Bulletin 12.22.24

This was not just a prison—it was a factory of death. Executions were carried out by the hundreds. Bodies were crushed with industrial presses or burned in crude crematoriums. Victims were lashed to the edge of life. And the dulab—a torture wheel—was used to stretch prisoners until their bodies snapped. These weren’t random acts of cruelty; they were Bashar al-Assad’s systematic weapons to crush dissent and spread terror.

The scale of atrocities is staggering. According to one human rights group, since the anti-government protests began in 2011, over 96,000 people have disappeared into Syria’s vast network of secret prisons. Another 40,000 have been documented as prisoners. These numbers include thousands of women and children—some as young as toddlers. Most of them didn’t make it out alive. The overwhelming majority were tortured to death.

-- Tanya Lukyanova, “Inside Assad’s ‘Human 

Slaughterhouse’” (in The Free Press, 12.13.24; online edition)

The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God in the dock. 

-- C.S. Lewis, “God In the Dock” (1948)

We are not as peddlers… since this ointment is too expensive to buy. Rather, we ourselves have become the feet of Him who was smeared with the salve-ation of God.

-- Joshua Foreman (12.20.24) 

The Revelation of Jesus Christ 1.12-18 

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength.

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” 

(Prayer)