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!
Depraved!
The Valle de los Caídos (“Valley of the Fallen”) is located in the municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 40 miles northwest of Madrid, and covers about 3,500 acres. It comprises a Catholic basilica and a burial place for the 40,000 who died during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The most striking part of the whole construction is the 500-foot high cross on a granite outcrop over the basilica; the cross is visible for miles around, the tallest
Sweets!
It’s a clandestine operation. Located in Madrid. In a convent! Yup, the Monasterio del Corpus Christi. A secret undertaking. Sweets! They make and sell dulces (pronounced with the cute Castilian lisp, of course: “dool-thays”).
You can find this cloak-and-dagger operation on the Plaza del Conde de Miranda, 3, in Old Madrid.
The convent building is a 17th century structure and the nuns have been there since 1605 (not the same individuals).
Well, they need support to keep
Flesh!
Two Sundays ago, I preached at Immanuel Baptist Church in Madrid, Spain. And then after lunch, I took in a bullfight. Yup, I did. At the Plaza de Toros de las Ventas! A bullfight!
A couple of days before my visit, of the six bullfights that night, the last three had to be canceled, because the bulls in the first three fights managed to gore the three matadors available. No more left. Fights called off. For the first time in 35 years.
(No, the three fighters weren’t injured
Dead?
Dead? Or alive? We don’t know yet.
According to his wife and son, His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj, the founder of the Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan religious order with an estate worth $1.7 million, with properties all over the world—in India, the U.S., the U.K., S. America, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East—died several months ago.
Names!
That’s it folks. I am getting old. Yup, I am. Finally, it has hit me.
This month, I attended two graduations a week apart. My two nephews: John got his master’s degree from Tulane in LA, and Jacob his bachelor’s from Clemson in SC.
Unbelievable.
[Not that they graduated. That wasn’t a surprise at all. But that I am getting old. Actually with gray hair, presbyopia, kidney stones, and cholesterol meds, my approaching AARP-qualifying status is not entirely unexpected!]
So
Walking!
“Give Your Ideas Some Legs” is the title of a provocative paper by Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz, published recently in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.
It all began when Oppezzo was an education grad student of Schwartz at Stanford. Apparently they would go for walks on campus to discuss topics related to her dissertation, on creativity.
Said Oppezzo:
And one day I thought: ‘Well, what about this? What about walking and
Sealed!
The other day, I was at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), in Louisville, Kentucky.
Nope, sorry to disappoint you folks, I wasn’t there to bet on the Derby. I could get into trouble—a DTS prof betting on horses!
Nope, I was there to lead a day of seminars for students working on their doctorates in preaching. They were using my tome on preaching hermeneutics as one of their textbooks, and so I was called in for an inquisition, Baptist style!
[Actually, I had
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.