Negligence

Stradivarius musical instruments are renowned worldwide as some of the greatest ever shaped by the hand of man. Of the roughly 1,000 violins, cellos, guitars, and others that Antonio Stradivari created in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, only 650 exist today and are only played by world-class musicians.

So, you’d think people might be careful with them.

According to an official at Spain’s Royal Palace in Madrid, a Stradivarius cello worth more than $20 million has been damaged. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo explained that the prized cello broke after falling off a table during a photo shoot.

No details were released as to how the cello fell off the table, in what manner it was damaged or the identity of the butterfingers who dropped it. But according to the report, a piece that joins the neck to cello’s body broke and fell off. According to the Daily Mail, the palace official said the broken piece was a replacement installed in the 19th century and will be repaired.

Possible Preaching Angle:

You'd think that when you're dealing with something that valuable, you'd treat it according to its incredible worth. But unfortunately, this is how some spouses treat each other. One command in Scripture says, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers” (1 Pet. 3:7).

Would you invest with someone who guarantees a 50% annual return with no risk of loss? Would you reply to an email offering you a share of a lost treasure in a far-away country, in exchange for sending just a little bit of money to kickstart the recovery effort? Would you buy a Picasso or a Dali from a late-night infomercial?

We didn’t think so. But many people do fall for scams like these. Why? Are the victims uneducated, unintelligent, or constitutionally naïve? Unfortunately for all of us, the answer is no. Even people at the top of their professions can be taken in.

Several former cabinet secretaries were convinced to join the board of Theranos, whose founder, Elizabeth Holmes, was convicted of criminal fraud. Wealthy art collectors bought phony paintings from a famous Manhattan gallery. According to the FBI, phishing scams led to losses of more than $43 billion between 2016 and 2021.

In their book Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It, two researchers write:

Frauds are ever evolving and can be complex and sophisticated, but even simple ploys can take us in … Most of the scams people fall for today are not really new; they are remixes and mashups of tricks that have worked for generations … Taking steps to avoid deception means we have to abandon the myth that only the gullible can be taken in. There are scams out there waiting for each of us, no matter how sophisticated we think we are. Rather than “it can’t happen to me,” your mantra should be “accept less, check more.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Money; Finances – Even the financially savvy can be taken in by a lack of vigilance or a desire for quick profits or a slick sales pitch; 2) Deceiver; Deception; Satan – This is especially good advice for our defense against our spiritual enemy, Satan. He has thousands of years of experience in deceiving people and we must keep our grip on the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:10-17).

Financial consultant and popular radio host Dave Ramsey is being sued by a group of former listeners over his role in promoting a company alleged to have defrauded customers of millions of dollars.

The class-action lawsuit claims that Ramsey’s Lampo Group, earned about $30 million from 2015 to 2021 endorsing Timeshare Exit Team. This Kirkland, Washington company received over $200 million in revenue by promising to relieve clients of their costly financial obligations from time share agreements.

In 2021, Timeshare Exit Team paid $2.61 million as part of a settlement with the attorney general of the state of Washington over what it claims were deceptive business practices. This included advising clients to stop paying timeshare fees and issuing fake property deeds in an attempt to convince clients they were free of their obligations. The complaint reads, “When customers finally discovered the schemes and demanded their refunds, [Timeshare Exit Team founder] Reed Hein fabricated excuses not to honor the promises or stopped returning their calls.”

The lawsuit seeks $150 million in damages, claiming that the actions of Ramsey Solutions, Timeshare Exit Team, and Happy Hour Media Group, conspired to commit “negligent malrepresentation” and “unjust enrichment” in violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

Ramsey has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, but plaintiffs in the suit claim that Ramsey should have known better. The lawsuit reads:

Reed Hein made many claims that any competent financial advisor with Dave Ramsey’s knowledge and skill would know to be false, and it engaged in many activities Dave Ramsey would have known to be illegal. Ramsey never returned any of the tens of millions of dollars Reed Hein and Happy Hour Media Group paid him from his own listeners’ hard-earned money. Instead, Ramsey has chosen to profit from his listeners’ money.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Anyone who preaches financial accountability must be willing to submit their own behavior to that same standard. We lose credibility in the community of faith when we have standards for others that we do not adopt for ourselves.

Did you drop the ball this Mother’s Day and forget to pick up a gift for your mom? You’re not alone. A new survey has found that one in six Americans hasn’t sent their mother a single present in over a year. A survey found that 67 percent know their mom’s favorite flower. However, 37 percent admit they haven’t bought their mother flowers of any kind over the last year.

