It has been an upsetting week. Expectations got turned upside down, uncertainty about the future now abounds and (in the opinion of most New Zealanders at least) what was right and reasonable lost out to what most appealed to the great unwashed, no matter how plausible or truthful. Donald Trump is now the president-elect of Read more
My granddaughter killed herself because the rent was due. She was 21. She left her parents a note. In part it read: “I’m about to do something ungodly. I’m sorry.” In retrospect, she was hell-bent on self-harm. I don’t know what her body did to offend her, but for the last half decade of her Read more
Some of you noticed that I sat out the presidential election this year. It was only partly intentional. In the first place, “I was for her” and I figured the world had already come to that conclusion themselves without my writing a column to confirm it. I didn’t want that kind of bias to seep Read more
‘How’s married life?” People ask it in a slightly mocking tone, as if it’s rather quaint to think that married life should be any different from unmarried life. One year in, however, I’ve been surprised to find that it is different – in a good way. This idea is increasingly out of fashion. Nearly half Read more
In 2011, a book by a young writer, Bieke Vandekerckhove, won the award as The Spiritual Book of the Year in her native Belgium. Entitled, “The Taste of Silence,” the book chronicles her own struggles after being diagnosed at age 19 with ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative neurological condition that always results in a Read more
I am currently in Rome on pilgrimage, which is always a bit of a homecoming, since I was blessed to have the opportunity to study in the city twice. I’m often asked by people traveling to the Eternal City what they should absolutely see when they’re there. (This is often asked by people who have not dedicated enough Read more
Recently, a lady told me that she had just lost her brother who died suddenly, three days after a fall on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, the circumstances of his death leave some doubt as to the exact cause of death. Is it due to his cancer, discovered a few days earlier? Is it related to his Read more
If there is an irrepressible human trait it’s the determination, against all odds, to reconnect. Though governments seek to atomise and rule, we will keep finding ways to come together. Our social brains forbid any other outcome. They urge us to reach out, even when the world seems hostile. This is the conclusion I draw Read more
If you’re my age, you’ll remember the Flat Earth Society. It was a New Zealand off-shoot of a group in England that sincerely believed the earth was flat because the Bible said so. They had many scriptural references, including sayings of Jesus, and they considered the notion of a round planet to be the work Read more
The geographical distance between the richest country in the Western Hemisphere and the poorest is only about 700 miles. But the economic distance between the United States and Haiti is astronomical. Poverty certainly exists in the U.S., but the percentage and severity of poverty in Haiti is far worse. According to the U.N.’s World Food Read more