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!
Pollution!
Your Mom was right all along.
You dropped your toast butter-side down on the carpet. And you utter some choice words that takes your sanctification down a couple of notches. And you put another slice in the toaster. Another five minutes wasted.
Next time, don’t waste either your sanctification or the five minutes. Be cool. Just count: 1-minnesota, 2-minnesota, 3-minnesota, 4-minnesota, 5-minnesota … and perform salvage operations on said food before you get to 5. Yes,
Value!
Perception is everything, say marketing departments. But apparently that’s true in medicine, too!
Some time ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study by a team headed by Duke University economist, Dan Ariely.
Using Craigslist, they recruited 82 men and women to subject themselves to electric shocks on their wrists, before and after taking a pill. Then they had to rate their pain. Half the folks had been told that the pill they consumed was
Noise?
They say:
It’s pretty hard to be creative in a quiet space. And a loud workplace can be frustrating and distracting. But, the mix of calm and commotion in an environment like a coffee house is proven to be just what you need to get those creative juices flowing.”
“They” are Coffitivity, a group of software developers. And there is an app for this. For iOS and Android. Yup, it’s called Coffitivity. Rated 4+ in the Mac App Store.
So …
Our team has delivered
Memory?
I saw it last year in Paris. And it’s pretty small. 30 inches × 21 inches. But there’s always a huge crowd around it. And everyone’s got their smart phones and cameras out. No one’s looking. Everyone’s taking pictures. Of the Mona Lisa. In the Louvre.
Maybe they want to remember it after they get home. (It always puzzles me why folks [including me] think their own pictures of famous places, pictures, and persons are better than ones you find on Google Images.
Gamble?
It’s a nice fantasy. You walk into a gas station, give up a dollar, buy one of those tickets, and you win a huge lottery! Now you can buy your own island in the tropics and your own NBA team! Nice!
(That fingers-crossed blue logo is that of U.K.’s National Lottery.)
Last December the Mega Millions payoff in the U.S. was $648 million, just $8 million short of the record set in a March 202 drawing.
The Mega Millions website gives you the odds of hitting the jackpot: 1 in
Identity!
The newest iteration of the iPhone, the 5S, has TouchID, Apple’s fingerprint scanning security system. Gone are the days of passwords to unlock your phones. Now all you need to do is put one of your fingers on the sensor and—voila!—your device is accessible to you and you alone.
At Barclays Bank in the U.K., they aren’t taking any chances either. If you call in, it won’t be enough to state your name and your bank account number, etc. Your voice will be analyzed
Marathon!
Janette Murray-Wakelin and Alan Murray. 64 and 68 years old, respectively. Amazing! They ran a marathon, every day, for an entire year. A marathon, EVERY day. 366 consecutive marathons without taking even a day off.
That’s almost 10,000 miles, running around the mainland of Australia and the island of Tasmania!
Every day of the past year, the couple rose at 4:00 am and set off. After 365 of these, they decided to celebrate … with another marathon to their home
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. 