Another 57 percent know exactly what movie their mom would love to watch. But one in three people haven’t sat down to watch a movie with her in more than a year. Another 81 percent know their mom’s favorite hobby, but only half the poll say they’ve joined their mother to do that activity within the last six months. Even though 81% know their mom’s favorite way to pamper herself, 51% haven’t treated their mom in the last month.

A study found that mothers spend a staggering 97 hours a week doing something related to parenting—the same amount of time most people with a six-figure salary spend on their job.

Celebrating Mother’s Day is an easy way to show appreciation to the hard work, dedication, and care moms provide. They may not be sending flowers or taking mom out to dinner, but at least Americans are picking up the phone. More than 80 percent of the poll say they speak to their mother at least once a month.

So, if there’s a lesson coming out of this survey, maybe it’s that Americans need to spend a little quality time with their mom. With Mother’s Day being a day to do whatever our mother’s love to do, this day in May allows many kids a chance to play “catch-up.” After all, everyday can be Mother’s Day if you try.

A sheep named Baarack received a much-needed shearing after rescuers in Australia found the abandoned animal with more than 75 pounds of wool weighing it down. A video of his transformation on TikTok has more than 18.5 million views. After rescuing Baarack, sanctuary staff gave him the long-overdue shearing and found the fleece clocked in at about 78 pounds.

According to Kelly Dinham with Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary, sheep need at least yearly shearing to keep their coats light enough for the animals, otherwise it will continue to grow. Despite his heavy fleece, Baarack was actually underweight after being sheared. The wool around his face impaired his vision, too. Dinham said they found grit and debris "pooling in the gap between his cornea and the lid." And a grass seed stuck in there had caused an ulcer.

If a sheep goes for an extended period of time without adequate care, the overgrown wool can lead to build up of manure and urine that then could lead to infection, according to a North Dakota State University fact sheet on sheep shearing.

Possible Preaching Angle

This illustration easily applies to the Chief Shepherd and his sheep (and the undershepherd and their flock). As the sheep of his pasture, we need to be under the care of our Shepherd, otherwise we can wander off (Luke 15:4) or be attacked (Acts 20:29). We need those peaceful streams and quiet pastures, and his loving care (John 10:1-18; Psalm 23:1-6).

Many adults under 35 have stopped playing it safe with money. Instead of banking as much of their pay as they used to, they’re saving less, spending more, and pursuing passion projects or risky careers. A recent study found that 45 percent of people aged 18 to 35 “don’t see a point in saving until things return to normal.”

One 27-year-old said she was prudent about almost everything until the end of last year, when she had an epiphany: “I don’t want to spend my life being so careful and cautious.” Another young adult cited the shaky state of the world. “I’m not going to deprive myself some of the comforts of life now for a future that feels like it could be ripped away from me at any moment … I’m going to spend my money now.”

Many younger adults say the isolation of pandemic life triggered the decision to enjoy the moment, no matter the financial consequences. For others, the motivation has come from worries over climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, domestic political instability, soaring inflation, through-the-roof housing costs, and a topsy-turvy stock market.

The next time Robert McKenna III celebrates a recent victorious court case in front of coworkers, he’d be wise to prevent anyone from filming his exultation. That’s because McKenna was part of a defense team that successfully fended off a wrongful death suit for a local gastroenterologist.

He was recorded on video at a company function describing the situation as “a guy who was probably negligently killed, but we kind of made it look like other people did it. ... We actually had a death certificate that said he died the very way the plaintiff said he died, and we had to say, ‘No, you really shouldn’t believe what that death certificate says, or the coroner.’”

As a result, the judge who presided over the case vacated the verdict, ordering all parties involved to return to court. At a hearing for the new trial Superior Court Judge James Crandall said, “I think I have to protect the system and say plaintiffs deserve a new trial.”

When asked for his reasoning, the judge elaborated. “When he says on video a ‘guy was probably negligently killed,’ probably is more likely than not. Then he goes on to say, ‘But we kind of made it look like other people did it.’ That seems like an admission of negligence. Seems like an admission the plaintiff should have prevailed.”

The judge went on to call McKenna “an excellent lawyer,” with a reputation for “honesty and integrity. ... But good men make mistakes.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

We shouldn't get so caught up in boasting of our own accomplishments that we lose sight of our own fallibility and the truth.

