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!
Positive!
There is no doubt negative emotions do a number on a person. They tear one apart. Whether it be guilt, fear, anger, depression, or envy. They keep one from happiness and fulfillment. In a never-ending, snowballing cycle, such feelings only prey on a person’s joy, sucking it out of them. Like a dementor.
[For those of you unfortunates who have no idea who/what a dementor is, let me explain. They are a creation of J. K. Rowling, dark characters in her seven-part saga detailing
Comfort!
Out here in the Dallas—Fort Worth Metroplex, 140-year-old Texas Christian University (affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination) is one of our shining stars. The battle between the Horned Frogs (their football team) and the Mustangs (Southern Methodist University’s football team)—the Battle for the Iron Skillet—is historic. The school boasts such alumni as CBS journalist Bob Schieffer, Texas state senator Wendy Davis of filibuster fame, one or two Rockefellers,
Tower!
A couple of months ago, I was in Dubai to visit relatives, preach some, and sight-see.
One of the main sights to see there is the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. 2722 feet. The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, had taken the honors for almost 4,000 years, until the Lincoln Cathedral in England overtook it in the fourteenth century. The Middle East has taken back the record … for now.
But that’s not the only record held by the Burj Khalifa. It is also the
Fear!
The other day researchers at Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta demonstrated something odd. Apparently the smell of fear (or is it the fear of smell—you decide!) can be inherited genetically and be passed down for two generations.
Dr. Kerry Ressler—professor of psychiatry, and recently elected to the prestigious National Institute of Medicine—and his colleagues worked with mice to prove this strange inheritance. Mice were taught to fear the smell of cherry blossom
Clock!
Thankfully, we do not know the date of our death. But what if we could?
Well, there’s something for you, if you wanted to know.
Swedish inventor Fredrik Colting has a Kickstarter campaign for—get this!—a “death watch.” He’s the right man to create this gadget—in his former career he was a gravedigger.
The watch is actually called Tikker. And what it does is count down the seconds left in your life.
Colting thinks “if we are aware of death, and our own expiration,
Wreath!
You probably shouldn’t hang it on your front door. If you do, make sure you have armed guards around 24–7.
This wreath costs over $4.5 million. The world’s most expensive wreath.
The thing has sixteen rubies and thirty-two diamonds, including a vivid red 17.49 carat ruby, a 3.03 carat yellow diamond, and a Hellebores flower head that has twenty-two loose diamonds totaling 2.64 carats. The jewels are removable and you can recycle them for other displays after Christmas.
Forgiveness!
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918–2013), the architect of the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, and its first President afterwards, recipient of over 250 international honors—including Russia’s Order of Lenin, India’s Bharat Ratna, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Peace Prize—passed away on December 5.
Mr. Mandela was imprisoned for twenty-seven years, eighteen of them in Robben Island, in a small cell, sleeping on a straw mat on the floor,
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. 