Theology

There is a lot of talk today about the fact that things are not what they seem. It is not easy to distinguish between conspiratorially motivated speculation, and the real hidden things of our world—but most of the time the sources make the difference.

Soviet soldier Bakhretdin Khakimov was declared missing in action during the war in Afghanistan, which claimed the lives of 15,000 USSR soldiers and more than a million Afghans. Thirty-three years later, his family found out he was alive, living as a true Afghan among his former enemies.

"Hi, Alina! I hope you had a productive weekend" was the opening line of an email that, to me, encapsulated a whole misguided philosophy of life.

We are generally surrounded by people close to us—family, friends, or colleagues. We build a kind of microcosm in which we stand at the center, alongside the relationships we choose to maintain. But on that particular day, I was reminded that everyone has their own microcosm.

The mix of emotions a family goes through when expecting a baby is both wonderful and terrifying. When everything seems to be in order, the...

Pray! If not to God, then to a god. Admit that we are defeated, because this is the first step towards victory.

Immersed in contemplation, I eagerly remove the gnarled, wet roots. As my thoughts drew closer to the tenuous yet vigorous spring beneath them, a word intersected my search like an intense beam of light. Harmony. I felt as if the tips of my thoughts had reached the source of the experience I was trying to decipher—happiness.

From my experience and the conversations I have had so far, I have found that there are two major categories of people who come to doubt the existence of God.

Many people know the Lord’s Prayer, having learned it from a parent or grandparent. But few know that it was given as a response to the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray.

When the fear of war overwhelms our thoughts, let us not forget that we are not alone, that God will end our suffering and give us a new and everlasting life.

"Western societies have transformed Sundays into days where leisure activities have eclipsed the traditional Christian meaning of the day—to devote time to God", Pope Benedict XVI once said, reminding us that the day of rest is a celebration of God's creation of the world. Observing this day now, when there are worrying signs about the global climate, is a necessity, the Pope added.

The effect or influence that a particular thing has on us depends largely on where that thing falls on the scale of our values. It's one thing to lose your folding fan in a foreign country and quite another to lose your passport.

The image of an apocalypse generated by a microscopic coronavirus has been sketched more than once by the press in the past few weeks.

In the spring of 1936, the members of the Lykov family made a decision that would change their lives forever: they disappeared into the Siberian taiga, completely isolating themselves from the world for the next 40 years.

The world of the homeless is the darker side of our world. It is inhabited by vagrants, drug addicts, and the powerless. This world has its own rules, customs, pleasures, and pains, but lacks meaning and peace. And those who enter this world struggle to leave it.