The Right To Be Wrong

Walking the Labyrinth-January 1, 2010—It takes no wisdom to connect the New Year with new beginnings; after a hiatus of several months, this seems an auspicious day to come back to the keyboard and take up the Labyrinth again. I've missed it. Happily, this site has never been a monologue. Many of you have enriched these pages by sharing your thoughts and hopes (and fears) with me. The labyrinth in which we walk has surprises of every kind—and while not all surprises are happily received, sorrows and joys are best when shared. Today we start a new year and a new decade but we walk a path well-worn by souls who’ve gone before us, great and small. I am grateful for you, my companions on the journey.

Western Christian Churches today celebrate the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, the Eighth Day of the Twelve Days of Christmas. According to the carol, on this day “…my true love gave to me eight maids a-milking.” Whether you regard the song as mystic in its meaning or just jolly in its verse, we're talking about a lot of milk! Down the list of Saints for January first (fifty-four saints are honored on the calendar of the Western Church today) is Telemachus, who was killed in the coliseum in Rome on January 1, AD 404. Twenty-four years earlier, the Emperor Theodosius officially proclaimed Christianity the only religion of Rome, but the slaughter in the coliseum continued regardless (the movie Gladiator doesn’t record the uncounted thousands of men, women and children who were driven onto the coliseum floor unprepared where they were butchered by trained gladiators or torn to pieces by starving carnivores, all to the laughter and delight of the mob). St Telemachus, a monk living in Rome, entered the floor of the coliseum and separated the combatants. According to some chroniclers, the gladiators turned on the monk and hacked him apart; other accounts say spectators, angry at the interruption of their entertainment, martyred the well-meaning monk. One way or the other, Telemachus died in the coliseum, its last victim. When the Emperor Honorius was told of his death, he immediately and permanently abolished the “games.” Fifty years separated the lives of two men equally unlamented, Charles II of Navarre, who history tags (with justification) “Charles the Bad,” and Rodrigo Borgia, enrolled on the list of Popes as Alexander VI, who stunned an age of casual corruption with the scandals he introduced into the papal palace. King Charles, who had a distant claim to the throne of France and ignored his native Navarre except as a source of income, spent decades scheming against his relatives (and murdering them when necessary) in his quest for the French crown. In his 55th year, the king fell mysteriously ill and his physicians decided on a mysterious treatment (not that some of our current medical practices seem to make much more sense): the king was sewn into bedsheets which had been soaked in brandy. The seamstress ordered to sew him in, unable to see her final stitches, had a candle held close to her work, forgetting a basic principle of combustion. The sheets erupted in flame and so did Charles. The terrified women ran from the room while the king burned to a cinder. Sermons for years to come were preached on how the fire ignited the night of January 1, 1387 foretold the Bad King’s eternal fate. On January 1, 1431, Rodrigo Borgia (yes, of those Borgias) was born. When still a young man his uncle, Pope Calixtus III, appointed him first bishop then cardinal and ensconced him in the bureaucracy of the Vatican. After the death of Pope Innocent VIII in 1492 (while Columbus was sailing “the ocean blue,”), Borgia bribed and schemed his way to the papal throne (it cost him, as the story went, “four mule-loads of silver”). He wasn’t singular in this, however. The King of France spent 200,000 gold pieces in bribes and the Republic of Venice dropped 100,000 towards the election of their candidate. The papal master of ceremonies remarked in his diary “this was a particularly expensive campaign.” Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, later to become Pope Leo X, when he learned of Borgia’s election warned “We are now in the power of a wolf, perhaps the most rapacious this world has ever seen. If we do not flee, he will devour us all.” Hopes for the new pope were obviously not high. Alexander VI sat in Peter's Chair more than ten years, during which time he satiated his passion for card games, stage plays and parties—of all sorts. His illegitimate children were given high positions in the church or married into the higher ranks of nobility, all with their father’s help (one of the few aspects of Alexander’s life never criticized was his genuine devotion to his family—it’s just that, he wasn’t supposed to have one!). The wars, murders and intrigues of his reign became the stuff of legend. When he died, the rumors of poison, which typically followed the deaths of so many notables of the age, were widespread. With the number of enemies Alexander collected over the years, however…The Pope’s last words, muttered softly as a prayer, were “Wait a minute.” On a more gallant note, the American silversmith Paul Revere (about whom you almost certainly memorized the words, “Listen my children and you shall hear…” during your young years) was born on January 1, 1732; a few years later, also on January 1, Elizabeth Ross (we know her better as “Betsy,”) was born in Philadelphia. When she was commissioned to make the flag for General Washington’s army, she was instructed to make it with “stars of six points.” She convinced the General and his advisors that a five pointed star would look better. To her we owe at least that, if not the flag's overall design. Betsy continued making flags until she retired from the family upholstery business in 1827. Her pew at Christ Church, Philadelphia, was next to the pew George Washington occupied whenever he visited the city; it is said they first met there. Religion, politics and business never seem too far apart…The first Federal Income Tax was imposed on January 1, 1862, to help pay for the skyrocketing cost of the War Between the States. It was supposed to last for the duration of the War, which ended in 1865. The war-time tax didn’t end until 1872. If you notice those dates don’t coincide (the tax lingered, like an unwelcome relative, seven years after the War was over), that’s the history of American taxation in a nutshell. On January 1, 1946, six months after the end of World War II, Emperor Hirohito went on Japanese National Radio and announced he was no longer a god. Many Japanese—and most of the rest of the world—had figured that out sometime before. Today, on the ancient Roman calendar, is the kalends Ianuarius. This is the first day of 2010: 364 more days remain in the year. The State Legislature of California has proclaimed this “California Dried Plum Digestive Month,” probably the least damaging thing they’ve done in a decade. Not to be outdone, the Congress of the United States has named January “National Oatmeal Month.” Wasn’t it just over two hundred years ago, our legislators were writing the Federalist Papers? Well, everybody does what they can with what they’ve got. Finally, for my good friend Joe, a retired Army colonel living in an idyllic home outside Pittsburgh with his dear wife Peg, this has to be a bittersweet day: on January 1, 1953, country music legend Hank Williams died at the age of 29. Devotees of that genre, like Joe, know he was the biggest star in the history of country music and can take pleasure knowing his legacy is being carried on by his son, Hank Williams, Jr. Joe, I’ve never willingly listened to Your Cheatin’ Heart, Jambalaya, or Hey, Good Lookin’, but I know you’ve never sat down to listen to Bach’s Christ Lag in Todesbaden (BWV 4), except when constrained by good manners. Here’s to you, my friend.

