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!
Icon?
Did you ever want to be Jesus? I know, you don’t fancy getting slammed around, spat up, stabbed, and stuck on a cross, bearing the sins of the world. But play along with me, and say, “Yes, I want to be Jesus.”
Well, thanks. And here’s your chance. You can. At least roleplay as Jesus Christ, performing miracles, fighting Satan, dying horrifically on the cross and then somehow getting resurrected and ascending to heaven.
And if you were still interested, I’d recommend
Instructor!
Several months ago, a flight instructor and his co-pilot were flying a four-person Piper PA-28. The latter had asked the former to accompany him for safety reasons during windy conditions.
Prior to takeoff, the pair chatted normally while the pilot taxied the craft out to the runway. He said that the instructor’s last words were:
Looks good, there is nothing behind you.”
Yup, last words!
The instructor died inflight after suffering a cardiac arrest and slumped on to the
Hear?
You think you are going bonkers? Me, too.
I have a solution for all our problems. Hearing aids!
So saith a group of researchers in Singapore in “Association of Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants With Cognitive Decline and Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” published in JAMA Neurology last December.
Bottom line: Using hearing aids significantly reduce the risk for cognitive decline and dementia and even improve short-term cognitive function in individuals
Dr. AI?
I’m in trouble. As a doc. And you’re in trouble. As a patient.
Two artificial intelligence (AI) programs—including ChatGPT (= Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, launched in November 2022)—have passed the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). This is the standardized examination, given in three steps, to all medical graduates desiring to practice in the US of A.
Two research groups demonstrated this recently, publishing their work in medRxiv as
Relationships!
Last month, Drs. Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, wrote a fascinating essay in The New York Times: “The Lifelong Power of Close Relationships,” adapted from their recent bestseller, The Good Life.
The study that these authors direct has been ongoing for 85 years (and is still continuing), tracking an original group of 724 men and more than 1,300 of their male and female descendants over three generations, and asking
Haze?
Waze, the popular GPS app, leads to brain haze. (And so do other GPS apps.)
So claim researchers at McMaster University, in “Orienteering Experts Report More Proficient Spatial Processing and Memory Across Adulthood, in Public Library of Science One.
Orienteering? That’s a group of sports requiring one to employ one’s navigational skills with a traditional map and compass to move from point to pint in unfamiliar terrain in the shortest time possible. In other words,
Longevity?
Talk about long life. This guy, Jonathan, turned 190 years of age last month!
Jonathan is Seychelles Giant Tortoise hatched in the Georgian era and is the oldest known living land animal on Earth and the oldest ever recorded chelonian. He lives in a British overseas territory, St. Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic.
The world’s oldest tortoise has lived through two world wars, at least forty US Presidents, the Scopes Monkey Trials, the rise and fall of the British
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. 