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!
Yell!
Coaching. Halftime. Pep talks. And the team, down in the first half, comes back to win the game! What a dream, as in Gene Hackman in Hoosiers (1986), Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans (2000), Billy Bob Thornton in Friday Night Lights (2004), etc. Apparently, that’s all it is—a dream.
The reality is that getting angry, yelling, and bringing down the hammer is what works. Or so say researchers from Berkeley in “Leadership in the Locker Room: How the Intensity
Years!
There is a standard calculation for arriving at “dog years”: multiply the age of the pooch by 7 and you have the equivalent human age.
Turns out this accounting is flawed. Say Trey Ideker and his colleagues from the Division of Genetics at UCSD and others from the University of Pittsburgh, in “Quantitative Translation of Dog-to-Human Aging by Conserved Remodeling of the DNA Methylome,” published in Cell Systems.
The wisdom that every year in a dog’s life equates
Yourself?
A recent, somewhat unscientific, study of 2,000 Americans revealed some interesting facts.
35 percent couldn’t name their blood type. 75 percent didn’t even know there were four major blood groups. Only 10 percent were aware that O-negative was the “universal” blood type, useful for emergency transfusions, holding the least risk for causing serious reactions. 66 percent confessed they had no idea the heart had four valves. Only a 30 percent were able to say that
Curmudgeon?
Alzheimer’s disease, one of the main causes of dementia in the elderly, affect more than 5 million Americans (projected to go up to 14 million by 2050). Worldwide this is estimated to be 50 million. Ten percent of those 65 or older are afflicted. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the US, costing the nation $305 billion.
While some risk factors, such as hypertension and diabetes, have been implicated in this neurodegenerative disease particularly affecting those
Fake!
The other day Fox 5 New York reported on a lady who shared something on her Facebook page:
I’ve had this beautiful succulent for about two years now. I was so proud of this plant. It was full, beautiful coloring, just an overall perfect plant. I had it up in my kitchen window. I had a watering plan for it, if someone else tried to water my succulent I would get so defensive because I just wanted to keep good care of it. I absolutely loved my succulent.”
That’s great.
One!
What a week this has been, and a month, and a year! Impeachment, election fever, coronavirus, lockdown, economic devastation, unemployment, ….
And now the spotlight on police brutality, riots … all around the world!
Five decades ago, another voice sounded, From a Birmingham Jail:
I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as
100,000!
The US crossed the 100,000 mark—the number of COVID-19-related deaths.
A journalist reminded us of the magnitude of that number:
Imagine if, starting now, we held a moment of silence for every American who has died from COVID-19. We wouldn’t speak for the rest of the day. For the rest of the week. For the rest of the month. If each one of those deaths was honored with the full traditional 60 seconds of silence, this country would stand in hushed, somber, unrelenting
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. 