How did they choose the particular band concert? They liked the name. The Thirteen points to America, which started with 13 colonies. Why did the terrorists attack in Paris happen last Friday? It was chosen to be date to remember but also to point as a warning to America. It must be kept under many checks and balances.” Revelation 13 warns of the day when government has grown so large that the earth has a One World Government, in order to have, as our present president says, “a level playing field.”īecause my eyes and ears are trained to look for symbolism as an English major and daughter of an English major and as one who was trained by an excellent Bible teacher from 9th grade on, I see and hear symbolism everywhere for myself, like an epiphany. “It is the nature of government to expand. George Washington warned in his Farewell Address of what Revelation chapter 13 warns of as well, another Thirteen, of which more Biblically literate past generations would have been familiar. Though designed by Thomas Chippendale in England, it became a popular adopted American favorite and symbol. It is for a moment in the recent film, War Room. Each door is a Chippendale design with Thirteen panes. Where do we see this number Thirteen in Charleston? One of the most popular pieces of furniture that all my relatives have in their Charleston houses is the secretary desk with two glass doors. The number Thirteen is repeated on our one dollar bill in Thirteen stars and more. Where did the key lie in the number thirteen? “Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels yet have not love, I am a noisy gong and clanging cymbal.” I Corinthians chapter 13. It contained the key to America’s success, to how we could be united across a continent, bigger than powerful countries of Europe put together. The Founding Fathers were very tuned in to the number thirteen. There is nothing unlucky for us in this number for of course we were founded as Thirteen Colonies. The number THIRTEEN is an American symbol as well as the Acorn. I quote the literary people and Founding Fathers and patriarchs who were more eloquent than I, whose words are worth repeating in the power and beauty of the spoken word as we gaze at the magnificent architecture of a bygone era. This unveiling of symbolism with quotes from primary sources is why I was an English major and history minor. The sublime simplicity is a story worth telling and worth hearing with the history that puts it in context. I don’t want to spoil it for you by telling you now, though it is tempting. I tell you on location as we stand under the arch where the Acorn wood carvings are. Our Founding Fathers were wanting to carry on a message encrypted if you will in the everyday world around them SO THAT WE WOULD REMEMBER. Why is this exciting to me? Because of the symbolism. There on her first morning I found that her brick columns are ornamented with the SAME Acorns I had seen in the 19th century Battery Wall photo, acorns that no longer exist atop the posts of the Battery wall. My friend through a series of miracles bought a house on lower King a few doors down from my mother’s. This time I noticed in the photo that the posts of the Battery Wall had Acorn Finials. Into focus came a 19th century photograph of High Battery that is blown up at my husband’s Yacht Club that I have seen repeatedly. Most noticeably it is in the Edmondston-Alston House at 21 East Battery, where I got my training from my college days and after graduation where I was the second in charge of this museum house open to the public. Why the Acorn? This year my eye focused on this motif being repeated all around Charleston. Miraculously his two houses in Charleston survived both the War Between the States and the Great Conflagration of 1861 that went right through this block. This house was the home of a signer of the Ordinance of Secession, Wm. There, in the Antebellum arch over wide pocket doors, is carved the Acorn Motif, under which you can imagine ladies in hoop skirts in the 1850’s-60’s. It is an Antebellum home in the Greek Revival style. I am blessed with the exclusive privilege of taking my tours into the home of the doctor who delivered me over a half century ago. Another year older, another year deeper in debt, in debt to my mother and father, Marianne and Fred Wichmann for my life to The One who gave me breath and an added year to my purpose here on earth to The One who teaches me to “so number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom”.
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