Easter Musings

Was Jesus Born of a Virgin Pure
With narrow Soul & Looks demure?
If he intended to take on Sin
The Mother should an Harlot been...

Let us now praise Levellers, Diggers, Quakers, Ranters, and the Muggletonians. William Blake, poet and engraver, lived 69 long years around the turn of the 19th Century. He was thought insane by many then and by others now.

I like him for many reasons, but among them, because he rejects the Law--yes, again, this word "antinomian." One scholar calls him "The Last Antinomian and the First Prophet of the Modern World."

Now let's move from Blake to that great 21st Century philosopher, Dwight Yoakum:

You don't know me but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

Thank you, Dwight, we will get back to you.

So why would Blake think it more appropriate for Mary, Mother of Jesus, to be a harlot than a virgin?

If He were well-born, He would have no basis for knowing the suffering of the sinner.

Robert Graves, for instance, wrote a fictionalized biography of Jesus. Graves posits (as I recall, because I won't read the book again to make sure) that Jesus was secretly the son of some type of royalty. That way we don't have to admit that low-born people might be equal or better than the high born (such as Graves).

John Dominic Crossman in Jesus, a Revolutionary Biography, has, for me, a more satisfying portrait. Jesus was illiterate and illegitimate. He was never buried, but the dogs ate His body off the cross, because that is what happened to people of His status and power who challenged the Empire. The other stories were invented later to comfort the well-born.

How could Graves' royal Jesus with a secret, worldly and human Santa Clause-like father to care for him be the savior of the unwashed masses. Crossman's Jesus could be the Savior, because He had walked the streets of Bakersfield.

Many of our brothers and sisters do have mothers who were, in fact, whores. Prostitutes are guaranteed in this Man's America (and Mexico, etc., etc.) When women can't get educations or jobs and men can't make enough to support families, there will be prostitutes and children of prostitutes. We are not talking about the Happy Hooker. We are talking about grinding poverty and hungry children and a mother who is trying to get by.

My friend Jeff used to be a syphilis hunter for a living. He would wander first Chicago and then Houston talking to the hookers to find out who had syphilis so he could refer them to treatment.

I have represented many prostitutes, usually when they were charged with drugs, or assault or theft or coming into the country illegally, or in one case a 14-year old child who was being held as a material witness in a pornography case.

Jeff and I have discussed this and concur we both have high regard for the women in this world. (I mention Jeff, because he is obviously an expert in the subject and supports my more limited impression). And many were mothers and good. Madonnas, even.

Many of my clients have mothers who were prostitutes and do not know their Dads. This is not something I usually ask in the initial interview, but the pieces fall together. Many children of prostitutes, boys and girls, become prostitutes themselves.

So, Blake asks, with a world full of children of prostitutes, how can you take on sin if you are not one of them? Blake was historically square in the middle of the "Enclosures" that drove subsistence farmers off their land to make room for cash crops to make room for capital to make room for the industrial revolution. Hence the uprising of Levellers, Diggers, Quakers, Ranters, and the Muggletonians. Hence the antinomians. Hence the prostitutes and the children of prostitutes.

Happy Easter, Mr. Blake. Happy Easter, Mr. Yoakum. Happy Easter, Jeff. Happy Easter to the prostitutes, past and present. Happy Easter to the children of prostitutes. And happy Easter to you, as well.

Freedom of Speech and Freedom From Quartered Troops, Illegal Searches, Hopes for Penumbras and Emanations and other Mournfully Expectant Desires

Granddaddy of all Bloggers

WWMD

"I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older; for, methinks, custom allows to age more liberty of prating, and more indiscretion of talking of a man's self." The granddaddy of all bloggers (hereinafter GOAB) tells us.

What greater security in freedom of speech GOAB offers from "custom;" far more constant, than that whippersnapper, the First Amendment.

This brings me to further discussion of the Bill of Rights, in particular the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 9th and 10th.

