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!
Lonely!
We check Facebook—what are our friends up to? We scroll through Instagram—what did they eat for breakfast? And so on, and so forth.
Social media.
Well, it may not be so social after all. Or so claims “Social Media Use and Perceived Social Isolation Among Young Adults in the U.S.” published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, by authors from Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health, at the University of Pittsburgh. They studied 1,787
Showing!
A few months ago, Pope, Francis ordained about a couple dozen new priests in St. Peter’s Basilica, in Rome. His exhortation to them caught my attention, as he urged these novice shepherds to serve the flock rather than manage it.
Feed the people of God with heartfelt homilies rather than boring sermons. Let this be the nourishment of the People of God that your sermons are not boring, that your homilies reach people’s hearts because they come from your heart, because
Evolved!
Those who settled in the Quebrada Camarones region of Chile’s Atacama Desert millennia ago had a problem. Their land, sandwiched between the Pacific on one side and the Andes the other, was the world’s driest non-polar desert. Some parts of it have never ever received rain in recorded history. And the only sources of their water, some rivers and wells, had high levels of arsenic, that can cause some serious health problems, including kidney failure and a number of
Connecting!
Someone made the astute observation that for almost a decade now, humans—for the first time in the history of this species—have been wandering the planet with a small computer in their hands: the smartphone.
So, how many times a day do you think the average persons swipes, taps, and pinches that little device in their hands?
Only about 2,617 times … a day. About 1,000,000 times a year.
This, dscout—a research and software company that examines mobile phone usage—confesses,
Eating!
Jane Seymour is a British-American actress known especially for her performance as Solitaire, in the Bond Movie, Live and Let Die (1973). For her other thespian activities, she has received an Emmy, two Golden Globes, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Oh, and she is also an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Last year, jewelers—the Russian conglomerate, World of Diamonds—decided to honor Ms. Seymour with a 2.08-carat vivid fancy blue diamond ring, set
Sleep!
Why do we sleep? To rejuvenate our energy stores? To clear the brain, kinda like a soft reboot? Just an opportunity to get over the stresses and strains of daily life?
Well, we have a better idea now.
In couple of studies published the other day in Science, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UCSD, and the Università Politecnica delle Marche, in Ancona, Italy, in one group, and researchers from Johns Hopkins in another, give us another hint: We
Freed!
FREED!
The other day something interesting happened within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex where your humble blogger makes his abode.
It happened in a holding cell in the basement of Weatherford’s District Courts Building. Eight prisoners occupying that cell. A single guard outside, chatting with them.
Suddenly the guard slumps over unconscious—a heart attack!
Said inmate Nick Kelton:
He just fell over. Looked like an act. But he could have died right there.”
Kelton and
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. 