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!
Lei!
In Maui, where we were last month, we attended a luau (lū‘au), a traditional Hawaiian feast accompanied by obligatory dances and music.
As we entered into the complex where the luau was to be conducted, each of the guests was garlanded with a lei. A Hawaiian proverb says it well: E lei no au i ko aloha (“I will wear your love as a wreath/adornment”). That’s what the lei is, a wreath, given in a traditional welcome.
All kinds of materials may be utilized for this
Sunrise!
The mountain on West Maui is called Haleakalā (“house of the sun”) with its tallest peak at about 10,000 feet. And it’s a great place to catch the sunrise—a must-do activity in Maui.
From where we stayed, in South Maui, it was a three-hour drive to the summit, mostly hairpin bends that really are hair-raising. Lots of blind turns and steep drop-offs. With the occasional cow meandering across the road.
Not to mention, a ton of bikers on the return trip, going down.
Tree!
My father, brother and sister-in-law, and I had the delight of visiting one of the prettiest places on the planet last month, Maui, all of us celebrating milestone birthdays and anniversaries.
We hung around and shopped and ate quite a bit in West Maui, in Lahaina. Lā hainā, in Hawaiian, means “cruel sun.”
Maybe it was because of the “cruel sun” that William Owen Smith (1848–1929), a lawyer from a family of American missionaries, planted a banyan tree on April
Moving!
Another moving story (in more ways than one!).
After thirteen or so years, my brother’s job is moving him from South Carolina. Finally, they’ve come to their senses and decided to relocate to Texas.
Moves are tough.
(As a single person who has had to sever his closest ties with each move—and I’ve made a few myself—I can vouch for that. Moves are tough, indeed.)
Yup, moves are tough. No, you don’t lose your friends. No, it’s not that you will never ever go back
Friend!
This was his last faculty engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary—its commencement exercises that were conducted a couple of weeks ago.
He’s moving on to greener pastures.
(Though the extent of greenness outside Dallas Seminary is debatable!)
John Hilber, erstwhile tenured Associate Professor of Old Testament Studies at DTS, is moving on. He’s taking up a professoriate at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. By now, he and his wife, Charlotte, will have arrived there—truck,
Model!
It is always hard to model and study social interactions and the effects these interactions have on our behavior. But one researcher with the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, attempted to do just that. Bruce Sacerdote studied peer effects in a setting where peers are randomly assigned: entering freshmen in Dartmouth College are randomly assigned dorms and roommates. In one smooth stroke, Sacerdote eliminated the self-selection bias by which roommates
Union?
Yet another interesting development from this strange world that is occupied by some strange people (which, needless to say, includes strange you and strange me).
Seattle. December 2011. An abandoned warehouse was scheduled to be demolished to make space for a new construction, an apartment complex.
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. 