First, to my Primo (that is, both directly descended from the McGroarty family of County Donegal, by way of Wilkes-Barre, Penn.--everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's day) and his concern for the 1st Amendment. Also, to offer to him the sincerest form of flattery.

The First Amendment is gone. Justice Holmes burned it in the burning theater. Adams and Woodrow Wilson jailed it during time of war. And then most deadly of all, the corporations bought it: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

You and I, Primo, can say most anything we want because we have no power. No one cares because no one listens. But imagine if either one of us owned one of the big five. Only then would we find out if First Amendment provides any protection. My hunch is that just as free speech disappears in time of war, a clear and present danger would exist if either of us were in a position of power.

Now back to the antinomianism. Neither your hero Voltaire, nor my hero GOAB had the benefit of the Bill of Rights. The salvation of society, in the unlikely event it occurs, will not be by law, but by grace. The Bill of Rights, however graceful, is still law.

Now the 3rd Amendment, alone, seems still to be around and strong. I search the house each day and find no troops quartered.

The 4th Amendment appears to have been repealed with the war on drugs. I did not read about the repeal in the advance sheets, but try to keep someone out of the slam on the flimsy grounds that he has not been secure in his person, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Fellow blogger, BobbyWC describes his hope for the 9th Amendment. The 9th and 10th Amendments describe the rights and powers being retained by the people. These amendments had a brief flowering with the Right of Privacy being found in the "penumbras and emanations" of the Amendments. Outside of this pleasing phrase, not much satisfaction has come from 9 and 10.

Charles L. Black in his slim book, A New Birth of Freedom, argues the Declaration of Independence, in particular the "right to the pursuit of happiness" be carried down into and through the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. He argues the result "will be a thoroughgoing and never-ending working-over of the regime of law..." leaving folks alone to pursue happiness, which he thinks is not a bad thing.

John McCain: The Perquisites of Power

I yam what I yam

The straight talk express runs on cash.

What to think of John McCain? Before beginning, may I say, I have never voted for a Republican, so if I were to do so now it would be more a sign of senescence than a reasoned choice.

I read a recent editorial that described him as an "antinomian." I think it was in the Nation. The reference then was to medieval clerics who thought they had license to live any way they wanted because their virtue had already been established. Hence, riches, wine, women and song.

This sent me to the Oxford English Dictionary. Even though I have the twenty volume version, I can hardly read the small print. I can make out that Milton used to talk about antinomians, but whether he liked them or not, I don't know.

One usage of "Antinomianism" seems to be a doctrinal position. Another looks like an insult. The Nation (if that is who it was) apparently intends it as an insult that sounds more erudite than "hypocrite."

I doubt McCain has considered whether he is a doctrinal antinomian or anti-antinomian. (The opposite of antinomian you would think would be nomian, but this does not appear to be the case. Just like the opposite of agnostic is not gnostic. Neither is antidisestablishmentarian more simply called establishmentarianism, although it appears it could be. Tristram asks you pardon the digression, Uncle Toby.)

In essence, an antinomian believes grace replaces the law. An antinomian dispute is recorded in Acts 15 regarding whether circumcision is mandated. As excited as Republicans get about gay marriage, I don't know how we have avoided a national debate about circumcision.

If you have seen law applied up close and personal, the temptation to throw it all out for a little grace makes a great deal of sense. Somehow I doubt this describes McCain, either.

McCain rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Keating Five. Part of the McCain much-vaunted bipartsanship may stem from these days when he joined with four Democratic Senators to take money and favors from Lincoln Savings and Loan before it collapsed and cost the public purse $3.4 billion. All the Democrats fell into ruin, retirement and disgrace. Democrats are supposed to get caught with women, not lobbyist money. Republicans get caught with boys and money, but they can be forgiven for the money. (This Spitzer guy seems to be a Republican who likes women, but New York Republicans have always been different.)

The problem is that McCain seems to need to dip into the ashes again from time to time when the cash runs short. I can understand that; sometimes when a guy wants to get somewhere in the world, he does what he has to do.