Smile!
Keep on smilin’, ‘cause when you’re smilin’, baby
The whole world smiles with you.
So sang Frank Sinatra in the 1950s. In fact, Kate Perry devoted a whole album to the topic: Smile (released this month), with an eponymous song that goes:
I’m so thankful,
‘Cause I finally, ‘cause I finally
Smile (Oh)!
I’m so grateful,
‘Cause I finally, ‘cause I finally
Smile (Oh, oh)!
Is this all just smoke and mirrors with positive thinking and self-hypnosis, or is
Face?
We have a tendency to see human faces in things that are not faces, human, or even alive: the electrical socket, a “grimacing” apple, a bowling ball, and all kinds of other stuff. That phenomenon is called “face pareidolia.” (That’s from the Greek: para = alongside of/instead of; and eidōlon = image/form.)
Apparently we are programmed to see faces everywhere. Saith Colin Palmer, and Colin Clifford, from the School of Psychology, University of New South Wales,
Eat!
I had been scheduled to teach in Brazil in the summer, and in Singapore and Hong Kong in the fall. All canceled, alas! The COVID-19 pandemic has grounded hundreds of thousands of Americans who were set to jet off on international trips during the rest of 2020. They, like me, are rescheduling their travel plans, hoping for the best in 2021.
But a number of these wannabe travelers are taking another step. Unwilling to relinquish their canceled trips entirely, they are—literally!—making
Shared?
You thought social distancing began in March with COVID-19?
Nope. It began 40 years ago. When a new, electronic, manmade “virus” burst on the scene. From Japan. Called … The Walkman!
It arrived in the USA in June of 1980. Socialization would never the be same again.
In fact, Matt Alt, in a recent article in The New Yorker, called the Walkman “the gadget that taught the world to socially distance.”
Until 1980, music was a communal experience: concertgoers in silent
Ephesians 1:1–14
God who blesses his people, redeeming them for his grand plan to consummate all things in Christ, is worthy of being blessed.
This opening section of the book of Ephesians, at first blush, seems to be rambling. But one notices that God’s grand design is clearly stated in 1:10—“the consummation of all things in Christ.” Right now, everything is broken, undone, chaotic. But one day, in God’s grand design, everything is going to be integrated, harmonized, and aligned
Hedonism!
They say that in the busy-ness of our advanced civilization, where the wheels never stop turning, there is no time to do absolutely nothing. You have stuff to do at work, at school, at home, at church, with family, with friends, with acquaintances. Things to do, places to go, people to see. Etc.
But then came COVID-19.
Well, maybe for some the wheels still haven’t stopped turning. Distances to keep, masks to wear, meals to cook, kids to entertain, body to be worked out,
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.