Social

In 2016, I noticed advertising for a new quiz show called Hard Quiz coming to ABC TV in Australia.

Mainstream culture has tried to airbrush guilt out of everyday life. It’s the ultimate social faux pas, it seems, to make someone feel guilty—How dare you judge me! Or maybe it’s the penultimate faux pas, because what’s even worse than making someone feel guilty inside is to shame them in front of others.

One of the small joys of my childhood was to visit my maternal grandmother at the house on the hill.

“In the works of Comenius one feels that a prophet is speaking; he was indeed a colossal figure, but only in recent years have his ideas received the respect they merit”.

Children's books and cartoons contain more than just life lessons and morals such as "good always triumphs over evil". Some have political, social, and historical connotations, while others contain subliminal messages with sexual, discriminatory, or even malicious undertones.

"If I cut off your arm, will your husband take you again?" "My husband loves me very much." So he started cutting. "There was no alternative."

Besides carefree days, Christmas carols and traditional sweet breads, any respectable December also includes an evaluation of the achievements of the previous year and making plans for the future.

Eskimos don't have the word "quarrel" in their vocabulary. They live in a particularly harsh climate, so no one wants to risk getting pneumonia (or dying) just to prove that they are right.

As the balmy Australian summer took a chilly turn, I found myself sitting one day in a pub in Jindabyne, New South Wales with a friend attempting to escape the bitter autumn weather. As I took in the ambience, I reflected on what was a largely alien environment to me.

Happiness must come naturally – and this is true for success: you must let it happen simply by not obsessing over it.

“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.

Our children are forced to adapt to a world we did not want for them. As many mothers who attend coaching sessions say, the theme of war is one of the most difficult for them to address in discussions with their children, as they feel responsible for finding the balance between the child’s emotional security and their exposure to the reality around them.

Hope can be palpable and elusive at the same time, both reasonable and independent of logic. Yet this independence from logic is not synonymous with indifference to reason, but a victory over it. Hope has its own logic, one that changes lives for the better.

Most of us have been urged since we were little to not give up, to carry on, and to “go our own way”. The idea that giving up is a negative choice, a synonym for failure, or a sign of cowardice or inability, is deeply embedded in our minds.

The book written by John Ortberg, All the Places to Go... How Will You Know? invites us to reflect on the discerning of God’s will for our lives.