St George's Day and the Christian Patriot

Today the church commemorates Saint George. Patron Saint of England. There is a good brief account of his life in the always great Ohio Anglican blog here

I always try to keep this day as best I can for two reasons. First, I am of partially English descent. Second, in certain Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox reckonings, St George is considered the patron of Agriculture. As he was a soldier martyr, I have no idea why this is the case. I do know that in Russia, this is considered the day to turn the cattle out to graze. This makes agrarian sense to me, as our grass starts to grow about this time of year.

I thought about Saint George's cross as well this year because our New England ancestors used it on some of their flags in the fight against the crown.
On one level it seemed a little incongruous that I spent the weekend remembering Lexington and Concord right down to shooting at "redcoat" targets. then four days later remember that nation's patron saint. But this brings home the fact that the Revolution was a cousins' war. I discovered this gem of an essay on Christian Patriotism today from one of those now very distant cousins. It can be found here at the comfortable words blog.