Columns

Facing our tough hours

May 24, 2020

At the very moment that Jesus was facing a humiliating death by crucifixion, the Gospel of John hints that he was offered an opportunity to escape.
The Great Realisation, The Great Awakening

May 17, 2020

Some time ago, there were two long-established car tyre shops near my place operating right next to each other.
Leaving peace behind as our farewell gift

May 17, 2020

There is such a thing as a good death, a clean one, a death that, however sad, leaves behind a sense of peace. I have been witness to it many times. Sometimes this is recognised explicitly when someone dies, sometimes unconsciously. It is known by its fruit.
A chilling lesson from the 1930s

May 10, 2020

In the late 1930s, my grandmother — she was then just a young mother — suffered from tuberculosis. This was a major health concern in that era.
Fever

May 10, 2020

Deep down we already know this, but as a personal truth, this is not something we appropriate in a classroom, from parents or mentors, or even from religious teaching.
Solidarity with the Earth, solidarity with the vulnerable

May 03, 2020

The acclaimed public intellectual Noam Chomsky has often said that there are two crises facing humanity: the threat of nuclear war and the threat of climate change.
God and the principle of non-contradiction

May 03, 2020

It is funny where the lessons of our classrooms are sometimes understood.
Majestic, mystical trees at the heart of scripture

Apr 26, 2020

Trees are such majestic, mysterious, living things. Walking through a forest can fill you with awe – there is something almost mystical about being surrounded by soaring trees enveloping you while reaching out to the heavens.
Churches as field hospitals

Apr 26, 2020

Our churches need to be diagnostic; they need to name the present moment in a prophetic way. But that calls for a courage that, right now, seems lacking, derailed by fear and ideology.
Easter and the mustard seed

Apr 19, 2020

Easter shows us that metaphor of the mustard seed was not an idle parable but a story that revealed our potential to transform the world into a new creation.