The great failure of too high expectations

From the first positive pregnancy test, parents often build up expectations for their baby. And as the little one grows, so do the expectations—emotional, cognitive, moral and academic. While it's only natural that this should be the case, as children need to be set standards, parents' expectations can often turn out to be a double-edged sword.

Preconceptions that cause unnecessary anxiety for parents

Today's mothers are faced with difficult decisions: breastfeeding or formula feeding, having a career or being a stay-at-home parent, modern or traditional education—and silent pressure from the fear that any choice they make is a mistake. This constant doubt weighs more heavily on them than the choices themselves.

Positive thinking overdose: Why too much optimism is harmful

If optimism helps us get rid of problems more easily, too much optimism does the exact opposite: it amplifies them. Pushed to the extreme, positive thinking prescribed as an antidote to suffering prevents us from accepting reality as it is and starting to look for solutions that can make our lives easier.

“Divine Providence: God’s Love and Human Freedom” | Book review

Bruce Reichenbach's book, Divine Providence: God’s Love and Human Freedom is impressive first of all due to the author’s total disinterest in impressing his readers. Instead, he has a legacy to pass on.

People who face tragedies with eyes wide open

When faced with great tragedies, the most overwhelming feeling is one of helplessness. What can we do to change the lives of the hurting for the better? How can we help when not even the strong can find solutions? The answer is not simple, but it is more accessible than we might believe if it includes empathy, courage, and the faith that any...

A brief treatise on (dis)illusion

In some African communities, during the harsh dry season when food becomes scarce and mothers can no longer feed all their children, a tragic custom persists: some children are left in open-air enclosures to die of starvation.

The Kiss of Judah | What remains after trust has been betrayed?

The first time Judas's kiss was heard was in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, its echo is repeated whenever the trust of an unsuspecting soul is betrayed. Betrayal, especially when it wears the mask of faith, tears apart the moral fabric of those who are wounded by it.

Five lessons from the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It takes a brave man to stand up to a dictator and perhaps an even braver one to stand up to his church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been held up as a hero of the cause of justice and equality, and a statesman of modern Christian theology. For some readers, these two things might not seem a natural fit. But for Bonhoeffer, the two...

Fatherhood through a toddler’s eyes 

I used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

How to strengthen your willpower to make the best decisions

To have willpower does not mean saying you want to do something, it means to actually be doing it—André Maurois

I love you for your flaws too

Love is the most beautiful and perhaps the most incomprehensible thing in the world. We find it in movies, in books, in the strength of a "yes" declared before the civil authorities, and in the embrace that binds spouses at the end of a hard day's work.

Friends and social networks

"I'm 14 years old — and I'm sick and tired of social media." (Riley Jackson)

From bootless boy to life-changing footballer

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...

Visible and invisible chains

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

Until love do us part

We see it in movies, read it in modern children’s stories, and hear it in romantic songs: love is the most beautiful, most desirable, and most precious asset of humanity. Many argue that if there is anything that can save the world from itself, it is love. But how is it that love itself has led to profound systemic issues, by dissolving the...