In the Middle of the Air

When those in human bondage looked down they saw cotton. When they looked up they saw sweet chariots coming for to carry them home. 

Ezekiel saw the wheel / Way up in the middle of the air / Ezekiel saw the wheel way in the middle of the air

Little wheel run by faith / Big wheel run by the grace of God / Ezekiel saw the wheel way in the middle of the air.

Now you never can tell what Ezekiel will do / way in the middle of the air / He lie about me / He lie about you / way in the middle of the air.

They may also have seen Lucifer falling from grace. According to Mormons Lucifer was Jesus’ brother. Not so, say everyone else. After all, only begotten sons generally don’t have brothers. Especially to rival them. Lucifer was no ordinary sort. When he fell he landed with a thud not unlike Humpty-Dumpty who was too much for all the King’s horses and men.

(The closest I could ever imagine is getting stuck in an elevator during a power failure. That’s not on my bucket list. Along with Severe Tire Damage it’s among those experiences I could easily live without.)

Lucifer was one of those pagan figures appropriated by the Christians to suit their fable. He was, in fact, the name for Venus, the morning star which seemed to fall out of sight daily. The New Testament took his beauty, his brightness and worldly brilliance and consigned him to eternal deviltry. How dare his curiosity which can lead to defiance. Lucifer takes the rap for Adam munching on that forbidden apple or pomegranate. Have a piece of fruit, he said, and for that gets a sentence of life plus forever. The lesson is, don’t mess with the Divine.

Icarus was another mythological young man who dared to defy authority. His father, Daedalus, who built the labyrinth that bested the Minotaur, warned his boy not to fly too close to the sun or his feathered wings held together by wax would melt. The accepted lesson seems to be that Icarus displayed hubris and paid the ultimate price. The way I see it the kid showed gumption. Who listens to their father? Fathers are yesterday’s news. The next generation pushes the envelope. How else would we have Saran Wrap or smart phones?

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him…is the name of a great book by Sheldon Kopp. Kill him metaphorically, of course. Listen to authority and then go beyond. Listen to yourself.   

Icarus was out there investigating the middle of the air and then took the plunge. But there is more to the legend. Breughel, the Elder, is attributed as having painted, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.  The scene depicted is the legs of a figure going into the sea while a plowman is tending his field oblivious to the important splash in the green water. Benign neglect? Calloused indifference? There is a Flemish saying, And the farmer continues to plow, describing man’s indifference to human suffering.

In 1938 W.H. Auden took that theme and ran with it. In his poem, Musee des Beaux-Arts, the poet imagines several Breughel paintings showing town-folk ice skating, playing or doing chores and never looking up to the middle of the air. Auden was dismayed at the rise of Nazism of the eve of World War II.  I regard his poem as a cautionary tale of wanton disregard for the peril at hand.

This is my long way around to warn a somnolent American public of the imperative to vote in the presidential election, less than a year away. Too many voters seem uninformed or complacent, busy in the counting house counting all their money or at the table eating bread and honey. Next Nov. 3rd is not the day to caulk the bathtub or become a no-show because our candidate is far less than perfect. 

The Devil Donald with his brimstone of malice and mendacity must be defeated. The state of Grace seems to be unknown to him and one he will never carry. It is the one word which least describes him.

To his band of red-capped rally-goers I say, Question Authority. The man at the podium is a false idol with no chariot to deliver you. He lie about you. He lie about himself.