Immortality!
The man wanted to live forever. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇 = “First Emperor of Qin”—the first dynasty of a unified China) (259–210 B.C.E.), who ruled from 220–210 B.C.E.
He didn’t want to die.
Supposedly, in 211 B.C.E. a meteor fell in the neighborhood, on which someone wrote:
The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided.”
The Emperor, of course, wasn’t pleased. Not being able to find out who had scribbled this bit of graffiti,
Tree?
Ginza Tanaka, a renowned precious metal store in Japan, is now in its 125th year.
Says, its PSA:
Going forward, it will continue to pursue possibilities for its distinctive precious metal ornaments with a fixation on quality that has been passed down the generations since its foundation, without forgetting to be continuously grateful toward the many people who have supported the company over its 125 years.”
Ginza has a tradition of making expensive Christmas trees. Make
Fatherhood!
The other day, there was an addition to my family. Dad became a great-grandfather; my brother, a grandfather; and my older nephew, a father—all to a newborn young laddie named Levi. The fourth generation!
And nice timing—he made it during the Advent season!
Fatherhood!
In fact, it is from the First Person of the divine Trinity, God the Father, that …
… every family [or “fatherhood”] in heaven and on earth is named.
Ephesians 3:15
The fatherhood of the Father includes
Virtual?
Short skirts. Blue-green pigtails that go down to her knees. Energy abundant. She is a Japanese popstar sensation who has, in her 10-year career, released more than 100,000 songs in a variety of languages, and opened shows for Lady Gaga. Her Facebook page is followed by close to 2.5 million fans!
But she isn’t real. She is—get this!—virtual! A computer-simulated humanoid persona voiced by a singing synthesizer application, she is the product of Crypton Future
Disease?
In 1943, at least 10,000 Italian Jews were sent to concentration camps, where most perished.
But some Jews in Rome were saved. By a disease: Il Morbo di K (“Syndrome K”)!
Syndrome K was the brainchild (and concoction) of Dr. Adriano Ossicini, who described it as a deadly, and highly contagiosissima disease that was supposed to be neurological in origin. One would apparently go into convulsions, paralysis, dementia, and ultimately die from asphyxiation. Ossicini,
Insect!
Master painter Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853–1890) was prolific, creating about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including over 800 oil paintings—most of these in the last two years of his life. The man committed suicide at 37, poor and mentally ill.
There is more than paint on his canvases though, or on at least one of them—Olive Orchard, held at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, one of at least eighteen in a series of paintings
Bugs!
You always suspected it, but now it’s been proven to be true.
In a recent issue of the Journal for Food Research was an article by scientists from Clemson University with the ominous title: “Bacterial Transfer Associated with Blowing Out Candles on a Birthday Cake.”
I suspect your relationship with birthday cakes will now be altered forever.
If you were already paranoid about these things, you were avoiding birthday cakes with candles like the plague. Or maybe you scraped
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.