Author: Sarah E Lupton

On May 9, 1965 the New York Times carried an article in the Resort’s Travel section entitled, “Sesquicentennial For Stroudsburg.”  It spoke of the preparations in the Pocono Mountain vacation land community that was preparing for its sesquicentennial celebration in June and how women would be wearing 100-year-old costumes and men would be sporting beards.

There will be contests in various events, street dancing and even the distribution of wooden nickels. Gov. William W. Scranton is scheduled to participate. The observance is being held to commemorate the incorporation of the area as a borough in 1815.

Back on August 6, 1951, Milton Esterow wrote a Special Report to the New York Times about Norwalk, Connecticut’s 300th Anniversary that had taken place the day before.  The headline announced, “City Goes Colonial for Its Party.”  In the article, Milton Esterow wrote:

This was the menu in Norwalk’s eating places…

Martha Gunn, dipper

In a scene in 1998’s Vanity Fair with Natasha Little as Becky Sharp, she visits Brighton with her husband and friends. The film, set during the Regency era, depicted a scene in which one of the party is taken from a bathing machine and dipped into the cold waters by a large woman. The bather floats on her back with her bathing costume billowing from the trapped air. This comical scene was based on fact. Brighton during the late 1790’s early 1800’s  employed some twenty male and female “dippers”” whose jobs were to vigorously dip their clients into the sea and push them through the waves, keeping them afloat, then help them back into the bathing machine.

Brighton’s most famous dipper was Martha Gunn, a large, sturdy woman whose fame exists to this day. Bathers were separated by sex, a restriction that remained until 1930 in Brighton…

April Issue
Lesson Six

Church 101; Christ’s Crucifixion, as seen in “David and Goliath,”
or “The Mystery of Golgotha!”

Genesis 6:4, “Nephilim, (giants) were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”

 What an interesting verse!  What has this to do with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ you ask?  Actually, it has very much to do with it.  In this month’s lesson, not only will we examine Christ’s crucifixion, but we will also look at the location where it occurred. That place was “Golgotha;” (Hebrew for; the place of the skull.”)

 Here is our theme verse: 1 Samuel 17:54, “And David took the head of the Philistine,(Goliath) and brought it to Jerusalem; but…

This week I’m preaching on Paul and Barnabas in Cyprus and the encounter with Bar Jesus the magician.

The Magicians of Acts

There are three encounters with magicians in the book of Acts. All are highly conflictive. It is also interesting to note that all three magicians are Jewish. This is noteworthy because magic is something that was forbidden in the Mosaic law which locates the Christian Apostles on the side of Moses in opposing these magicians, something obviously important for a new religious tradition claiming to be the authentic heir of the old.

Looking Out from The Empirical Box

The topic of magic and religion is an interesting one. As I work through T.M. Luhrmann’s book “When God Talks Back” what interests me is how she approaches evaluating the Vineyard churches she is studying. She has to fit what she is encountering into a framework and the…

A collection of quotes:

Hermes Trismegistus, “thrice-great Hermes” “God is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” Book of the 24 Philosophers.

Alain of Lille “God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere.”

Pascal: “The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short, it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God that imagination loses itself in that thought.”

Also apparently, “Let him contemplate all nature in its awful and finished magnificence; let him observe that splendid luminary, set forth as an eternal lamp to enlighten the universe; let him…

The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore posts Poe’s 1845 essay, “Anastatic Printing”, in full here.

My observations here.

The quest path

I will leave my beloved city,

Houses and roofs torn to rip,

Prisoner of the bloodthirsty barbarians,

Desperate, flee in this clear night of pain,

Together, we will leave this gulf,

With our powerful eternal love,

I would write the suffering endured,

To punish those who terrified us,

Long time, fighting without counting,

Caregiver my body trembling and wobbly,

Sometimes martyr or great warrior,

Witness of my monstrous battles,

Follow me, shocked victims,

Behind us our fate crumpled,

Here is the path of our happiness,

Let’s run to our good quest.

Poetic Letter. Inspiration about series. Thanks for your fidelity.