TODAY, APRIL 23RD, IS ST. GEORGE’S DAY. Mythic? Yes. Inspiring? Certainly. Relevant? Without doubt. For the medieval St. George is the man who slew the dragon, saved a princess and earned the undying gratitude of her father, the king. If you want to impress a princess, slaying a dragon never hurts.

So what bearing this on our lives today?

We find ourselves beset by dragons. They come in many forms but their antics fit a pattern. They act in the dark and  consume up the life of people. They regulate and discriminate without our consent. They demand tribute where none is due. They plot and they harry and send forth their agents to eat out our substance. They keep no promises and serve none but themselves. They are spiritual dinosaurs with an irrelevant view of the world.

So you may care to let this day act as reminder that some dragon slaying is in order and that in so doing, you aid your fellow man and woman. It also helps educate the dragon out of the silliness of his ways. That in Magna Carta, Common Law, Bill of Right, Declaration of Right and the Felony and Treason Act of 1848 (to name but some), you are provided with a shield against which the hot air blown by dragons is as but a zephyr. Of course, you must dust off that shield and learn how to use it right for it to work in this way.

One man who, from time to time, embodied this spirit, was John F Kennedy. In the audio speech below, made some 18 months or so prior to his assassination, Kennedy paints a fresh picture of the dragon and what steps the community should to take to handle it. Many of the points he raises are as relevant now as they were then, and his comments about the press even moreso. This 19 minute speech contains all the qualities of truth, honesty and directness that are so self-evidently lacking in the sad creatures who furnish our TV screens with a never ending stream of fluffed up, vacuous verbiage. It’s funny too.

 

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St George
England’s patron saint, a fourth century Christian martyr, is also patron saint of Georgia and the city of Moscow. Very little is known about the real St George. He is thought to have been born into a noble Christian family in the late third century in Cappadocia, an area which is now in Turkey. He followed his father’s profession of soldier and became part of the retinue of the Emperor Diocletian. The emperor ordered the systematic persecution of Christians and George refused to take part. In 303, he was himself tortured and executed in Palestine, becoming an early Christian martyr.

The legend of George slaying a dragon and rescuing an innocent maiden from death is medieval. St George’s Day is celebrated in England on 23 April, reputed to be the day of George’s martyrdom in 303. As taken from here.