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Since last I wrote, my friend, Tomasa Erickson, a long-time, faithful and always cheerful worker in the Lord’s vineyard, died heroically (a word over-used today but applicable here) after a series of drawn-out battles with cancer. Of your charity, please pray for her (as I hope she now prays for me), James her husband and her daughters in their grief. Requiescat in pace.

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As you may know, I am now living in Texas on a ranchito owned by my family. When last I wrote I had been living more than 30 years in California. Over those decades California changed; I know Texas has changed too, I just haven’t yet discovered how. Everyone still waves when you pass on the road and people nod their greetings to strangers on the sidewalk. Young people, even tattooed twenty-year olds with scruffy beards and emaciated girls with rings on their thumbs, still say “yes’m” and “thank you.” I believe I’ve already met a drug-dealer here, but he doesn’t seem proud of what he does. For the first time in many years, I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family. They haven’t changed much, either.

My young nephew is something of an Anglophile. He spent last summer studying medieval history at Oxford; while he didn’t come back with a British accent (as some clergy who’ve spent a few weeks there do), he did greet me with “Happy Christmas” when I walked in the door (like the Wise Men, I always come a bit late to family gatherings—waiting for the initial political arguments to subside before appearing). There was enough of a conspiratorial hint in his voice to let me know he’d Been To England. I returned his greeting with a knowing glance but responded with a very American “Merry Christmas.” That’s another thing I noticed here in Texas. Nobody has said to me, “Have a happy holiday.” Everybody says “Merry Christmas” (most of them having never been to England and so unaware of the adjectival distinction). The holiday has yet to be broadened into meaninglessness, as if Eid, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule and Christmas were equally observed by everybody. Thankfully, I have yet to see a church sign-board in Texas with the irritating message (sounding like a Jesse Jackson haiku) “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season.” They are commonplace in California. There seems no need for that kind of preachiness in a place where you’re still free to say “Merry Christmas” without wondering if the recipient of your greeting will be offended because they are Muslim, atheist or Wiccan.

A few years ago, Ben Stein wrote a Christmas column worth quoting: “I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.”

Tolerance—kindness—is recognition of the right each person has to be who they are. I have a right to be wrong. That recognition is embedded in a sense that God has endowed each of us with a bit of Himself, and that sooner or later we’ll figure that out and find our way back to Him. We can’t get very far in that journey without figuring out how to live with each other, how to “judge not.” Some of the unhappiest people I know (and you know some, too) are those who are unable to refrain from butting into the affairs of others, continually correcting and criticizing because they know better, as if that gives them the right. Imagine a society of such people, a country where every decision has to be monitored, because some of us don’t make the same decisions everybody else does. Now look around. It’s us (I know, “we”).We are becoming increasingly intolerant of our past, of our roots, of who we are. We don’t like ourselves very much.

