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!
Gift!
Last week was not a good one for François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande, the President of France. The Eurozone is in a mess, his allies are being investigated for secret bank accounts, and now this—someone ate his camel!
Earlier this year, the country of Mali had presented President Hollande with a gift camel, after France had taken the initiative to chase out Al Qaeda militants and to liberate Timbuktu from the yoke of radical Islamists.
It was quite an eventful week
Lovelocked?
Pont de l’Archevêché (The Archbishop’s Bridge) crosses the Seine in Paris, right next to the Notre-Dame Cathedral.
The striking thing about this bridge is the padlocks affixed to its rails, a practice becoming increasingly common around the world. They do it in China (probably where it originated), Japan, Russia, South Korea, in several places in Europe—including at least three bridges in Paris—and even in Australia, Canada, and in the U.S. (Guam, primarily,
Paid!
Notre Dame de Paris (“Our Lady of Paris”), is actually one of several churches bearing the name Notre Dame in Paris. But this one, in the fourth arrondissement of Paris is the Notre Dame, one of the most well-known churches in the world, and, built in the late 1100s, it is one of the best examples of French Gothic architecture.
This church also has the distinction of possessing, in its reliquary, what is supposed to be the Crown of Thorns, a portion of the True Cross,
Comfort!
I was in Paris for several days last week. And I subsisted entirely on comfort food! At least, it made me comfortable—the crepes, chocolates, and cheeses.
“Comfort food” is that which provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the consumer, and is an easy-to-digest meal, soft in consistency, and rich in calories, and, more often than not, woefully poor in nutrients.
Crepes, chocolates, and cheeses.
“Comfort foods may be consumed to positively pique emotions, to
Optimism?
According to neuroscientist Tali Sharot, research fellow in the department of Cognitive, Perceptual & Brain Sciences at the University College London, 80% of us have an affliction—optimism bias. Author of The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, Sharot explores why the majority of humans tend to overestimate the positive.
This bias is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of good happening to us and underestimating the likelihood of the
Mendacity!
According an expert on lying (not that she is an ace liar, but that she studies the phenomenon of mendacity), Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, the average person lies three times in the first minute after meeting a stranger. And the same average person lies between 10 and 200 times every day! (These are the times I wish wasn’t so average.)
Another way of looking at it is that not only are you, Mr./Ms. Average Person, lying 10–200 times a day, you are also being
Conformity?
There it is, a five-story house in the middle of a highway to which Mr. and Mrs. Luo Baogen said, “NO!”
You see, this duck-farming couple was the last holdout from a subdivision that was flattened to make way for a main arterial road to a new railway station in Wenling, Zhejiang province. 1,600 families were relocated. Most were forced to accept the money offered by the government. Not so Luo and spouse.
Non-conformity! Luo has become famous in China for his resistance
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. 