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!
Learning!
For the longest time, no one cared about the brain. Aristotle (third century BCE) thought it helped cool the blood. The famous second-century physician, Galen, did figure out that the brain directed speech and movement, but thought it was the fluid-filled ventricles in the organ that did all the work. But we know better. Or at least, we think we know better.
But another axiom is biting the dust. Scientists from Columbia are overturning a well-accepted postulate. In “Human
Volunteer!
Poland, 1939. Witold Pilecki was married, husband to Maria, and father to two children. A farmer, an amateur painter, a volunteer for Christian charities. But things would not be peaceful for long. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1. Pilecki and a friend cofounded the Tajna Armia Polska (Secret Polish Army), a resistance force largely underground, carrying out raids against both the Nazis and the Soviets.
The guy comes up with an incredible and daring plan. He planned
Coincidence!
How do you know you are in love?
[Don’t look at me. I’m clueless.]
Here’s what they say: “We both like ….” Or “Our stars aligned.” Or “God said so.” Or whatever.
Apparently there are “signs” that you may not have been aware of, or looking for, as happened to Verona Koliqi and Mirand Buzaku.
Both are from Kosovo, though Verona has lived in the U.K. for the longest time. They ran into each other during one of her visits to Kosovo from the U.K.
Said the
Physician?
You have heard it said, “When the cat is away, the mice will play.” But I say unto you, “When the doctor is away, the patient will live!”
That’s what scientists have recently found—at least as far as cardiologists are concerned (hopefully not dermatologists).
In a recent study in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers looked at survival of those who suffered heart attacks … when their doctors were away at a five-day meeting—the
Stuff!
You wanna go to Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) in Alaska? Be careful. You might step into poop!
Michael Loso, a glacier geologist, recently calculated that 36,000 of the most intrepid, attempting to scale the peak in the seventy years between 1951 and 2012, have deposited up to 215,000 lbs of solid human waste, on to the Kahiltna glacier, on the way to the summit.
For those of you mathematically challenged, that’s about 6 lbs per climber!
Apparently these brave folks catch
Stress?
You thought stress was bad for you? Maybe not always.
There is a large and growing movement lauding the values of “positive stress.” Devotees extol the values of jumping into a freezingly cold shower, suffering extremes of temperatures, partaking of restrictive diets, punishing themselves with horrendous exercise routines, etc. Stepping into your discomfort zone.
Said Zachary Rapp, a practitioner, and co-founder and CEO of several health start-ups:
This workout
Seeing?
The accepted dogma was that once captured and stored, memories could be retrieved but not rewritten. Kinda like a read-only file on your computer. Apparently, that’s not the case.
Declared Daniela Schiller, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who researches memory:
Each time you retrieve a memory it undergoes this storage process. That means the memory is in an unstable state, rewritten and remodeled every time it is retrieved. And we don’t
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. 