COVID-19: How has it affected young people?

Early reports out of China showed that elderly people and the chronically ill were most vulnerable to Covid-19. Yet an alarming number of young people in the United States have been hospitalized with severe infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40% of American Covid-19 patients who were hospitalized were under 55 – and 20% were between ages 20...

“More than a carpenter” | Book review

Josh McDowell, founder of the trans-denominational Christian organisation Campus Crusade for Christ and author of More Than a Carpenter, is known to the public after a decades-long career and having had several volumes published in the field of apologetics.

Understanding ourselves better, by understanding our dreams

Ever since ancient times, people have been interested in the origin and purpose of dreams. The initial theories relied heavily on the supernatural and dreams were seen as mental meeting places for gods and mortals, where gods could express their will to mortals, reveal the future to them, or deliver messages from the afterlife.

Difficult conversations | How do we talk about death with our children?

Talking to your children about death can be an act of love. You can't take away their pain with a simple conversation, but you can give them something just as important: truth wrapped in gentleness, the reassurance and relief that they are not alone in their grief, and even the hope that sees beyond the loss.

How to navigate through pain

Loss begets pain, but pain is not one-size-fits-all, so there are no recovery methods that work in all situations. We do have at hand, however, explanatory models of pain, studies that dismantle myths about grief and, above all, "a psychological immune system" that helps us recover from painful experiences.

How well are you protected against scammers?

Most of us want to trust. We assume that others possess our own level of honesty and goodwill. Sadly, this is neither a sensible nor a safe attitude anymore.

Fast fashion: a parade of lies 

Not only are they all brands of the same Spanish manufacturer, Inditex, but they are all part of the same trend that has revolutionised the fashion industry: fast fashion. The rise of this trend is based on two principles that have proven to be magnetic for consumers, especially young ones: clothes tailored to the latest trends (today on the catwalk, tomorrow in the...

The slumber of the proud

One of the best-known stories told by ambitious entrepreneurs today is that if you work hard, you will have a lot.

A few things that help life make sense

I spoke very little in my early years and my mother says that my silence scared her. She never knew what was going through my mind. She was afraid I was hiding something.

The absurd maths of inequality

Since 2020, the wealth of the world's five richest people has doubled. Over the same period, almost five billion people in the world have become poorer[1]. Such an absurd expression of equality is, sadly, not unique and shows once again where injustice has reached in a society that thinks it is on the cusp of progress.

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.

Tears, war, and tulips: a day among the Ukrainian refugees at the Siret Customs Point

The wind is blowing and it is snowing at the Siret Customs Point. Refugee groups stream by, women with children clinging to them, and the words of a little girl from another war, concluded almost eight decades ago, keep running through my mind: “And this was imprinted in my mind, that when my father is not home, it is war.”

No one deserves to have that much money

In a dilapidated shack in Nairobi, a young woman makes her confession to the BBC reporter eager to hear her story: “I don’t know why God allows some people to be poor while others are rich.”

A street cat named Bob

There are many moments when, in situations that seem to have no solution and everyone has given up believing, especially the one who needs the solution, help comes in a completely unexpected way. For James Bowen, his rescue came in the form of an injured ginger cat.

Book review: Juice

In my humble but literary-educated opinion, Tim Winton is Australia’s finest living novelist. Since winning publication of his first novel in a competition for young writers in 1981, he has had 10 more novels published, as well as collections of stories, plays, books for younger readers and a handful of non-fiction works. Winton has won Australia’s top literary prize—the Miles Franklin Award—on four...