Six in 10 Gen Zers and Millennials have a complicated relationship—with their cars. A recent survey of Gen Z and Millennial car owners reveals that it takes an average of eight warning lights for them to schedule vehicle maintenance. However, one in four tend to disregard and continue driving with broken speakers or a radio, excessive emissions, low tire pressure light, oil change, or scratches on their vehicle’s body or windshield.

Two out of three say they’re OK with their car not being up to par as long as it passes a state-licensed safety test. On average, it takes five breakdowns for Gen Zers and Millennials to buy a new car.

People stop driving their car and get a new one when the upkeep surpasses their budget (39%), there are too many strange sounds or smells (38%), too many parts have to be replaced (37%), or too much of it is being held together by tape (37%).

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is also true for most people in their spiritual lives, regardless of their age. They will ignore the warning signs and continue with sinful behavior as long as they think they are managing to “hold it together” and get by with it.

In the early hours of June 24, 2021, part of a slab from a high-rise condo building in Surfside, Florida dropped into the parking garage below. Within minutes, the east wing of the 13-story tower collapsed, killing 98 people in a disaster without modern precedent in the US.

Designed in the late 1970s, the 136-unit Champlain Towers South was completed in 1981 and marketed as luxury living. Officials are still investigating why the tower fell. Engineers point to some key decisions during construction, that while legal at the time, compromised the buildings foundation and integrity.

For instance, a Wall Street Journal report concluded:

[The original builders] skipped waterproofing in areas where saltwater could seep into concrete, the available evidence indicates. They put the building’s structural slabs on thin columns without the support of beams in some places. They installed too few of the special heavy walls that help keep buildings from toppling, engineers say, features that could have limited the extent of the collapse. And they appeared to have put too little concrete over rebar in some places and not enough rebar in others, design plans and photos of the rubble indicate.

Tragically, the construction flaws could have been repaired. The report continued:

Engineers say some issues would have been fixable, had the property’s condo board done more extensive repairs sooner. By 1996, the slab started showing cracks, and pieces of concrete had fallen off the garage ceiling, unusual so soon after construction. Workers patched cracks and waterproofed the pool deck, but that too eventually failed.

But the condo board failed to act. Roof work began weeks before the collapse, but repairs to the steel-reinforced concrete hadn’t yet started.

Ray DeMonia needed intensive care for a cardiac event, so naturally, his providers wanted to place him in the hospital intensive care unit. Unfortunately, there were no ICU beds available at his hospital--or at any of the surrounding areas. Hospital officials contacted 43 different hospitals across three states before they found an open bed where they could send him--170 miles away, in Meridian, Mississippi.

Unfortunately, that’s where DeMonia died. Even though his illness was not a result of COVID-19, the severe shortage of ICU beds that fatally delayed his treatment was a direct result of so many people needing treatment for COVID-19. Despite a readily available vaccine that prevents the vast majority of hospitalizations, local ICUs were--and continue to be--full of mostly unvaccinated patients dealing with severe coronavirus infections.

Dr. Don Williamson, head of the Alabama Hospital Association said, “Every day hospitals are trying to find a place to transfer patients, and it is very difficult. We’ve had patients transferred to Georgia, to Kentucky, to Florida.”

After his death, DeMonia’s family made a simple request to the general public: “In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you have not, in an effort to free up resources for non-COVID related emergencies. He would not want any other family to go through what his did.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is wrong when people in need go without help because of the selfishness of others. Even the choices that we consider to be personal still have ripple effects that affect the community as a whole.

The song The Living Years by Mike +The Mechanics was released in 1988 and became a worldwide hit. It was nominated for four Grammy awards and was written by the group’s founder Mike Rutherford and songwriter B.A. Robertson. Both had recently lost their father and had regrets of not being closer and expressing personal feelings before their deaths.

Mike Rutherford's father, Crawford, died in England at the age of 80. Mike had been on tour in Chicago and two weeks later flew to England for the funeral. He then flew back to Chicago in time for his next show.

After lots of reflection, Mike realized that he was so wrapped up in his own career during this time that he was neglecting his loved ones, especially his dad. His father had been a captain in the Royal Navy, but hadn’t discussed his time fighting in World War II and Korea. He wrote his memoirs, but they were never published. When Mike discovered them, he learned a great deal about the man and once again felt regret over not spending more time with him.

Over the years many people have written to Rutherford saying the song inspired them to get back in touch with their father.

Part of the lyrics are:

I wasn't there that morning

When my Father passed away

I didn't get to tell him

All the things I had to say

I think I caught his spirit

Later that same year

I'm sure I heard his echo

In my baby's new born tears

I just wish I could have told him in the living years

You can watch “The Living Years Official Video” here.

