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!
Wallpaper?
In 1862, Richard Turner, a bricklayer, and his wife lost all four of their children to a mysterious illness.
The first was thought to have suffered from diphtheria, and so was the second. Within days the third child died. When the fourth, Ann Amelia, began to display the same symptoms, Dr. Orton, one of Victorian London’s distinguished physicians, was called in.
Orton’s notes describe Ann Amelia “suffering from extreme prostration, racked with pain, and unable to swallow.”
Stink!
Jakarta-bound Sriwijaya Air flight was delayed the other day at Bengkulu in Sumatra, Indonesia.
The reason? Passenger complaints about an overpowering stench.
The culprit: Two tons of the thorny fruit called durian in the cargo hold.
Durian is common in Southeast Asia and distinguished by its strong stink that evokes, usually, disgust. Raw sewage is what it smells like, resulting in it being banished from most hotels and public transportation in that part of the continent.
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Elections?
Wikipedia calls John C. Turmel “a perennial candidate for election in Canada.” He first ran in 1979, with his primary goal to legalize gambling. He got 193 votes. (He lost!)
In about four decades, Turmel has contested 95 elections—yes, ninety-five!—and lost them all, propelling him into the Guinness Book of World Records!
He’s run for everything from city councilor to leader of the Marijuana Party, from Mayor of Ottawa to Member of Parliament, receiving anywhere
Pizza!
In the past, i.e., before “The Physics of Baking Good Pizza” was published by researchers from University of Rome Tor Vergarta, Argonne National Laboratory, and Northern Illinois University, in Physics Education this September, you had only one option. If you wanted a perfect pizza, you had to book your ticket to la città eterna, Rome. That was it.
No more.
Now you can simulate that experience in your humble electric oven. At home.
The mouth-watering study by physicists
Royalty!
If you fly Cityhopper, the regional carrier subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines that ferries folks between European cities, you might in for a pleasant surprise.
Your pilot might be Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand (1967–), “by the Grace of God, King of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Marquis of Veere and Flushing, Count of Katzenelnbogen, Vianden, Diez, Spiegelberg, Buren, Leerdam and Culemborg, Burgrave of Antwerp, Baron
Heart!
I left my heart in San Francisco!
Well … it wasn’t San Francisco. It was Sacramento. Close.
And it wasn’t a metaphorical heart of romance and passion. It was, literally, a heart, as in the four-chambered organ.
And the one who left the actual heart in Sacramento? Nope, not me. It was Southwest. As in the airline, based in Love [Field, Dallas, TX], and whose stock ticker symbol on the NYSE is LUV. Appropriate.
The heart in question wasn’t mine either.
It belonged
Ashes!
All kinds of celebrations happen at Disney theme parks: engagements, birthdays, weddings, etc., etc.
But these “Happiest Places on Earth” are also venues for “celebrations” of a different kind.
The custodians of said parks in Orlando, Florida (Walt Disney World) and Anaheim, California (Disneyland) report that these famous locations are preferred places for guests to scatter their loved ones’ ashes!
In fact, such disbursements of remains are so popular that custodians
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. 