Everyday religion (or socialism)

The painting of Washington crossing the Delaware

Washington crossing the Delaware.  Please click to enlarge.

A German-American painter named Emanuel Leutze made his famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware in 1850 to encourage freedom-loving Germans after the defeat of democratic revolutions in 1848.

The original remained in Germany and did not survive World War Two, but Leutze made a copy that survives today in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Although the accuracy of some details has been question, historian David Hackett Fischer, in his book, Washington’s Crossing, gives Leutze credit for showing what a great feat it was to cross the Delaware River on Christmas Day, 1776.

The crossing succeeded partly for the same reason that General MacArthur’s Inchon landing succeeded during the Korean Conflict.  It was so difficult a feat that the enemy didn’t consider it as a possibility.

Fischer also gave Leutze credit for recognizing the diversity and individuality of the American troops.  Here is Fischer’s description.

Washington’s small boat is crowded with thirteen men …

One man wears the short tarpaulin jacket of a New England seaman; we look again and discover that he is of African descent.  

Another is a recent Scottish immigrant, still wearing his Balmoral bonnet.  

A third is an androgynous figure in a loose red shirt, maybe a woman in man’s clothing, pulling at an oar.

At the bow and stern are hard-faced western riflemen in hunting shirts and deerskin leggings.  

Huddled beneath the thwarts are farmers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey in blanket coats and broad-brimmed hats.  One carries a countryman’s double-barreled shotgun.  The other looks very ill and his head in swathed in a bandage.

A solider beside them is in full uniform, a rarity in this army; he wears the blue coat and red facings of Haslet’s Delaware Regiment.

Another figure bears a boat cloak and an oiled hat that a prosperous Baltimore merchant might have used on a West Indian voyage; his sleeve reveals the facings of Smallwood’s silk-stocking Maryland Regiment.

Hidden behind them is a mysterious thirteenth man.  Only his weapon is visible; one wonders who he might have been.

The dominant figures in the painting are two gentlemen of Virginia who stand tall above the rest.  

One of them is Lieutenant James Monroe, holding a big American flag upright against the storm.  

The other is Washington in his Continental uniform of buff and blue.  He holds a brass telescope and wears a heavy saber, symbolic of a statesman’s vision and a soldier’s strength.

The artist intends us to see each of these soldiers as an individual, but he also reminds us that they are all in the same boat, working desperately together against the wind and the current.

The greatness of George Washington was that he could forge an Army out of such diverse origins, and defeat the hardened British and Hessian professional soldiers.  The greatness of Americans in that era was that we could bury our differences and unite in a common cause.

Americans today are even more diverse that we were then.  But we’re still all in the same boat.

Commencement speaker: ‘I wish you bad luck’

John Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts gave a commencement speech this year to his son’s graduating class at the Cardigan Mountain School, a boarding school in New Hampshire for boys in grades six through nine.

The following part was striking:

Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why.

From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice.

I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty.

Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted.

I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.

And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure.  It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship.

I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.

Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen.  And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.

Source: Marginal REVOLUTION

Northern guild of master craftsmen at work.

It is always a pleasure to watch people who are masters of what they do.

The following videos were produced by Northmen: the Guild of Northern Master Craftsmen in Latvia, which is dedicated to traditional hand craftsmanship.

He had two kidneys, so he gave away one

Dylan Matthews, a writer for Vox news, donated a kidney to someone he didn’t even know.  He’s unusual, but not unique.  He knows at least two other people who’ve done the same thing.

He said he was inspired by his Christian upbringing and the teaching of Jesus, that if you have two coats, you should give one to someone who has done.   He had two kidneys, so he decided to give one to someone who had none.

People who suffer renal failure have only a short time to live, and that involves a painful treatment called kidney dialysis.   A kidney transplant can extend their lives for 10 years or more.

He in fact helped save four people, not just one.   The person who received his kidney had a relative who was willing to donate his kidney, but was not a good match.   So the relative agreed that, if someone else donated a kidney, to donate their kidney to someone else.

The second recipient also had a relative who was willing to donate in an exchange, and so did the third.   So Matthews in all added 40 or more years to the lives of strangers.   That is, they were strangers at the time he made his decision.  Now they have a strong bond.