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!
Grit!
Talent is good. Gifting is great. Being at the right place at the right time is terrific. Etc. But none of these is a reliable marker of success.
So says MacArthur Fellowship recipient Angela Lee Duckworth, Associate Professor of psychology at U Penn.
So what is a dependable predictor of success? Grit!
Dr. Duckworth studies grit—hard work, perseverance, doggedness, tenacity. What causes people to stick with a goal, a dream, a pursuit, for years and even decades? Grit.
Her
Adequate!
In stark contrast to the electronics industry’s pursuit of perfection, researchers the other day unveiled a computer chip that is—get this!—inexact. Yup, inexact. Imperfect. Inaccurate. One that allows occasional errors.
At a conference in Italy on Computing Frontiers, scientists from Rice University in Houston collaborating with others from Singapore, Switzerland, and Berkeley, demonstrated a prototype of the “inexact” chip.
You would rightly ask: “Why?”
Apparently
Attentive!
Early this month, Sachin Tendulkar retired from cricket after a spectacular career spanning 24 years!
More than half of India’s 1.2 billion is under 25; they have only known the Age of Tendulkar!
Over the decades, cricket-watchers the world over—and I count myself one of those fortunate ones—have been transported by his feats, disheartened by his injuries, frustrated by his failures, and thrilled by every one of his magnificent accomplishments. Saturday, a fortnight
Retired!
The end of the era came at 11:46 am Indian Standard Time, November 16, 2013 C.E. His teammates gave him a mobile guard of honor as they walked him off the field. The roar from the stands was ear-shattering.
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar had played his last game of cricket for India.
Readers of this blog in years past will have noticed my affinity for that noble game and will have registered my affection for this pint-sized (he’s 5’5″) champion who is has
Regrets!
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war ….”
So declaimed Abraham Lincoln, on the afternoon of November 19, a century-and-a-half ago, in 1863, at Gettysburg, where, just four odd months earlier, about 50,000 had lost their
Crises!
It was in 1922 that British archeologist Howard Carter came upon King Tutankhamun’s mummy. The boy king had reigned for a decade till he died at 19, in 1324 B.C.E. For royalty, presumably well-fed and closely-protected, dying in the teens was perplexing. What did he die of? There were speculations, but no consensus. Epilepsy? Head injury? Malaria? A bone disease? The absence of any historical record of this king, besides hieroglyphics on the walls of his tomb, added
Face
Tara Fall suffers a strange affliction. She can’t recognize faces … even her own.
It all began ten years ago, when Ms. Fall underwent surgery to control intractable seizures. On the operating table, she suffered a stroke that damaged part of her brain. She completely lost her ability to recognize and remember faces. Her memory of events and conversations and facts is as good as anyone else’s. It’s only faces that trip her up.
Most of us can close our eyes and visualize
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. 