In his essay "Sinsick," theologian Stanley Hauerwas explores the notion of authority using a medical analogy. If a medical student told his advisor, "I'm not into anatomy this year, I'm into relating" and asked to skip anatomy class to focus on people, the medical school would reply, "Who in the [heck] do you think you are, kid? … You're going to take anatomy. If you don't like it, that's tough." Hauerwas delivers his crucial point by saying: "Now what that shows is that people believe incompetent physicians can hurt them. Therefore people expect medical schools to hold their students responsible for the kind of training that is necessary to be competent physicians. On the other hand, few people believe an incompetent minister can damage their salvation."

The church has said for millennia that bad teaching is more deadly than bad surgery. … The need for formal structures of training, hierarchy, and accountability in medical schools and medical boards is obvious because we don't want our doctors to simply be popular or relatable; we want them to practice medicine correctly and truthfully, participate in a medical tradition broader than themselves, and serve under the authority and oversight of others. We need to be as discerning in whom we trust with care of souls as we are with care of our bodies.

According to a British survey, 40 percent of moms have received an unwanted Mother's Day gift, but most of them were too polite to complain. Here's a partial list of the 30 worst Mother's Day gifts (according to moms who actually received these gifts):

• Deodorant
• Fire extinguisher
• Cleaning supplies
• A stick of French bread
• Salad dressing
• Popcorn
• Ants (perhaps an ant farm for Mom)
• Hair dye
• Screwdriver
• Toilet roll
• Calculator
• Car parts

Another newspaper ran an article titled "20 awful Mother's Day cards that you absolutely should not buy." The article is clear: Do NOT buy these cards, but just in case you're curious here are a few examples:

• Mom, thanks for always checking up on me (with a picture of a cell phone with 24 unanswered calls from "Mom").
• Well I guess this Mother's Day card is late. Looks like someone wasn't raised properly.
• I'm awesome. You're welcome. To the luckiest Mom ever.
• Mom I love you loads. (A picture of a laundry basket overflowing with clothes.) Speaking of loads … can you do my laundry?

Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, once referenced what he called the "counter-intuitive phenomena of Jewish history"—a phenomena that applies to Christians as well. "When it was hard to be a Jew," Sacks wrote, "people stayed Jewish. When it was easy to be a Jew, people stopped being Jewish. Globally, this is the major Jewish problem of our time."

The Telegraph, a British newspaper reported that a flock of over 1,300 sheep "had to be rounded up by police in the Spanish city of Huesca after their shepherd fell asleep." The article continued:

According to city authorities, the police were alerted to the presence of the extremely large flock attempting to negotiate the streets in the center of Huesca at around 4.30am on Tuesday when a local resident dialed Spain's 112 emergency number.

The dozing shepherd was meant to be keeping the animals in check outside the environs of the city while he waited for the clock to strike 7am, when he was due to guide the sheep northwards through Huesca towards Pyrenean uplands where his flock will graze during the hot summer months.

The police eventually found the herder, who was still peacefully slumbering. Together the embarrassed shepherd and police officers were eventually able to extract the sheep from the city and return them to their pastures.

In his book My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok's main character is an awakening artist, beginning to see the world with a different perspective. The author captures a simple moment at a family dinner from the emerging artist's point of view:

That was the night I began to realize that something was happening to my eyes. I looked at my father and saw lines and planes I had never seen before. I could feel with my eyes. I could feel my eyes moving across the lines around his eyes and into and over the deep furrows on his forehead. He was thirty-five years old, and there were lines on his face and forehead. I could feel the lines with my eyes and feel, too, the long straight flat bridge of his nose and the clear darkness of his eyes and the strong thick curves of the red eyebrows and the thick red hair of his beard graying a little—I saw the stray gray strands in the tangle of hair below his lips. I could feel lines and points and planes. I could feel texture and color …. I felt myself flooded with the shapes and textures of the world around me. I closed my eyes. But I could still see that way inside my head. I was seeing with another pair of eyes that had suddenly come awake.

What if we changed the way we looked at people? What if we paid attention to people with a new set of eyes that "suddenly came awake"? Might we see the helpless and hopeless condition of people with whom we come into contact every day? Noticing may be the first step in bringing someone the good news about Jesus and the kingdom of God … We begin to see others, ourselves, and even God differently. People we never noticed before (because we never paid attention to them) quite suddenly matter to us in ways we can't explain.

