting two sick people who share the same terminal illness. Their suffering is increased by the fact that they are brothers and that a mother’s broken heart lies at the core of it all. One of them is a businessman. The other, a servant of the altar. Their mother’s greatest frustration is that her wish to take some of the suffering...

Change is the only constant in life, especially the kind that comes unexpectedly and makes us believe that we cannot give in to it without giving up on ourselves, or turning into something we are not.

Courage is a special virtue: unlike other virtues that can be formed and polished over time, courage only makes itself known spontaneously and fully in situations where one is required to act, proving its existence.

Lace-edged rumours wafted through the student campus in Sagunto, Spain: Devin, one of the American boys who had come to Spain for a year of study, was dating Teresa, a second-year theology student who was hard to miss. Her striking beauty and cheerful nature attracted gazes like a magnet. No one suspected then, not even the protagonists of this relationship, that their love...

In developed countries, where the public debate on tobacco consumption has been so widespread that even those who had no desire for it were educated on the negative effects of smoking, the prevalence of this toxic habit dropped so drastically that it caused trouble for cigarette manufacturers.

Although poverty remains a part of our world, love still works wonders.

The book written by John Ortberg, All the Places to Go... How Will You Know? invites us to reflect on the discerning of God’s will for our lives.