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“Am I still human if I’m afraid?” The question asked by a well-known fictional character can be the starting point for reflecting on how we learn to live with our fears.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

Pastor and author Ed Gungor reckons he’s learned a lot about life from Frank, his small white-haired terrier. So much so that he has entitled his book One Small Barking Dog: How to Live a Life That’s Hard to Ignore. 

Money is essential in our Western world. It allows us to purchase the necessities of life—food and shelter, for instance. It pays the bills for heating and cooling. There may even be enough for some luxuries.

Even if half of us refer to creativity as a rare trait that only the other half has, in reality, creativity is much like a muscle: the more we use it, the more creative we become.

The phone lies face down on the table. It doesn't make a sound. Yet, everyone in the room senses its presence, just as we...

There is no time like the end of the year that stirs our interest in self-improvement. Many of us are thinking of the new beginnings, lofty goals and big dreams we want to chase after, optimistic that the next year will be different to the last. Yet there is one thing we would do well to take in our stride before we enter...

A common source of jokes and stories with subtext, the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law appears to be characterised by particular sensitivities.

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.

Henri Nouwen once wrote about some trapeze artists who became his friends, emphasising the perfect synchronicity between them and the total trust that the one who jumps has when he lets go of the trapeze and remains in the air for a second, waiting to be caught by his teammate. But what if, at the last moment, when it is too late to...

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,...

There was a time when the word parenting would cause me to either roll my eyes or shrug. It was a time when seven hours of sleep a night, instead of at least eight, had the destabilizing potential of a hurricane, a time when the clear voices of children in the park would compel me to grab a book and read under my...

“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”.

Twenty-first century people are bombarded with fiction about romance.

It is often said that the choices we make repeatedly determine our destiny. Other people’s choices that touch our lives in an unfortunate way are seldom discussed. The changes that defy them both are among the most impressive, and Jesse Thistle’s story confirms this.