Our culture is flawed; our past is a history replete with greed, injustice and violence. It is also generous, honest and unafraid, often in surprising ways. Our culture is flawed, not evil and our past is something of which we should be aware, not ashamed. Last year Americans celebrated the Lincoln bicentennial (some celebrated it more than others) and I enjoyed watching the interviews and discussion panels carried each weekend on C-SPAN. One of the things I found most interesting was the way Lincoln’s “racism” was addressed. Some Lincoln enthusiasts tortured the evidence to explain it away. Some academics condemned him as the worst sort of racist, worse than the slave-holders who at least were consistent in their beliefs. But occasionally someone would acknowledge Lincoln as a man of his time. By our modern lights, he would doubtless be a racist of the most unenlightened kind. But in his day, Lincoln struggled with the race question as did many other Americans, North and South. Blacks, Indians (Native Americans, to be correct), Irish, Jews, Chinese, Catholics, Germans, Italians, Mexicans, Japanese—and Arabs—almost every racial, ethnic or religious group has suffered persecution or injustice in this country (except, I think, the French, and nobody likes them!). But all of these groups—except the Native Americans—came here because here was a creed—and like it or not, it was a belief about who God is and who we are. “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” As I’ve mentioned before, it’s built into the American psyche and character that our rights as human beings are not the gift of the State but of God. The State tries continually to infringe on those rights—it’s what every government does, it can’t help it. By nature governments are coercive. If I at times kick and squirm and chew on chains in these pages it’s because I see us as a distinctive people—not a distinctive race or religion, but a people blessed with a singular vision—who now seem willing to trade that inestimable birthright for a bowl of tasty, government-flavored Wall Street stew, and endless hours of poorly-conceived television programs. Ole St Telemachus was killed because he believed people were more than creatures to be bought and entertained with “bread and circuses”; we are responsible for what we do and for who that makes us. That’s what freedom and genuine tolerance means. We can choose who we are and what we become. That’s why God put you in your labyrinth, in Texas or California or the rocky coast of Maine—to hammer out a life worth living. May your steps on the labyrinth this year bring you closer to that goal.

And Jean, as far as lesbian bishops in California go, I was told as a child, as I’m sure were you, “If you can’t say anything nice…”
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I had a Christmas cold which should have kept me in bed. As soon as I started to feel better, though, I got up. The cold returned, angry at being ignored, and put me back in bed for several more days. The good thing about being sick is you have time to read for hours on end. The bad thing is, you usually don’t feel like reading. That was solved for me when I picked up David McCollough’s John Adams, his biography of our second President. I did read for hours and hours, diverted only to wipe my nose or cough up whatever that yellow stuff is that congests your throat when you get sick. The book is hard to put down. McCollough’s thorough research combines with his felicitous writing to produce books which delight. I read his 1776 a few years back and before that, his biography of Harry Truman with no less pleasure.

John Adams is not just a recounting of the events of that worthy man’s life, but an appraisal of what Adams’ life meant, principally from the perspective of Adams himself. The second President was an introspective man. He was a frequent diarist and a inveterate writer of letters. Few others have taken so much to heart the adage of the ancient Greeks to “Know Thyself.” In letters to his children and close friends he frequently quotes Socrates’ dictum “The unexamined life is not worth living” and his letters reveal how much he examined himself: his character, his motives and his ambition. John Adams had a partner in his life, as mentally acute and perceptive as he, in his wife Abigail. McCollough shows how necessary each was to the other and how their relationship stands unique in the annals of marriage. In many ways, the book is as much a biography of Abigail as it is of John, but given their relationship, it couldn’t be anything other.

For those who are familiar with the wonderful video production of John Adams, based on this book, you will find the broad strokes of the tale intact. But many of the details of the book have been altered to make a more dramatic film. Watch the video, by all means, it is masterfully done. But to know the story, the thought of John Adams, read this book. You will then know the man.


QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:

Alexander VI—“Do people say that I am both your father and your lover? Let the world, that heap of vermin, believe what they want about the mighty! You must know that for those destined to dominate others, the ordinary rules of life are turned upside down. Good and evil are carried to a higher, different plane.” (To Lucretia Borgia)

John Adams—“ Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Abigail Adams—“I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.”

Ben Stein—“ Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.”

Abraham Lincoln—“Everyone wants to live a long life, but no one wants to get old!”