“Relax…it’s just God”

When I read how a non-religious mother felt she needed to calm herself down at the thought that her child might begin to believe in God, I was surprised and almost offended.

The conditions for courage (I)

Motto: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." (Winston Churchill)

How (and why) should we cultivate our sense of humour?

The importance of humour, including in the workplace, is often undervalued, as a series of studies suggest.

Tony Giles and the courage to feel the world

Close your eyes, cover your ears, and imagine that all your life you will need to get by without being able to see or hear much. Perhaps merely imagining this makes you shiver, and in no way can you associate such a life with joy, independence, or travel. Tony Giles is one of those people who has managed to successfully remove all these...

Living with fewer regrets

No one can live life without gathering regrets. An opportunity missed. A situation handled poorly. A conversation you wished you’d had before things got out of control. All of us have done more than enough to cringe in the dark about. But there are ways to have fewer regrets. Here are seven. 
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?

How to manage “good debt” and “bad debt”

Almost half of Romanians are in debt, while 39% say that they don’t pay their debt on time, and 29% never create a budget. These figures, based on the most recent national studies, reflect Romanians’ values and financial literacy, but they can also represent the starting point of a conversation about "good debt" and "bad debt."

Understanding ourselves better, by understanding our dreams

Ever since ancient times, people have been interested in the origin and purpose of dreams. The initial theories relied heavily on the supernatural and dreams were seen as mental meeting places for gods and mortals, where gods could express their will to mortals, reveal the future to them, or deliver messages from the afterlife.

How (not) to clip the wings of reformation

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was hit hard by several disasters, the proportions of which are difficult to imagine today.

The relativity of time

Time can exist in many forms—work time, free time, leisure time—and it has a lot of possessive adjectives: my time, your time, our time. The relativity of time can often lead to confusion because of the accompanying mixture of emotions, such as fear, joy, satisfaction, or expectation. It was this relativity of time that led me to need to define it in my...

Gambling’s dark underbelly

Problem gambling in Australia and New Zealand is an issue seldom talked about, but we ignore it at our peril.

Tears, war, and tulips: a day among the Ukrainian refugees at the Siret Customs Point

The wind is blowing and it is snowing at the Siret Customs Point. Refugee groups stream by, women with children clinging to them, and the words of a little girl from another war, concluded almost eight decades ago, keep running through my mind: “And this was imprinted in my mind, that when my father is not home, it is war.”

The Anabaptist creed: The price of the Reform carried to the end

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

The wonder pill

It was terrifying. They kept trying to comfort me by telling me they had the best surgeons. But they also said that I needed a new liver and that my body might reject it. – Christopher Herrera

The miracle of the arrival of the Messiah: Looking for my own miracle

Unlike all the great founders of religions, Jesus of Nazareth is unique in both life and death, and nature and character. Only superficial researchers can consider him to be just a popular sage, a great prophet, or a revolutionary moral genius. Jesus is different from everyone, even in His birth.