“God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering” said St. Augustine . We live in a world that is constantly trying to insulate us from pain and suffering. Nobody loves to suffer, but none of us will be exempted from suffering based on our liking or disliking of suffering. A lot of thought was given to human suffering from many people in the past from several different perspectives. It is definitely very helpful to read about human suffering from different perspective, but I personally believe that none of these scholarly answers will help us much when we are personally going through sufferings.

"Life is a series of interruptions interrupted by interruptions" said an anonymous person. It does not take too long for any one of us to realize that life is full of interruptions; in fact some of you may be considering this e-mail/article as an interruption from what you were doing a few minutes ago. Webster defines interruptions as things that stop or hinder by breaking in. They are often considered as thieves that steal our time and energy from what we should be doing, or plan to be doing.

Game over for the Playmate!

Anna Nicole Smith, a former Playboy centrefold and a pornstar passed away at the age of 39 in the town of Hollywood, Florida . She died in mysterious circumstances after being found unconscious in her hotel suite. Both Smith's estranged sister and mother have suggested that the buxom blonde bombshell's death may be drug-related. Her mother told the ABC network she was certain her daughter was using narcotics or abusing medication. The autopsy that was done on her body excluded any type of physical injury (Info from The Times of India, February 11, 2007). Duke Jeyaraj

What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus? Someone said “Claustrophobic”. If you have been to the malls during the last few days you will understand why claustrophobia is a reality caused by Santa Claus. To be very honest everyone (not just kids) loves to receive gifts because a gift shows that someone cares enough to think of you and give something as a small token of their love. But the challenge during Christmas is finding gifts that really can communicate your love for the person and gifts that can mean something to the receiver.

Aesop the wise man from the ancient times wrote the story of a bored shepherd boy who entertained himself by calling out "Wolf". Every time he cried out "wolf", all the nearby villagers came to rescue him and his sheep, only to find that he was kidding and that there was no real wolf. One day the boy was really confronted by a wolf, he started crying "wolf" and no villager showed up because they did not believe his cries and the wolf killed the boy. It's a tragedy that the boy died, but the greater tragedy is that the people considered his cries as nuisance. There is an important lesson to be learnt from this story. The villagers had a real problem to fear - the wolf, but when the boy started playing with the fears of the people and created imaginary problems he became a nuisance to them. I guess some of the villagers were happy that the wolf took care of the boy, because they now have only one problem to deal with: the wolf (Pardon my imagination).

It will never be an absurd statement if we say that all humans are relational beings.  Our life finds its existence meaningful because we relate ourselves with everything around us.  In fact, it is worthwhile to believe that we are created to be relational and we do so in four vital areas of life as it is beautifully described in the first three chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible.

Lawyers, teachers, doctors, nurses. How many occupations can you name? What does a mycologist or a pharmacologist do?
Career-wise, how does one get career wise? Well, having a basic idea of what one wants to do with life is always the beginning. For some of us who are unsure of what we want to do as a profession;

 Recently Taiwan legalised homosexual marriages, even the conservative Singapore Government welcomed gays to the country and the King of Cambodia stated that homosexuality was fine. China has thousands of men undergoing sex changes.

 There are times in a person's life when he needs to take crucial decisions on his own. Marriage is one of them. Believe me, the decision on whom to marry is the most important decision a person will make in his life. After marriage, your wife is the most important person in your life. She can make or break your life. The mere thought of this is very frightening.