Planted—and growing
One of the most overused metaphors for our human experience of life is that of the journey.
How well are you protected against scammers?
Most of us want to trust. We assume that others possess our own level of honesty and goodwill. Sadly, this is neither a sensible nor a safe attitude anymore.
Every week’s human rights day
Article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a counterpoint to the previous article in the Declaration that recognises the right to work and to do so in fair conditions. After affirming the human right to work, Article 24 reads, “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” It is a...
“The woman with the book” | The weakness that unleashes the power of God
God uses the traits we dislike as well as our weaknesses to create something great, beyond our abilities and imagination. This is the message that pervades the pages of "The Woman with the Book", the biography of the missionary Gladys Aylward.
Amid people and books
Meetings with people and books have shaped the space for a sometimes unequal, sometimes unsatisfactory growth between the human I am and the one I would like to be.
Reacting to the worst news
In a conversation with Dr. Shelly-Ann Bowen, we discussed her research on what determines whether someone will be active or passive in the face of catastrophic events—fires, floods, or a cancer diagnosis. Social injustice, a lack of self-awareness, and even an immature understanding of faith paralyse action. But there are ways to make positive changes.
Return to meaning
"To feel that you have meaning is to feel immortal," psychology professor and author Clay Routledge wrote in 2014. Is this the only kind of immortality we will ever have?
Mother by profession
Raising a child is not easy at all. Raising someone else’s child is even harder. But raising six children who are not your own, giving up your life, sounds crazy to most of us.
How disposable are you?
How do we value a human’s life? Should we rate lives on their value to their community? That would mean a life-saving surgeon would have more value than someone living on the street. Or is it potential—which would make a baby more valuable than a 50-year-old? What about the value we place on those later in life versus those at the end?
The disaster that changed everything without changing anything
Years of prosperity swallowed up in a few months of recession—that's how you could sum up the global economic crisis that began in 2007. At its core, the worst recession since the interwar period turned out to be a mirror into which none of us want to look.
Getting your kids to do chores
You wouldn’t think so, but whether or not children do chores is one predictor of their future happiness and success.
COVID-19: Could giving up ever be the key to success?
Pray! If not to God, then to a god. Admit that we are defeated, because this is the first step towards victory.
The search for meaning
In The Simpsons episode entitled “Homer the Heretic,” Homer Simpson has a conversation with God.
How many Bibles does one person need?
“We need a Bible like this,” said Reverend Richard Cizik, Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals in America, at the launch of the first Green Bible in 2010. Current environmental issues demand an ecological Bible, where passages about the quality of divine creation and care for nature entrusted to us by God are highlighted in green, Cizik says.
“You can beat this!” | Milestones on the road from fear to success
He was born in 1935 in Narvik, Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle, at a time when the clouds of war were gathering. In 1940, in the space of a few months, Narvik was controlled by Germany, conquered by the Allies, and then left to the Germans.


























