What’s the best gift for relationships this holiday season? Understanding ourselves

MELINDA BURRELL – If we’re hoping for connection rather than conflict this holiday season, we can start with ourselves. We can learn to pay attention to our bodies, our emotions, our words, and our thinking. Self-awareness might be the best gift we can give our relationships this holiday season.

The Emperor Has No Clothes: COP29

SAVAIDA MA’ANI EWING -t is time to courageously and humbly acknowledge that our COP system does not work and to boldly reimagine a new system for stemming global warming. In this endeavor we would do well to heed the following words of Robert Schuman uttered in 1950: “World peace cannot be safeguarded without creative efforts commensurate with the dangers that threaten it”. 

White House Tree-Lighting Vigil Centers Christ in the Rubble

LAURIE GOGNE – While the Biden administration proclaims “a season of Light and Peace” as the theme of its Christmas celebrations this year and thousands gathered in Washington on December 5th to view the lighting of the White House tree, a group of around 50 activists held another kind of commemoration of Jesus’s birth. 

The Collapse of Syria’s Dictatorship Poses Many Questions

MEL GURTOV – Rebel groups that seize power invariably get caught between conflicting aims on the use of their new authority: revenge or governing? HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) could wind up being another jihadist regime, bent on eliminating enemies and building an authoritarian state; or it could focus on human security and friendly relations with all its neighbors. We’ll probably find out soon enough which path HTS is going to take.