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!
Fat!
The Bible says:
[Jesus] said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.”
Matthew 4:4a
He was/is right. I think butter makes any loaf far more exciting!
Oh, wait, that’s not what Jesus was recommending:
… but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
Matthew 4:4b
In any case, what about butter? Good for you? Bad? In between? The debate has raged.
Well, now there’s yet another study out there pontificating on butter. This time with good news
Voice!
Val Kilmer, the actor of numerous films, including Top Gun (Iceman, 1986), Batman (Bruce Wayne, 1995), and Prince of Egypt (Moses, 1998), lost his characteristic raspy voice in 2015 after surgery for throat cancer.
About a year ago, he got it back!
Said the voice immediately recognizable as that of Kilmer, in a YouTube video posted last month:
My voice as I knew it was taken away from me. People around me struggle to understand me when I’m talking.”
Sonantic, a UK-based
Longevity!
I’m not entirely sure why, but we’d all like to live long lives. Longevity is in.
Despite the fact that the Bible says:
And the days of our years—in them are seventy years,
and if in strength, eighty years;
and their pride is [only] toil and harm;
for it has gone by quickly and we fly away.
Psalm 90:10
“Toil and harm.”
But a recent study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress wants to prolong that “toil and harm.”
Well, not exactly. It proposed
Mortality!
A bad marriage could kill you, they declare. “They” being researchers from Tel Aviv University, who made their affirmation in an article published the other day in Journal of Clinical Medicine, titled “Dissatisfaction with Married Life in Men Is Related to Increased Stroke and All-Cause Mortality.”
In a longitudinal study of 10,000 men in Israel, 30 years of their health data were analyzed. The men were in their 40s when the study began in the 1960s.
Lead author,
Invisibility?
That bit of apparel from the Harry Potter series—the Cloak of Invisibility—would be a good addition to one’s wardrobe, don’t you think? Especially against those pesky beings that trouble one outdoors in the summer—mosquitoes!
Well, that might turn out to be reality, after all. No, not the cloak, but the lack of visibility to those 3,500 species of small flies in the family Culicidae, the scourge of tens of millions all over the world, causing malaria,
Painful!
Recently, OnePoll conducted a survey of 2,000 Americans, on behalf of Axogen, a company that is …
“… focused specifically on the science, development and commercialization of technologies for peripheral nerve regeneration and repair.”
They asked respondents about their daily experience and the impact on their life of dealing with chronic aches and pains.
They found that 37 percent had received a diagnosis for chronic pain at some point, defined as ongoing pain that
Danger!
Last week, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that a cobra was on the loose in Grand Prairie, near Dallas.
Yup, a cobra! A West African banded cobra (Naja savannula).
(And in case you see it: It is brownish black or black dorsally, with a series of 3-8 broad, cream-colored crossbands, each partly divided by a narrow black crossband.)
With “West African” in the beast’s name, you would hope that it would remain in those parts of the world. Why on earth was this snake
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. 