I’m here! | friendship and interest in each other

I'll leave my heart as payment among the coins, and pass... – Nichita Stănescu

“Honour your father and your mother”

I once heard on the radio a recommendation to help us understand the elderly: to attach some weights to our backs, hands and feet, put some blurred glasses on our noses, cotton wool in our ears, and then go to the market...

The need for clarity

More than ten years ago, I received a book for my birthday. The message inside the gift said: The Bible is the Lord's love letter to humankind. I give you this book with the hope that the reply mankind gave to God will also nourish your soul. Happy birthday! And, indeed, so it was.

“If the paper screen is closed, it means I’ve died”

When a closed window shade becomes an SOS sent by those used to living on their own but afraid of dying alone, something has fundamentally changed in a society that not long ago valued human relationships.

Adolescence: a generational Tower of Babel

Adolescence is not a series to watch with your teenage child, but it is a series that may cause mature viewers to re-evaluate their relationship with their own children, as well as their relationship with their parents.

The light of closed eyes

Under the burden of evil, often made public obsessively, insinuatingly, too often we perceive the world as an endless cycle of negative emotions and predictions. We lose the broad perspective that encompasses the initiatives beautifully woven by people whose hearts beat for God and for their fellow men, people who make this world liveable.

Any mountain can be climbed

There is nothing we can do. Thousands of dreams ended with this short sentence. In the face of too great an obstacle or tragedy, giving up seems the only option left. But there are some people who love what they do so much that nothing stops them from adding an unless. This word breeds the courage and creativity in finding solutions, and then...

Online fighting, a new subject of scientific study

An argument with people who seem deaf to opposing views, instigating conflict, tribe against tribe, is probably a common experience for social media users. Some believe that it is so common that it should be the subject of a new field of research‒erisology, named after Eris, the goddess of discord in Greek mythology.

The need for certainty

As we look at ourselves from the outside, taking our life seriously becomes difficult. This loss of confidence, as well as the attempt to regain it, are both matters related to the meaning of life. – Thomas Nagel, View from Nowhere

Vanishing freedoms

“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

COVID-19: Helping children (and others) with viral anxiety

Even in difficult times there are many things we can do at home to help children as well as teenagers to feel less worried.

Temperance: the lost virtue

Temperance was once upheld by philosophers, saints and stoics. In a world dominated by indulgence, its call to balance feels more relevant than ever.

Who Am I?

I guess my mid-life crisis kicked off when I turned 26. What is my purpose in life? What have I accomplished so far? Am I caught in a treadmill of mediocrity? Who am I? Am I basically a good person or a selfish person? Do I have a destiny? These kinds of questions have a way of recycling themselves—they turned up again around my 31st birthday,...

The role of Christian marriage counselling

Isaac and Rebecca, two biblical characters, had problems in their marriage. At first they struggled to fall pregnant. Then, when she eventually got pregnant, it was a difficult pregnancy, which affected them very much—so much so that they didn't know what to do. I suppose they had all sorts of discussions about the situation, but at some point the discomfort just became too...

The courage that makes us human

Courage is a special virtue: unlike other virtues that can be formed and polished over time, courage only makes itself known spontaneously and fully in situations where one is required to act, proving its existence.