Social

I just got back from the funeral of a fifty-four-year-old mother who left behind a grieving teenager. His father told how the boy wanted to ask his mother for forgiveness, on her deathbed, for all the stubbornness typical of a seventeen-year-old. He was already forgiven.

I spoke very little in my early years and my mother says that my silence scared her. She never knew what was going through my mind. She was afraid I was hiding something.

Regular reading of the Bible in childhood is a strong predictor of spiritual health in adulthood. If instilling a love for the Bible is a crucial factor in religious education, parents need to develop methods to reinforce a habit that keeps children on the desired spiritual trajectory.

Self-sacrifice—the ability of some people to put the lives of others above their own—is not at all easy to understand.

When I look at the lives of some people, I can't help but wonder if they are cut from a different cloth to most of us. Their courage in the face of challenges, their resilience, their vision and their achievements are so impressive that my imagination wonders what the world would look like if their passion were multiplied.

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” — Ayn Rand

“Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you.” With this message, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, launched the telephone. The door had opened to distant, personal and instant contact.

While most of us have been staying inside for several weeks, many leave the safety of their homes every day to help us live our lives as normally as possible.

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

Beginning with Cain and Abel, history has known famous and less famous stories woven around the devastating experience of envy.

I am standing outside a cavernous hall, holding a clear plastic bag that contains several pens and pencils. My head is pounding; I’m wide-eyed with fear; my heart is about to burst out of my chest; and I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The reason? I’ve forgotten to study for an exam that’s about to begin!

Elspeth Muir’s brother, Alexander, died from drowning. It was 2009, and he had just turned 21. He died from drowning, but his death “was not foreshadowed by his love of water except that it explains why he was near a river, alone, with a blood-alcohol content of almost 0.25. My brother died because he was drunk, and because the drink made him stupid.”

Five seconds. And everything smells of heaven, wet grass and happiness.

One of the best-known stories told by ambitious entrepreneurs today is that if you work hard, you will have a lot.

What is left of me after I shut down my computer, turn off my phone, or wipe away my makeup? What about after I quit my job, after I move, after I lose my health, after I get older? What if no one knew me—would I still be someone?