Biography of a dilemma

"If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them" (James 4:17).

Food for life

A lot is said and written about food, and a fair share of the promises we make are related to it. We might decide to eat more healthfully or perhaps we wish to diminish food waste. Unfortunately, our promises are often quickly forgotten, because destructive habits are hard to forsake. There are, however, people who have found ways to transform not just their...

When love ties us too tightly

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." When I first heard this line from the "Love Story" blockbuster, I thought I was the only one who didn't understand what it meant. However, after watching a recent interview with the lead actress, I was reassured. She too thought it was a stupid thing to say. Still, the phrase was a hit at the...

Paradise seen from the outside

In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures – Psalm 104:24

Cringeworthy!

When a visitor walks into your church, what will they see? What will they hear? How will they feel?

Are COVID-19 vaccines safe? What guarantees the absence of compromise?

How was it possible to produce a vaccine against COVID-19 in less than a year, and what guarantees are there that there were no compromises in the process? What can we say about the COVID-19 vaccine's safety?

Are you gifted?

There’s something lying on a massive table. It’s a huge picture. You move closer and see that the design is made up of individual pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. But the pattern is unusual. It isn’t an immediately recognisable image, such as a Swiss mountain or a bouquet of tulips.

The sprouts of genomics

Although the results do not seem spectacular yet, at least to the majority of the population, probably the most remarkable advances in the field of healthcare in the last 30 years relate to the mapping of the human genome (completed in 2003), the genome of other animal and plant species, and the development of bioinformatics.

Uncertain certainties and the fragility of reason

“For a long time I supposed that somewhere in the university, there were really clever people whom I had not yet met, and whom I should at once recognise as my intellectual superiors, but during my second year, I discovered that I already knew all the cleverest people in the university. This was a disappointment to me, but at the same time gave...

COVID-19: Should we care about the environment in the midst of an economic crisis?

Our planet may be fittingly compared to the 1994 film, Speed: A bomb is planted on a bus and rigged to explode when the bus slows to less than 80 kilometres per hour. The bus barrels through Los Angeles, hitting obstacles and endangering the lives of passengers and pedestrians until a solution is found.

The basics of how to communicate effectively

Today, communication is becoming easier thanks to technology, which makes it faster and more accessible. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean that we know how to communicate effectively.
family

Escaping from the deadly family

Letting go of the environment and education you received at home is difficult as it is, but can there be liberation if you grew up in a family of mobsters?

Life under the cross and death at the stake

For the chained man, there were now only two options: unreserved submission to the council or condemnation; recantation or death. Outside, the stake was already prepared.

Gifts for good

When I was in my mid-twenties, I attended a university in Brisbane, Australia, two hours from where I lived. I had a friend in the city who I’d sometimes stay with to avoid having to travel back and forth on back-to-back uni days.

The transforming power of one caring adult

Statistically, by now Josh should have been either in jail, living on the street, or dead. The long years in which he was abused and expelled from the families who took him in made him no longer trust anyone. But the love of adults who showed him that they cared was stronger than anything that pushed him toward self-destruction.