Forgiveness heals the one who forgives

Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. – C.S. Lewis

The outside world and the bubbles in our heads

Plato may have been one of the first to think this way, but in modern sociology it was Walter Lippmann who made history with the idea that people do not have access to reality in all its complexity, but operate on images of that reality that they construct for themselves.

Sometimes God is hungry

There are people who love animals; we see them often, offering scraps of food to stray dogs or pigeons in public squares and parks, gazing at them affectionately, touching them, speaking to them tenderly. Rarely, however, does any of that reserve of sympathy find its way into the silence, indifference, or reproach with which people respond to a request for help from someone...

Christ in them

I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.

When faith falters, and couples drift apart

Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke

No one is perfect: how to help children learn from mistakes

To err is human. “The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no ideas”, Albert Einstein said.

The little secret that carries us further

The TV-series Friends was recently reviewed in The New York Times as “enormously easy to watch”. This characteristic however does not make the show unique, nor can it account for its popularity today, more than 15 years since its final episode.

“The backbone of our well-being” | Social interaction and its benefits

“We shrivel when we are not able to interact. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are” (Desmond Tutu).

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...

An encounter with kindness

Sartre may have been right when he said Hell is other people. Yet, for some, their first step toward Heaven is meeting the God who shelters in someone else's soul.

Digital natives, digitally naive: life at the dawn of another revolution

The generation born with the tablet and the smartphone in its arms, but which ends up being exploited by big data cultivators and controlled by radicalization and polarization, can become the generation that implements anti-democratic movements.

Towards a fulfilled life

“...what matters is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment...” (Viktor E. Frankl)

What love looks like

For anyone who has spent any time in a church context or has encountered some form of Christianity, the significance of the story of Jesus is often assumed and then summarised in the single best-known Bible verse: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but...

Reconnecting to the world we live in

What Indigenous peoples have long understood about our relationship with the natural world.

Compassion, empathy and bullying

Raising children with the ability to empathise is key in creating a kinder, more compassionate and loving world.