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!
Shift!
Researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Nottingham, recently asked a probing question: “Do Moral Values Change with the Seasons?” This was the title of a paper published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.
Here, we report evidence of seasonal variation in Americans’ endorsement of some—but not all—moral values. … We report evidence that people’s moral values change with the seasons. Analyses of a decade
Musicmaking!
Yes, we are all losing our edges. “What was your name, again?” “Where are those keys?” “What did I come upstairs for?” Etc.
But there might be a way out. Say researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, in “Age and Familiarity Effects on Musical Memory,” published in Public Library of Science One the other day. They explored how age related to ability to remember melodies. Good news: when it came to recognizing musical themes, older
Gratefulness!
Besides good genes, good exercise, good eating, good health care, good sleep, etc., here’s another candidate that helps prolong life: gratefulness.
So claimeth authors from Harvard U. and the University of British Columbia in “Gratitude and Mortality Among Older US Female Nurses,” published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association: Psychiatry.
They surveyed 49,275 “older” women (mean age 79 ± 6 years), all nurses in the USA, between 2016 and
CheatGPT?
Alan Mathison Turing (1912–1954) was an English polymath—mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He is rightly considered the father of theoretical computer science. He is well known for having postulated the eponymous “Turing Test.”
In its original form a human interrogator has a text-based conversation with two people in another room (unknown to the interrogator, one is a man and the other a woman). The
Woods!
The woods. Bliss. Birds chirping, streams gurgling, and leaves rustling. Even replicated on white-noise machines to bring rest to rushing minds. All is calm. All is bright.
But not at night. ‘Cos it ain’t no “Silent Night.” Woods are “lovely,” yes, but they are “dark and deep” as quoth ye olde poet.
And confessed Eric Larsen, a polar explorer, outdoor educator, and self-described “professional camper” who has spent years of his life sleeping outside and
Head!
There have been, of late, anecdotal reports about a universal rise in head lice cases, reported Lindsey Bever in The Washington Post recently. These critters are itch-generating parasites that live on the scalp, and are typically spread through direct head-to-head contact, mostly among children.
And one reason for the increasing number of cases? Selfies! Yup. Group selfies, in particular, which often involve two or more heads together to fit into a cellphone frame. And
Old?
What is “old”?
You’re never 36 and a half, but you’re 4 and a half going on 5!
Then you get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You hop, skip, and jump to the next number. How old are you? “I’m gonna be 16.” You could be 12, but you’re gonna be 16.
And then the greatest day of your life happens—you become 21. Even the words ceremonial—you become 21! Yesssssss!!!!
But then you turn 30. Uh, oh! What happened there? Makes you sound
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.