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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.

I don’t think I did anything significant the afternoon I saw the movie “Awakenings”. The feeling that I had reached the heart of the human condition strongly impressed me with the idea that we are born captive in a limited nature, and that gave me a heavy feeling of loss.

One of the biggest challenges facing both parents and teachers is to help children stay motivated so that they can keep focus, persevere when they are struggling, move forward, and finish what they have begun.

Poverty and laughter don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. People who are worried about where their next meal will come from or where their children will sleep that night find it hard to wear smiles.

I love Christmas, and opening Nathan Brown’s book, Advent: Hearing the Good News in the Story of Jesus’ Birth, reading each page, is like opening a carefully wrapped Christmas present, undoing the gift card attached with ribbon and bow, folding back the bright cellophane wrapping and lifting the lid off a curious little box containing the Gift itself. The gift in this case...

Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

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...

Bridges seem to be the emblem of existential stress for Romanians. In the face of a difficult situation, even Romanian folk wisdom recommends: "Make a pact with the devil until you have crossed the bridge."

We walk into a room full of people and from the first second, we draw a conclusion about how we will feel in their company. And often what we intuited happens. How is this possible?

In the February 2023 issue of Signs of the Times, I wrote an article titled Gambling’s Dark Underbelly. Here in Australia, gambling is a multi-billion-dollar industry with a few very rich winners and millions of losers. In the article I concluded that “Gambling in any form is designed to bleed you for as long as you’re willing to bleed, with no regard for...

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.

Our number of friends tends to decrease as we get older, but this trend, which has many negative effects, can be actively combated even when old age has already set in.

Children have big feelings. Even worse, children have big feelings over what seem to be rather inconsequential things.

You meet someone who is in-sync with you. You have the same hobbies and interests, you find the same things funny and you love sharing ideas with them. As your relationship grows beyond the early stages, it becomes clear that your connection shouldn’t be constricted to everyday activities, that you should broaden your horizons and try new things. You realise that your partnership has...

Although the concept of human dignity may appear relatively recent from a historical perspective, the notion of human worth has a long history, as evidenced by accounts in the Book of Genesis, Cicero, and Kant, among others.