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!
Predator!
Australia is known for having a number of shark “incidents” every year. Most victims are what they call “surface recreationists”—those victims atop a body of water through the use of a board or flotation device, engaging in surfing, water skiing, windsurfing, boogie boarding, rafting, or floating on inflatables at the time of attack.
Well, we may be closer to a prevention of such “incidents,” report a group of Australian scientist collaborating with some in
Air!
People have tried selling a lot of strange things: whale carcases, human souls, excreta (aka “poop”), belly button lint (no, I’m not kidding), grocery plastic shopping bags, even used dentures (I gotta write blogs on each one of them).
But how about this item? Air.
Air? Yup, air.
Nope, not just any old, run of the mill, middle of the road, garden variety, par for the course, no great shakes, vanilla air. Oh, no, not at all. This is air from Lake Como, Italy.
Now, the
GodGPT?
You find yourself socially anxious? Think you need counselling? You could try … CATHY.
Business Insider did:
CATHY, what should I do about my social anxiety?”
CATHY is Churchy Answers That Help You, a new AI chatbot that answers faith-based questions from the perspective of a friendly, knowledgeable Episcopalian. (I suppose these could be programed for Baptists and Presbyterians and so on.) Of course, there are no ornate flowing robes or croziers, or incense, and stuff.
Stealing?
America has a shoplifting epidemic.
Stores lose more than $13 billion worth of goods in shoplifting in the United States each year.
The 2022 Retail Security Survey found that 8 out of 10 retailers self-reported increased incidents of “violence and aggression” across 2022. In total, thirty-two states have passed legislation addressing organized retail crime. Close to half of retailers say that their loss prevention budgets were increased in 2022.
One might think organized
Deciding!
Decision making? It might all be a mirage, they say—researchers from Johns Hopkins University and The Ohio State University, in “The Illusion of Information Adequacy,” published in the Public Library of Science: ONE, the other day.
Information is required, of course, to come to a decision—any decision. But how much information does one need? Apparently, there is a psychological reason why some people aren’t just wrong in an argument— no, they’re confidently
Standing!
The cure for all your health problems stemming from sitting in front of screen all day at the office? Standing desks, they said.
Not any longer.
Yes, folks who sit all day need to move around. But standing desks, apparently, are not the compensation for inactivity. Or so declared researchers from the Universities of Sydney, and Perth, and from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, in “Device-Measured Stationary Behaviour and Cardiovascular and Orthostatic Circulatory Disease
Goodbyes?
How long should a goodbye last? Is there any rule on this?
Now there is. In the airport at Dunedin, at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island.
So how long is too long to hug? Anything over 180 seconds, saith the authorities.
The airport’s chief executive, Dan De Bono, declared that three minutes was ample time to activate the happy hormones generated by a good hug.
He added:
To prove the point, I timed myself earlier that day, going the full quota in front of an audience
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. 