WWGWD?

What Would George Washington Do?

I don't think he'd push for government run health care. Or Cash for Clunkers.

Maybe this will help you to feel a little better about our current congress.

"From the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gain;
prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
'Peace, peace,' they say,
when there is no peace.
Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct?
No, they have no shame at all'
they do not even know how to blush.
So they will fall among the fallen;
they will be brought down when I punish them."

Jeremiah 6: 13-15 NIV

Midweek Musings

Some thoughts this week...

Sunday - Sanctity of Human Life Day
For You yourself created my inmost parts;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I will thank you because I am marvelously made;
Your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
Psalm 139: 12-13

Monday - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
King's "I Have a Dream" speech ~ Lincoln Memorial ~ August 28, 1963

Tuesday - Inauguration Day
"The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."
Barak Hussein Obama ~ Inaugural Address ~ January 20, 2009
(Depending upon how he defines "all", it would seem that this should include the unborn. Just saying.)

Wednesday - Day 1
Yesterday, our new president told us, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourseslves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

Whatever he meant by remaking America, did he mean this?
Worst Inaugural Day Slide
The Dow's 4 percent slide was the most on an Inauguration Day in the measure's 112-year history...

Did he mean this?
Now that Obama has announced that we are stopping off-shore drilling, the gas station I pass has raised its price 10 cents. Since yesterday.

I need some Hope and Change...Mmmm...Let's see...How about this?


The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.
George Washington ~ First Inaugural Address ~ April 30, 1789

Day One. We've obviously got work to do. It's going to be a long four years. Don't give up hope. Pray. And preserve the sacred fire of liberty.

Farmer Washington-George and Martha (Part 4)

George Washington (born February 22, 1732) not only shunned the title of King, he prefered to think of himself as Farmer Washington.

Ponder what he wrote about farming:

I think that the life of a Husbandman is of all others the most delectable. It is honourable. It is amusing. And with Judicious management it is profitable. To see plants rise from the Earth and flourish by the superior skill and bounty of the labourer fills a contemplative mind with ideas which are more easy to be conceived than expresed. The more I am acquainted with agricultural affairs the better I am pleased with them. I can nowhere find so great satisfaction as in those innocent and useful pursuits.

The Finger of Providence (George & Martha-Part 3)

I am in awe of what George Washington accomplished in the War for Independence.

In a letter to Joseph Reed, one of his inner circle during the war, Washington wrote:

"Few people know the predicament we are in on a thousand counts; fewer still will believe if any disaster happens to these lines from what cause it flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting of a command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it, to blind the eyes of our enemies; for surely if we get well through this month, it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages we labor under..."

In 1783, the year the peace treaty with Britain was signed, Washington wrote to Nathaniel Greene:

"It will not be believed that such a force as Great Britain has employed for eight years in this country could be baffled in their plan of subjugating it, by numbers infinitely less, composed of men oftentimes half starved, always in rags, without pay and experienced every species of distress, which human nature is capable of undergoing."

(excerpts from Elswyth Thane's Lady Washington and Paul Johnson's George Washington)

Tired and Tense (George and Martha-Part 2)

It was customary for Martha Washington to join her husband while the armies for both sides wintered in one spot and ceased fighting for a time. She encouraged George, bouyed the spirits of all who met her, mended uniforms, and made bandages with other officers' wives. The third winter of the Revolutionary War (1777-1778) was spent at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (drawing above). What a difficult winter it was, too.

"The tired and tense faces of the lonely men brightened into smiles in her [Martha's] company, but she saw with pity and concern the threadbare coats and ragged breeches and stockings, the weather-stained buckskin and broadcloth worn by the officers...

She pitied too the gaunt, heavy-footed saddle horses, whose well-polished equipment and loving grooming could not hide their bones.

As for the men in the huts, they often went for days together without a mouthful of meat, and their clothes were indecent rags. Many were barefoot, and for lack of blankets they sat up around the fires all night to keep from freezing. The hospitals - inevitably - were the worst of all, and everyone did his best to keep out of them."

There were many things that contributed to the ultimate victory over Britain, but there are times when one must marvel at the seemingly impossible obstacles facing Washington and his men.

(text from Lady Washington by Elswyth Thane)

Apparent Serenity (George and Martha-Part 1)

I have just finished a biography of Martha Washington by Elswyth Thane. For me, it was a splendid way to read about American history by looking at it through Martha's eyes. I think, too, that I have enjoyed reading about a true statesman, which seems to be in short supply these days. Here's a lovely example of Thane's writing as she describes Martha's observations of George very early on in the war with Britain.

"Better than anyone else, she could trace in his face and bearing the almost superhuman self-control which enabled him to sit at the dinner table cracking nuts and drinking little toasts in apparent serenity, for the sake of maintaining the spirits of the men who depended on him for guidance and support, and for the deception of the watchful guests who were always eager for his hospitality. She did not suspect the sleight of hand he performed with the returns on enlistment, desertion, and sick, so that no one officer, not even Harrison, ever saw the whole dreadful situation at any one time. She could guess at his hours of discouragement and despair, spent alone at his desk behind a closed door when other weary men had gone to bed. And she could see him aging day by day under the crushing load he had set himself to carry alone--in the tightening lips and jawline, in the hooded ice-blue gaze, the enigmatic drop of the lean eyelids, the deliberate levelness of tone when he spoke."

from Washington's Lady by Elswyth Thane
(drawing is of a young Martha)