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!
Tree!
There are, as you no doubt know, many ways to die. Diseases, accidents, just old age, etc., can take your life.
But this was a new one to me: death by Christmas tree.
Storm Pia hit Europe in December of last year, impacting the United Kingdom, southern Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium and northern Germany, causing major disruptions in holiday travel, with many cancelled ferries, trains and flights, closed bridges and roads that had to be cleared, turned over trucks,
Cheese!
London’s Metropolitan Police Service said a couple of months ago:
We received a report of the theft of a large quantity of cheese from a manufacturer based in the London borough of Southwark.”
Not a slice of cheese or two, or a cheese-stick or a couple. No $400,000 worth of the good stuff.
Said the cheese purveyor, Neal’s Yard (no not Kraft or some such supermarket type, but a fancy, high-powered, elite store):
Neal’s Yard Dairy, a leading distributor and retailer
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
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.