The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.
‹anonymous›
Atlantis: the domain of the Stingray
24Aug
2013
Sat
10:35
author: Stingray
category: Links
read/add comments: 0
trackbacks: 0
00:49
author: Stingray
category: Links
read/add comments: 2
trackbacks: 0

Read this: Jerry, It's Not Your Church Either".

20Aug
2013
Tue
09:50
author: Stingray
category: Links
read/add comments: 0
trackbacks: 0

It looks like there is a possibility I won't be living in Colorado much longer. No, we're not moving, but there is some movement in my county to join others in Colorado (and Kansas) to create the 51st state. And here I thought Puerto Rico would join the union before anything else happened.

Anyone remember the state of Jefferson?

11Aug
2013
Sun
16:26
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
read/add comments: 0
trackbacks: 0

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

Luke 18:9-14; Genesis 4:1-15

Trinity 11 2013 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are only two religions in the world. Many of you are probably surprised to hear me say that, given the fact that there is this -ism and that -ism and many other -isms out there, but the fact remains that there are only two religions in the world. They are polar opposites in many ways, yet at times they are indistinguishable to the point that those who claim to be of the one are really of the other. One is right, and one is wrong. Today’s Old Testament and Gospel lessons show us examples of adherents to these two religions. Today’s Epistle tells of the consequences of both religions.

4Aug
2013
Sun
15:57
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
read/add comments: 0
trackbacks: 0

Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Luke 19:41-48

Trinity 10 2013 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The ancient Hebrew scholar and historian Joseph ben Matityahu, better known as Titus Flavius Josephus, recorded the Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD70:

Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminence...and...the wall [that] enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison, as were the towers also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest...it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind.
And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor had anyone who had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again.

He claims, even, that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, and another 97,000 were captured and enslaved. When describing the massacre, he wrote,

The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.