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!
Originalist!
Justice Antonin Scalia, 79, died yesterday, after almost three decades on the U.S. Supreme Court. An outsize personality with a trenchant wit, and a passion for the Constitution and its “original” interpretation, he was an intellectual leader both within the Court and without.
Declared Chief Justice Roberts:
Longevity?
Well, you can forget that old dictum about avoiding chocolate as being bad for you. Go ahead and eat chocolate, folks, you will live longer.
Praise the Lord!
Heart (an imprint of the British Medical Journal) published a study last year that found that eating up to 100 grams (about 4 ounces, a quarter pound!) helps lower risk of heart disease and strokes. Wow! A quarter pound of chocolate. That’s 20 Hershey’s kisses!
“Habitual Chocolate Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular
Phobia?
Apparently 30% of American adults are apprehensive, or have been or will be at some point in their lives. And the root cause seems to be the memories they carry. An event that scared you, or scarred you, is remembered vividly and fearfully. And everyone thought that these emotional kind of memories, of panic and fear and guilt, were permanently inscribed on the papyri of our brains.
Well, there is hope on the horizon. Research from the University of Amsterdam published
Attention!
We’ve always been told about the goldfish and its tiny span of attention. Well, we might be doing that gill-bearing aquatic creature an injustice. Humans, apparently, have an attention span less than that of aforementioned Carassius auratus.
Microsoft recently published a study done in Canada (they employed both surveys for 2,000 people and EEG scans for another 100) that showed that average attention span of humans has fallen precipitously in the last fifteen years.
Departure!
We’ve all heard of “destination weddings.” Now there is another eclectic ritual on the scene: “destination funerals.” Held not in churches or such places, but in gardens, sports arenas, lakes, the beach, on sea, etc. No more the traditional hearse. We now have buses, and even motorbikes. Congregants are also being encouraged to abandon the traditional attire of black or other somber color. Soccer shirts and fancy dress attire are in vogue now.
Said Sam Kershaw,
Curdled!
“Bloodcurdling Movies and Measures of Coagulation: Fear Factor Crossover Trial,” by Banne Nemeth, Luuk J. J. Scheres, Willem M. Lijfering, and Frits R. Rosendaal—from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
Around Christmas every year, that gravitas-laden institution called the British Medical Journal puts out a few frivolous articles, albeit carefully researched, well written, and peer reviewed. The aforementioned note by Nemeth, Scheres, Lijfering,
Cakes!
Yup, that’s what it said. “Cow Dung Patties Selling Like Hot Cakes!” The item is flying off online shelves in India: cow-dung patties.
In case you didn’t know, this commodity is cow droppings blended with straw and dried in sunlight. Reliable sources of fuel in rural areas of Africa and Asia, they are cheap, efficient, and reduce consumption of wood and thus, pollution—a sustainable and renewable energy source.
No one is sure why, but the demand for these goods
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. 