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Keywords: Gratitude

  • AUSTRALIA

    Finding gratitude in winter's long shadow

    • Barry Gittins
    • 16 October 2024

    As winter’s chill stubbornly lingers and spring arrives in fits and starts, the weight of the long cold months still presses on many of us. Yet in the midst of this darkness, thinkers like Carl Jung remind us of the power of gratitude to shift our perspective.

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  • MEDIA

    On lying

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 15 October 2024

    Two years ago to the month, I wrote in this column of my despair and disgust of the impunity with which society leaders and politicians didn’t just shade the truth, but buried it six-feet deep and then gleefully stomped on it. In the past week, a couple of things reminded me of that piece and about the role truth plays in our public discourse. It reminded me how fragile our grasp on reality has become, and why that matters.   

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    Hospitality in mean times

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 September 2024

    In prosperous times many people in developed nations are sympathetic to refugees and migrants and welcome them into their own societies. In hard times, however, xenophobia spreads.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Wasting time with poetry

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 August 2024

    In a world driven by profit and speed, poetry stands as a quiet rebellion. It honours and explores what is distinctive about human beings – communication through words. And if we dismiss as a waste of time the slower rhythms involved in the writing and reading of poetry, we are likely to discover how time spent unreflectively wastes us.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Justice and Hope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 June 2024

    Raimond Gaita insists that there is something precious in each human being. He does not rest this conviction on a particular religious or philosophical grounding. It flows, rather, from a rich reading of human possibilities and questioning of the meaning of life.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When safetyism leads

    • Julie Szego
    • 07 June 2024

    In response to campus protests, universities erred on the side of free speech when every other day, the prevailing ethos is one of ‘safetyism’, namely suppressing speech or inquiry if an identity group frames it as ‘harmful’ to them. Universities should strive to be uncomfortable and ‘unsafe’ for all, with no identity immune from robust scrutiny.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Happy 400th anniversary First Folio, Shakespeare's legacy to the world

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 16 November 2023
    2 Comments

    The First Folio was published in November 1623. Shakespeare didn’t live to see his plays gathered together in the one place. His universe of words, his meteors of wit and description, his galaxy of human frailties and strengths, his shrouds of darkness and rays of light, were collected and bound by colleagues after his death in 1616, aged 52. The world owes them profound gratitude.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gratitude needs ambivalence on the costs of war

    • Jim Curtain
    • 24 April 2023
    4 Comments

    Amidst gratitude and remembrance to those who have served, we would do well to look with ambivalence on the toll beyond the battlefield; on families, soldiers' mental health, and questions about government transparency. Anzac day serves as a poignant reminder to acknowledge sacrifices and damages of war.

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    Mindful eating in a foodie culture

    • James O'Brien
    • 31 October 2019
    6 Comments

    The rise of the vegan movement challenges us to reflect ethically on food. Writing in the 16th century, Ignatius Loyola prompted his readers to practise reverence in the moment and gratitude for the gifts received when eating. For an age of food and drink on demand, heeding his prompts could help us to balance our inner and outer lives.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sudanese Lost Boy's long walk comes to life

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 April 2019
    5 Comments

    When refugees write accounts of their lives they usually express gratitude to the nation that has received them. A Child Escapes, in which Francis Deng describes his life from Lost Boy of Sudan to refugee in Kenya to bank employee in Australia, is no exception. Left unsaid, but equally important, is the gift he and other immigrants are to Australia.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A moment of compassion and solidarity that nurtures hope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 September 2015
    16 Comments

    A fortnight ago political conversation about asylum seekers had to do with turning back the boats, the links between terrorism and religious identity, exporting our Stop the Boats policy to Europe, the seductive dangers of compassion, and attempts to wedge other parties on the basis of their softness. Now it appears we have moved on, and for that Mr Abbott deserves our ungrudging gratitude, whatever side of politics we stand on.

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  • Frank Brennan, Ambassador from the Republic of Conscience

    • Kristina Keneally
    • 04 June 2015
    12 Comments

    'As a legislator and a Catholic, I often felt gratitude for Frank Brennan's ambassadorship from the republic of conscience. I found the need to weave, this need to take 'data points' from many places and form my conscience. I regarded Frank as a bit of a hero.' Kristina Keneally launches Fr Frank Brennan SJ's book Amplifying That Still, Small Voice at Our Lady of the Way Parish, North Sydney, 2 June 2015.

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