Val Burns

Female mass shooters are extremely rare. According to the FBI, only about 4% of mass shootings in the USA are perpetrated by women.

For some, heaven and hell are literal places, not mere metaphors for the delivery of karmic justice. As a young child in primary school, my initiation into the concept of heaven and hell was a baptism by fire. Asked by my teacher (a nun) where I was destined to go after death, I quickly replied, “Heaven, sister”. Quicker than you could say ‘Hades’, this demented woman in black rapped the back of my small, unformed hands with a wooden ruler, leaving a pulsating, red vapour trail across both hands. Stunned and humiliated, I looked up at her, my eyes stinging with tears. “And why were you punished?”, she persisted. Frozen into a shamed silence, I couldn’t think or speak. She then turned magnanimously to the rest of the class, inviting them to redress my appalling ignorance and answer the question. A chorus of timorous wee voices, unified in a rhythm of terror, responded, “Because only saints go straight to heaven and the rest of us go to purgatory until we are resurrected.”

Most of us have experienced things in our past that we determinedly forget and keep sealed off in the dark undergrowth of our mind.

Q: what’s more terrifying than holding a 1.5 inch thick encyclopaedia in front of your chest and telling your girlfriend to shoot you at point blank range?

Becoming and being a mother is – to put it mildly – a heavy number.

This week is the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of flight MH370, which vanished on March 8, 2014 during what was a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

EVANGELIST, Rev Billy Graham, died last week at his home in North Carolina, aged 99 years. A legend in his own time, Graham was one of the most successful preachers to emerge over the last century and his calling powered a 60-year crusade to bring the word of God to more than 220 million lost souls across 185 countries. Many US presidents asked for, and received, pastoral counselling from him (Graham himself never offered it or approached presidents but waited to be called and he frequently was).

IF women weren’t supposed to be so nice all the time – especially to each other – maybe we would all be a lot less fascinated by the so-called "cat fights" between them.

MINDFULNESS – whether we seek it through activities like meditation or yoga – is increasingly nudging its way up our "to do" lists. And for some Waitrose customers, it’s now on their shopping lists. Slotted in amongst larder essentials such as Tuscan virgin olive oil, organic apple cider vinegar and hand-milled Egyptian red quinoa, Waitrose clientele will now be able to replenish their stocks of mindfulness as the supermarket trials in-store yoga classes in several branches in the south of England. If successful, Waitrose plan to roll out the yoga mats across many of their UK outlets.

AS a mental health practitioner, I have noticed a distinct increase in the use of psycho-pathological terms in our common vernacular. Last week, yet another diagnosis was plastered across the front pages when it was reported that Donald Trump was deemed (by his advisors) to be afflicted by ODD (oppositional defiance disorder), a condition usually ascribed to children or young teens and whose primary symptoms include temper tantrums, persistent questioning or flouting of rules, defiance to comply, blaming others for one's own mistakes and excessive arguing with adults. There’s more, but you get the picture, I’m sure.