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!
Transfusion!
Each year, an estimated 6.8 million people in the U.S. donate blood, and 13.6 million units (almost that many pints = almost half that amount in liters) of whole blood and red blood cells are collected in the U.S. in a year.
But it may not be just blood and blood products that are passed on. Some scientists are starting to ask whether something unexpected may be transmitted at the same time as the blood transfusion.
Five years ago, for example, a study by Geneva University
Mother?
When one of her kids call, Tammy Kumin comes running, no matter what the time is, day or night. Like any good mom
Except, she isn’t the actual mother of the kids she mothers 24-7. She’s simply their “rent-a-mom””!
I’m a mom away from mom—a total support system for students.”
Ms. Kumin, now in her seventies, and the biological parent of three and grandmother of six from Boston, is the founder of Concierge Service for Students (CSS).
She does it all—emergency
Occult!
In ye olde city of Exeter, in South West England, in the late 1800s three women were hanged for apparently engaging in witchcraft—the last of such executions in England.
A short walk from where the hangings occurred, the University of Exeter is now offering a “postgraduate degree in magic and occult science,” the first of its kind at a British university. The fascination with magic and the occult has permeated digital platforms, especially among the younger, less
Water?
A 25-year-old woman from Fresno is allergic to water. Yes, you read right: to water. Allergic. And that means even from her own tears and sweat, she breaks out in welts and hives.
Tessa Hansen-Smith confessed:
I would come out of showers and have huge welts on my skin, and my scalp would be bleeding after showering.”
She’s been suffering from this condition, called aquagenic urticaria, since she was 8 years old.
Declared the National Institutes of Health’s Genetics and
Oral!
Your mouth affects your brain!
Emerging evidence suggests that what goes on in our mouth can affect what goes on in our brain—and may even potentially affect our risk for dementia.
Anita Visser, professor in geriatric dentistry at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands:
People should really be aware that oral health is really important.”
Yes, really! Severe periodontal disease affects about 19 percent of people older than 15, i. e., over 1 billion people
Feet!
It is apparently very difficult for a pair of Air Jordans to make it all the way from the Nike factory to a retail store shelf or to your front porch.
According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, Nike goods have been stolen at almost every step of the supply chain, from distribution centers, rail yards and storage trains to FedEx delivery trucks.
Just a few months ago the LAPD seized at least $3 million worth of Nike products that they say were stolen from a
Painless?
Karl Barth, the theologian, believed that Mozart would be what was playing in heaven:
I even have to confess that, if I ever get to heaven, I would first of all seek out Mozart and only then inquire after Augustine and Thomas, Luther, Calvin ….”
He was wrong, of course. It will be Bach.
In any case, Mozart has his benefits. Even among the newly born, it seems. As they declared in “Music for Pain Relief of Minor Procedures in Term Neonates,” published recently in Pediatric
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.