LAST week, we celebrated our patron saint, George, in true Salisbury style – with family fun, pageantry and waving of flags. The red cross on a white background is one image that we associate with George. Another is the slaying of the dragon.

This story takes many forms – the town of Selena was terrorised by a dragon. The dragon demanded the sacrifice of people and after casting lots, a nobleman’s daughter was offered up. George passing by at the right time saved both maiden and the town.

Myth and history overlap but it is worth reminding ourselves that St George, a man of mixed race and member of a minority religion, stood up against the dragon of oppression and violence to the point of death.

Here in Salisbury we have come to know something of the dragons of fear and hatred that seek to disempower and terrorise us. Recent events have threatened our sense of security. As we look around we may wonder who are our friends and who might we be able to trust? Insiders and outsiders, people who are like us and others who are different. In this fearful mix how do we nurture a commitment to openness and compassion? In our diversity what might it mean for us to build up community? How do we slay the dragons of fear and mistrust so that we celebrate difference, and build community in all its diversity and vibrancy?

Such solidarity is needed today; we are well placed here in Salisbury to show others what openness and compassion might mean in the way we relate to one another. Faced with threat and danger we each have a choice to give way to these powerful emotions and construct harder boundaries and high fences.

Or we can choose to slay these dragons, which diminish us, and our community of which we are proud protectors. We can resist compromise and the corruption that comes from an inability to choose right over wrong. Defeating dragons of fearful attitudes and actions is difficult; we have to keep asking ourselves: what matters most? What is the work, purpose, and ideal of this community and our city of which we are proud citizens and defenders?

George takes us into the heart of politics and the question of how this town, this county, this country is governed? In our own interests, convenience and comfort, or what is truly best for the community its citizens and its future? This is a moral and ethical challenge of engaging with a different discourse. George asks us to choose between convenience, expedience or self-gratification and selflessness, compassion and love.

The Feast of St George is a reminder that all around us are the dragons of fear and compromise. In England, the dragons remain. We can overcome them by the old but undefeated weapons of love, faith, integrity and truth.