Evoking Charles Dickens’archenemy of Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge (in A Christmas Carol 1843), the economist Joel Waldfogelhas written Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays. He invites us to consider that “rooster sweater from Grandma or the singing fish from Uncle Mike” that we’ve…
Alexander III (356-323 BC) was tutored by Aristotle and mentored by his father Philip II, before assuming the throne of Macedon aged only 20. Over the following thirteen years he led military conquests of many lands from Greece to as far as India, creating one of the largest empires in history and inaugurating the …
Therapists and life-coaches describe it as the antidote to our fast-paced and distracted lives, and a remedy for many physical and psychological ailments.[1] Self-help guru Tony Robbins says it’s the best thing we can do for ourselves and others.[2] And Forbes magazine…
C. S. Lewis said that “In Heaven, everything is either silence or music.”[1] The Christian God is the Word, the God who speaks. Yet, paradoxically, He dwelt voiceless in His mother’s womb for nine months, entered the world as a wordless baby, lived in obscurity in Nazareth for most of His life, and accomplished His redemptive work muted in His Passion…
It’s a scene you could picture on the beach of Bondi or Manly on a summer’s day. A boy is digging a hole in the sand, frantically running backwards and forwards to the water’s edge to fill his little well with a seashell-full of seawater at a time. But strangely, instead of a lifesaver or bikini girl coming up to him, a bishop in full liturgical vestments…
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” These eight words, together with a rather catchy theme song immediately evoke the Mission Impossible franchise. I grew up with the TV series (1966-73, 1988-89) about a small team of secret agents who apply their strategies and skills against existential threats from cold war enemies, corrupt government…
You’re probably wondering about my immobility. I can confirm it wasn’t a skateboarding accident—although I do now have a knee scooter and I’ve been engaging in some stellar manoeuvres. Last month I went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of Sydney Catholic school principals…
Health officials called her the Mystery Girl, following her rescue from the devastating earthquake in southern Türkiye and neighbouring Syria earlier this year. Three-and-a-half-month-old Vetin Begdas had been buried for five days beneath the rubble of her family home in Hatay province. Amongst the more than 50,000 dead were all Vetin’s siblings…
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ on the wall of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua is one of the most haunting representations of grief in Western art. Giotto situates Christ’s companions around His lifeless corpse after He has been removed from the cross. Each expresses grief differently: with hands joined in prayer, reaching out to touch…
It’s the most natural fear of all. Consciously or not, we do all we can to postpone it and to avoid thinking about it. We stave it off with medicine, hygiene, diet and exercise. But in the end death is inevitable: death and taxes, as they say. St Augustine called it “the debt that must be paid”.
When it comes to death, modernity…
We know what the proverb means, but not where it comes from. “The eyes are the window to the soul” has been attributed to Sophia Loren,[1] Charlotte Brontë,[2] Ben Jonson,[3] Shakespeare,[4] da Vinci,[5] Cicero[6] and the Bible[7], though none of them actually said it. The thought is that you can read on someone’s face and eyes what’s going on underneath and who they really are. Eyes are more than receptacles for light; they also give back…
‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ is the idea that by pooling information, experience and judgment, groups of people make better decisions than individuals alone. Writers in social psychology, market economics, evolutionary biology and other fields argue that, as social animals, we achieve much more by collaborating with others. It’s not a new idea: in the Politics…
