Social

Footballers are often in the headlines for their off-field antics more than their on-field achievements. So, it is no real surprise that the greatest story to come out of the AFL is not about a nail-biting final or freakishly skilled player.

"The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ" challenges both the atheist and the agnostic, as well as the convinced or full-of-questions Christian, to look at the person of Jesus of Nazareth in a new light.

I once invited the cashier at my local 7-Eleven petrol station to join me and my friends on a beach couch made of sand to eat hotdogs after his shift. To our surprise, he not only came but continued to join us for months after.

"Man is born free but everywhere is in chains." (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

"If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light." (Victor Hugo)

We sometimes find ourselves surprised by how other people think about moral issues—how they distinguish right from wrong and choose to do what they think is right.

Natural disasters, financial crises, pandemics, wars and social unrest—each striking society in increasingly rapid succession—serve as stark reminders of our vulnerability.

I love books as much as I love people, but if I’m honest with myself, sometimes I find a little more comfort in the company of books than in the presence of my fellow humans.

Loss begets pain, but pain is not one-size-fits-all, so there are no recovery methods that work in all situations. We do have at hand, however, explanatory models of pain, studies that dismantle myths about grief and, above all, "a psychological immune system" that helps us recover from painful experiences.

Seeing a team care for remote villages in the Solomon Islands showed me how small donations can make a real big difference.

Introverts are said to be shy, quiet, withdrawn people who like to spend time alone, or who don't like people. Most of this information is incorrect.

"A Time to Forgive" is the story of a pilgrimage through the void of pain and trauma. A father, devastated by the enormity of his loss, struggles to forgive his daughter's killer.

Lucy is an 8-year-old girl who has a range of interests broader than that of an ordinary adult. She is enrolled in an international school, where classes are taught in French by native speakers. Her classmates are children of expats from different cultures, which amuses her nanny, who, when picking her up from school, says that she "took her from the children's UN."

Where there's fear, there's shame, says a Romanian proverb. What the proverb doesn't say (and what many of us don't know) is that the folds of shame hide a multitude of emotional problems and dysfunctional relationships that are passed down from one generation to the next.

Because life in developed societies follows a more or less regular pattern, sociologists have managed to identify the age at which conditions are most conducive to forming a friendship. It's not that people who are not of this age are unable to form meaningful connections with other people, but at other ages, life takes us on different paths, without asking for our permission.