RaMbLeS
Welcome to RaMbLeS, a collection of weekly musings on life and Scripture. It all began in 2005 on Google’s blogspot as the aBeLOG (a name now recycled), a semi-autobiographical devotional that attempted to keep well-wishers abreast of my activities as I relocated to Scotland for a few years. Since my return, I’ve continued my RaMbLeS, and here’s its most recent incarnation on Homiletix, as random reflections usually based on current news articles and travel experiences and whatever else takes my fancy!
Tower!
I was in India the last couple of weeks, the first of which was spent sightseeing—yup, expect several weeks of RaMbLeS on this!
(I was teaching preaching the second week.)
One of the fascinating monuments that I’d heard of in my childhood days in India but never got to see was the Qutb Minar located in the capital city, New Delhi.
This remarkable structure was built by some of the sultans of Delhi in the early 1200s. It is about 240 feet tall, tapering from 10 feet in
Shrinkage!
I don’t know how 2012 has been for you. If you are like most, pretty stressful. Not that 2012 was any different, except for fiscal cliffs, shootings, and presidential elections, murder of a U.S. ambassador, the death of Whitney Houston, a luxury cruise ship running aground in Italy, the Diamond Jubilee of QEII, the monarch, Arab Spring, the Mars landing of Curiosity, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner’s sound barrier-breaking space dive, Hurricane Sandy,
Peace?
An ancient prophet declared that Jesus Christ was the Prince of Peace.
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6
That’s all well and good; Jesus might have come to bring peace, but not in Bethlehem this year.
Reuters reported the other day about a brawl in one of Christianity’s holiest churches, the
Innocents!
The Drudge Report ran this headline yesterday: “Slaughter of Innocents.” This was, of course, referring to the abominable act of cruelty and madness inflicted upon Newtown, CT, last Friday. Twenty-seven killed, of them twenty children between the ages of 5 and 10. Flags at half-mast in the White House, Capitol, and elsewhere.
At a news conference on Friday, President Barack Obama, his voice cracking at times, reacted as a parent would: “Our hearts are broken today.
Sad!
’Tis the season to spend, spend, and spend.
Just make sure you aren’t feeling sad when you go shopping.
In a joint research study conducted by investigators from Harvard, Columbia, and University of California (Riverside), they have discovered that sadness goes along with foolish financial decisions. Folks feeling miserable are prone to decide to be instantly gratified and go for the offer of less money right now, than to wait for later to make more money.
When caught
Bacon!
Candied bacon martini, chocolate-covered bacon (on a stick), oysters wrapped in bacon, bacon sundae, maple bacon doughnut. There is the “bacone” (a bacon cone with scrambled eggs, hash browns, and cheese), there is chicken-fried bacon (here in good ol’ Texas), there is a peanut butter-bacon-banana sandwich, bacon-infused vodka, hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise shrouded in bacon, bacon mints, and every other conceivable form of
Drain!
All kinds of strange things happened on Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving which is ominously named, ostensibly for retailers who go “into the black” after the frenzy of shopping which, incidentally, began this year in the late hours of Thursday.
Here are some of the striking headlines from Friday morning:
Teens in Custody after Woodland Mall Fight (Grand Rapids, MI)
Man Pulls Gun
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. 