Luke 8:42b-48 (NIV)

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Reflection:

The amazing thing about this story is how Jesus, in the midst of so many people surrounding Him, could sense the touch of the edge of His cloak from a woman. How could this one woman, desperate to reach Jesus in the crowd that almost crushed Him, make Jesus take notice of her? The answer is faith. Rather than looking to ourselves or other means, faith is knowing where to go to receive what we need and from whom. Only faith in Christ releases God’s healing power. And that is just what the woman experienced - God’s healing power as she reached out in faith and touched the edge of Jesus cloak. True, there were so many others that touched Jesus and were in reaching distance. But what’s the difference? Here with the bleeding woman, we find genuine faith. It was worthy to be called out.

Responding to the Transmission:

Let us approach our Lord in faith today. May we turn our eyes to the Lord and ask for all that we need (healing, direction, wisdom, forgiveness, power). May we reach out to Him in faith, knowing that his mercy and goodness will bring healing to us (our heart, mind, soul and strength) and give us what we need.

A research team within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is studying whether a mindfulness and yoga program promotes positive outcomes for 5th and 6th grade students. This three-year study in 6 Baltimore City public schools will assess whether our mindfulness and yoga program helps students cope with stress and reduces their use of alcohol and drugs by the 7th and 8th grades.

We are looking for individuals to join our research team and help us conduct assessments. Assessments include surveys for students and teachers, brief cognitive tests for students, and physiological measures from students, including blood pressure and lung capacity.  No prior training is required.

We are looking for:

• A minimum commitment of 5 hours per week
• Morning availability--most assessments will occur between 8-noon. It would be ideal if you were free Monday, Tuesday, and/or Thursday between 7:30-1.

Several research staff members will travel to schools together to conduct assessments.  We are working with the following Baltimore City elementary/middle schools: Beechfield, Edgecombe Circle, Dickey Hill, Glenmount, Rognel Heights, and Windsor Hills. It’s not necessary to have a car but this would be a big help to the project.

This is a terrific experience if you like working with kids and are interested in yoga/mindfulness or school-based research. You will get training in how to obtain informed consent and how to conduct assessments with urban youth and will receive ongoing supervision and guidance.

The study has already started so please get in touch as soon as possible!

Sad news. Rob Pike reports on Google Plus that Dennis Ritchie died at his home this weekend after a long illness. Ritchie created the C programming language and was a key contributor to Unix. In 1983 he received the Turing Award with his long time colleague Ken Thompson for the development of operating systems theory and the implementation of the UNIX. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 and has received many other national and international awards, including the including the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, te National Medal of Technology and the Japan Prize.

Sad news. Rob Pike reports on Google Plus that Dennis Ritchie died at his home this weekend after a long illness. Ritchie created the C programming language and was a key contributor to Unix. In 1983 he received the Turing Award with his long time colleague Ken Thompson for the development of operating systems theory and the implementation of the UNIX. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 and has received many other national and international awards, including the including the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, te National Medal of Technology and the Japan Prize.

Update 10/14: The New York Times published a story on Ritchie yesterday, Dennis Ritchie, Trailblazer in Digital Era, Dies at 70.

Update 10/15: In Dizzying but Invisible Depth, Jean-Baptiste Queru offers an interesting perspective on "why the mainstream press and the general population has talked so much about Steve Jobs' death and comparatively so little about Dennis Ritchie's".

Update 10/15: Bjarne Stroustrup on the importance of Ritchie’s contributions to our field: They said it couldn’t be done, and he did it.

To fix a known issue of broken content links in some courses, reduce growing web browser incompatibilities, and install Collaborate (Blackboard’s replacement for Wimba), DoIT will be upgrading the Blackboard production system on Thursday, December 22, at 10 p.m. As a result, Winter and Spring 2012 course shells will NOT be auto-created until Monday, December 26.

Faculty can still develop 2012 content using older course sites, and simply delay the export/import process until 2012 course shells are auto-created on 12/26. However, given the start of Winter session on January 3, DoIT will manually create Winter 2012 course shells upon request, with the understanding that faculty who do so need to use a published work around if they encounter the broken links problem the upgrade is meant to resolve.

The New Media Studio will offer a three-day digital storytelling workshop on January 18.19 and 20, 2012 (10am - 4pm). As in past years, the workshop will give faculty members an opportunity to explore digital media production while creating a personal narrative, integrating voice-over with images and sound. This year we are taking a slightly different approach to the workshop. We are offering it as a one-credit course as part of UMBC's winter session. The class will be open to students as well as faculty and we are hoping that this interactition will give the course a new dimension.

You can view stories from previous workshops here.

In order to sign up for the course you may register through Winter Sessions for MCS 101L Multimedia Literacy Lab. Interested faculty who are not eligible for tuition-remission (such as adjuncts) can contact us and we will make arrangements to include you in the workshop.