Walking the Labyrinth, June 19, 2009—Today, on the Greek Orthodox Calendar of Saints, is the Feast of All the Saints of Mount Athos (the “Holy Mountain”); the old Latin calendar celebrated St Juliana Falconieri, a fourteenth century nun who founded an order devoted to the care of the sick. It is the 170th day of the year, and 195 days remain in 2009. Today is “Juneteenth,” freedom day for the slaves of the old South. James Charles Stuart, called James the First (of England), who was also James the Fourth (of Scotland), the son of Mary, the Queen of Scots, was born today in 1566. He ascended the Scottish throne when he was thirteen months old. Much later, he wrote a book, in three parts, titled Daemonologie, wherein he encouraged his subjects to hunt down and exterminate witches. You probably know he also wrote “A Counterblaste to Tobacco,” in 1604, condemning the use of the product. Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, was also born on this day in 1947. He still has a price on his head (or fatwa on his pate). In 1786, General Nathaniel Greene, whom George Washington considered his most gifted subordinate, died of a sunstroke at his new home outside Savannah. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953 at Sing Sing for passing American atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. They insisted on their innocence, but the publication of Nikita Khrushchev’s dairies conclusively proved otherwise. Perhaps most interesting of all, on June 19, 1917, in the midst of a World War (“I” in this case), King George V decreed that the British royal family would dispense with its German-sounding surname, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; from that time till this, the family bears the name Windsor.

SOMETIMES EVEN WATCHING television can be fun. I don’t recommend it in regular doses, but a fortuitous blend of the right (or maybe, the wrong) people can unexpectedly produce odd and funny moments. One such I recall was a “debate” between Christopher Hitchins, a disheveled but erudite proponent for atheism, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, most well-known for blustering wherever a television camera is turned on. Sharpton posed the not-fully-thought out proposition that without religion there is no basis for morality. For the next nine minutes the reverend was deftly eviscerated by Hitchins, but fortunately, Al didn’t seem to realize it. On Chris Matthews’ program (miscalled “Hardball”) the other night came another fun wundermoment: Matthews fatuously observed to Pat Buchanan, “…you Pat Buchanan, although you are a libertarian in many ways, you do not--no, you're a nationalist actually--you are not what you like to call, derisively, a democratist.” Buchanan responded, “No, I don't believe there's a great salvation in a political process at all. I believe in different--in far different things. I put democracy far down the line in the--I think a devoutly Christian, conservative traditionalist country, even if it's a monarchy, is fine…” The fun part though, was less the words than the picture. When Buchanan espoused this political heresy, both Matthews and the other guest sat open-mouthed. After a couple of seconds of crackling, empty airtime, Matthews croaked “Your Franco is talking, Pat. Franco is speaking even now.”

Fun as it was to watch, at the heart of this exchange is something worth pondering. One of the sacred cornerstones in the world we’re now a-building we call “democracy,” and it’s seen as an end in itself. Buchanan was saying the cornerstone isn’t sacred; there are things more important than how the world is governed. That is undoubted heresy to American politicians, who see—and want us to see—their careers as Very Important to the Public. Buchanan was not saying our form of government is unimportant or irrelevant, but that some things in life are more important. Faith and family, art and joy, a close friend and a field of bluebonnets, these things are sacred; they make life worth the living. Government is a device, a tool: in some hands good, in some bad. Hitler was democratically elected. So, too, was Hamas. In a speech made to the House of Commons in 1947, Churchill famously said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." His hidden caveat is worth remembering. Churchill wasn’t slyly winking at us and cleverly saying “democracy really is best, you know.” He was telling us that it’s flawed. The core of his words is theological. It was an acknowledgment that, try as we might, we cannot build the New Jerusalem out of social programs and government grants. We have a problem, and, as Pogo said, it “is us.”

Some of our Founders (not all of them), understood that America is an experiment, one which could fail. Towards the end of his life, Jefferson lamented “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” About the same time, his friend, John Adams, wrote to a correspondent, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Shortly after the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1789, Benjamin Franklin said in a letter to a French well-wisher: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” We all know the last part of this quote, but its value is to warn us that few things, governments among them, last. Monarchies, republics, theocracies, dictatorships, democracies, none endure. Artists, thinkers, writers, musicians, poets and priests have lived and worked in places of freedom and times of oppression. Buchanan was reminding us that the basic things that make life worth living are not the gifts of government but the gifts of God. Some people, it seems, just don’t know the difference.

We are all of us walking God's labyrinth, even if many of us insist it's of our own building.


FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, I read Tennessee Williams’ last major play, “A House Not Meant to Stand.” Williams called it “a Gothic Comedy,” and it is, in parts, hilariously funny. It’s a play and to really appreciate it as the author intended, it’s best seen and heard, not read. Still, Williams’ ability to draw fascinating and eccentric characters, while at the same time keeping them accessible (by calling to mind bits of people we have known) comes across even on the page. Though in two acts, the movement is continuous and act two picks up just where act one drops off. The action takes place during a single night, set in the leaky, old Pascagoula home of Cornelius McCorkle and his wife Bella. For the duration of the play, a particularly long and noisy thunderstorm rages outside. The old couple returns home after a trip to Memphis for their eldest son’s funeral. Cornelius is a big-mouthed bully and a failed politician and Bella is a fat old woman who fades in and out of what we used to call ‘senility.’ Doesn’t sound like the ingredients for comedy, but Williams does it, though not without some preachiness (the most dated part of the play) along the way. The naked girl at the top of the stairs helps you pay attention, too. My copy, published in 2008 by New Directions, has an excellent introduction, titled “A Mississippi Funhouse,” by Thomas Keith.


Quotes from Today’s Principals:

“We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again."—Nathaniel Greene

“…this filthy novelty…is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the Pit that is Bottomless.”—King James (yes, of Bible fame), “A Counterblaste to Tobacco”

“Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.”—Salman Rushdie

“Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance.” King George V