On Friday March 28, 1947, at 6:55 A.M., Bronx bus driver William Cimillo got into his bus to start his daily route. But then something happened. He decided to take a crazy leap. Fed up with New York traffic, Cimillo decided he'd had enough. Instead of sticking with his daily routine, he headed his bus south, going nowhere in particular. He stopped in New Jersey for a bite to eat, and parked in front of the White House and took a look around D.C.

Three days later, he was in Hollywood, Florida, where he stopped for a nighttime swim. Cimillo was totally free … and strapped for cash. He telegrammed his boss in New York, asking for $50, and that's when the cops showed up. Two New York detectives and a mechanic were sent to fetch the runaway driver and his bright red bus, but according to Cimillo, the mechanic couldn't really drive the bus, so they had Cimillo drive them back to New York. And when they arrived, William Cimillo discovered he'd become a legend. People across the country sent him fan mail, newspapers portrayed him as a working-class hero, and his bus-driving buddies raised enough cash to cover his legal expenses.

Realizing they were the bad guys here, the Surface Transportation System decided not to prosecute. In fact, they gave Cimillo his job back. For the rest of his life, Cimillo never pulled any more wild stunts. Instead, he kept on driving that bus for 16 more years before finally passing away in 1975. Those three crazy days in 1947 were more than enough adventure for William Cimillo. Asked why he did it, the busman would explain: "This New York traffic gets you. It's like driving in a squirrel cage." He was also quoted as saying that he just "wanted to get away from everything."

Possible Preaching Angles: New Year's Day; Problems; Pressure; Stress; Difficulties; Jobs—Do you ever feel like you the stress is too much and you just want to get away and start a fresh life somewhere else? There's a better way—trust the Lord, take a Sabbath, be faithful to your tasks, and so forth.

As [one researcher has] described it, our brain blinds our mind to the unusual. For instance, in one study, researchers put a clown on a unicycle in the path of pedestrians. The researchers asked people who walked passed the clown if they had noticed anything unusual. Everybody saw him unless they had been on their cell phone. Three out of every four people who had been using their phone did not see the clown. They looked back in astonishment, unable to believe they had missed him. They had looked straight at him but had not registered his presence. The unicycling clown crossed their paths but not their minds.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Distractions—We're so focused on the wrong things that we miss what God wants to do and say to us. (2) Supernatural—We're so locked into our naturalistic assumptions about reality that we completely miss the supernatural (and the demonic too) all around us.

Dr. Irwin Braverman, a dermatologist and director of medical residents at Yale medical school, was concerned about his students' power of attention. Braverman noticed the high-tech, fast-paced practice of medicine had dethroned careful physical exams and thorough patient histories. As a result, he feared that doctors were losing their power to observe and pay attention to the obvious.

So he had a brilliant and novel idea. Braverman brought these young doctors to a university museum to expose them to a puzzle they could not solve instantly: a painting. Afterward learning to gaze at and observe a work of art, their ability to describe patients improved dramatically. In a now-mandatory program that Braverman and a museum curator created, Yale medical students each examine a painting for fifteen minutes, then discuss their observations with a guide and their peers. "Look at the normal, not just the eye-catching," the students are told. "Approach the work with an open mind, moving past first assumptions. Revisit the subject, again and again."

"We are trying to slow down the students," said Yale Center for British Art curator Linda Friedlander, the program's cofounder. "The artwork is a means to an end." In effect, the painting, with its hidden stories, becomes a substitute patient. Adopted by dozens of other medical schools, the brief intervention was shown in a three-year study to boost diagnostic observational skill by nearly 10 percent. At Harvard Medical School, students given eight hours of similar training produce nearly 40 percent more observations and offer more sophisticated, accurate notations on a visual skills exam than those not enrolled in the course.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Spiritual disciplines such as Bible reading, Meditation, and so forth; (2) Focusing on Christ in the midst of the world's distractions; (3) Marriage, especially the kind of love and attention that husbands should give to their wives

Kendall Schler of Columbia, Mo. was the first to cross the finish line at the GO! St. Louis Marathon. Schler had her photo taken with Jackie Joyner-Kersee and was expected to receive $1,500 in prize money along with a spot in the 2015 Boston Marathon.

However, Schler was disqualified after official discovered that she didn't actually run the race. Officials said it's believed that Schler somehow slipped onto the course after the final checkpoint without being discovered in an attempt to fool officials into thinking she ran the entire course. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Schler never registered times along the route, and she never showed up in any of the photographs taken along the route.

KSDK, a local television station, has a video of Schler crossing the finish line, but in the video she sure doesn't look like someone who has just won or even just completed a major race.