Divorced from reality: Why the need to know often does more harm than good

After 27 years of marriage, billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates publicly announced their divorce in May, sending shockwaves across the globe.

How to mend a relationship and improve it

There are many reasons why your daily interactions may become tense and even fractured, but if you decide to mend a relationship, you could also take a few extra steps to improve it.

COVID-19 and our low-risk but endangered children

All COVID-19 statistics lead to the same conclusion: the young ones, our children, are at the lowest risk of getting ill or dying from the virus. That’s comforting. But the pandemic does pose a certain danger to them.

The marks of (un)belief

I believe that doubt is a part of faith, not its opposite. It took me quite a few years to say this without feeling guilty. I needed to have many experiences before I could accept that questions are legitimate and not a sign of spiritual decay.

How to grow together with God

We’d been married only a few weeks when we discovered that growing our spirituality as a couple was going to be much more complicated than the instructions on the packet suggested.

Courage in the deluge

After a chance meeting of mutual friends, I was introduced to Tim and Sonia in a restaurant in central Toowoomba, Queensland, eight days before their home was washed away.

Friendship, rarer than love? | Friendship and honesty

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

Forgiveness heals the one who forgives

Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. – C.S. Lewis

Pets: Our help for a better life

I've always liked pets, but from a distance. Raised by a mother convinced that animals cannot possibly live under the same roof as people, I adopted a similar opinion, which I kept for many years, even if a great number of people tried to prove me wrong.

The kind of romance that destroys our relationships

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

How to forge friendships from resilient material

The whirlwind of activities and deadlines that adult life throws at us often makes us resistant to closeness. We abandon old friends and neglect building new relationships until inevitably, the day comes when we start feeling pressed against the self-erected walls of loneliness.

An encounter with kindness

Sartre may have been right when he said Hell is other people. Yet, for some, their first step toward Heaven is meeting the God who shelters in someone else's soul.

Why should you tell your friends your secrets?

In 2004, Frank Warren, an American businessman, had "a crazy idea," as he himself describes it. He printed 3,000 postcards, wrote his address on them and a series of instructions, then left space on the back for the sender to write secrets they had never shared with anyone before.

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.

Against the current

Over the last few decades, the picture of family life has undergone dramatic changes. The pervasiveness and normalization of divorce are just two of these changes.