麻豆约拍

Good morning.聽 In the run-up to today鈥檚 U.S. elections, I鈥檝e been contemplating the pictures on my bathroom wall by the American artist, Norman Rockwell.聽 His portrayals of everyday life illustrated the cover of the Saturday Evening Post for nearly fifty years.聽 He who died on this day in 1978.聽

Each picture tells a story.聽 The Gossips, with its rows of people gleefully passing on a juicy piece of tittle-tattle; Outside the Principal鈥檚 Office, featuring a school girl with dishevelled plaits and a black eye, whose grin speaks of triumph rather than remorse; The Art Critic in which a young artist intensely examines a locket on the ample bosom of a female portrait, while a group of Dutch masters frown at him in disapproval.聽聽

But one picture doesn鈥檛 have the same narrative style.聽 In The Golden Rule, a crowd of different ages and nationalities, some wearing traditional costumes, others holding cultural or religious objects, forms the backdrop to an inscription which Rockwell saw as a principle of all major religions, and which Jesus is quoted as saying in two of the gospels: 鈥楧o unto others as you would have them do unto you鈥�.

In an earlier drawing called United Nations, Rockwell included members of the UN security council, surrounded by this 鈥渕ass of people, waiting鈥�, he said, 鈥渇or the delegates to straighten out the world, so that they might live in peace and without fear.鈥澛� But he abandoned it, disillusioned.聽 In his re-working, he removed the diplomats, focusing entirely on the idea of common humanity.聽 The Golden Rule now hangs as a mosaic in the UN鈥檚 Headquarters in New York.聽

Lord, as America goes to the polls today, may all who are granted power in this world use it to foster peace, freedom and justice, and may we each contribute in the way we treat others.聽 Amen.鈥