FLIGHTS OF FREEDOM

© Dr. Gary Blaine

University Congregational Church

July 6, 2008

 

Reading:  “Mr. Jefferson on the Absence of a Bill of Rights”

(A letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787.)

          I will now add what I do not like.  First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of nations… Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference… After all, it is my principle that the will of the Majority should always prevail.[1]

 

          I do not know exactly what the charges were that landed Daedalus in prison.  He was considered the finest craftsman and artisan in the realm.  And Daedalus must have suffered from the cruel irony that he was now jailed in the very castle tower designed and built by his own hand.  Like Alcatraz, it was located on an island and it was thought that no one could escape from it.  The Labyrinth consisted of endless winding passages that turned and opened into one another, giving you the feeling that the building had no beginning and no ending.  King Minos not only guarded it well, but held tight security throughout the island of Crete.  Many spies kept security over the harbor and searched every vessel under sail. 

          Daedalus shared his imprisonment with his son, Icarus.  And you could well imagine how they both yearned for freedom.  The adolescent was eager to discover the power of manhood that pulsed through his blood, hot to understand the ways of the world and the mystery of human relationships.  Like all youth, Icarus hungered for his independence.  It was not simply that he wanted his own chariot with three horses under the reign and a girl at his side.  Icarus wanted the freedom to search for himself, to discover the secrets of his own heart and the power of his own mind.  His father was a renowned artisan and the boy aspired to be out from the shadow of his father’s craft so that he might cast his own shadows on the world.  Icarus dared to dream that he too might soar to new heights of creativity.

          Daedalus paced his cell with the blinding frustration of a man who had reached the prime of his life.  He was no longer an apprentice struggling under the discipline of elementary mechanics.  He was now the master of his craft, eager to unleash the creative images that woke him in the night.  It was as if his mind was swollen with ideas, and madness would surely follow if he could not give expression to his art.  The heart of Daedalus ached for generativity as his hands were wracked with the atrophy of idleness.  Daedalus knew that he would only be the master of despair if he could not achieve his freedom.

          For months Daedalus searched the outline of the harbor, looking for some hole in Mino’s security.  He watched the ships come and go, and studied the search processes of the marine guards.  With eyes straining for some breach in the dragnet he found himself irritated with the sound of the laughing gulls.  Their raucous guffawing seemed to make fun of Daedalus’ imprisonment.  Daedalus thought it ironic that these obnoxious, freeloading clowns could soar and wheel through the air.  The great artist was in jail while these dirty, noisy little birds floated in freedom.  And that irony was the mother of Daedalus’ great escape.

          I do not know how they gathered enough feathers, but Daedalus began to make wings for himself and Icarus.  Beginning with the smallest feathers and later adding larger ones, the form of wings began to appear.  The small feathers were attached with wax; the larger ones were sewn together.  When, at last, the task was completed, Daedalus waved his wings.  He was both shocked and delighted as he felt himself buoyed upward and suspended in midair.  Slowing the beat of his arms, Daedalus’ feet touched the floor.  He hid his new creation and began the arduous task of making wings for Icarus. 

          Finally the day of liberty arrived.  Daedalus counseled Icarus with all that he knew about flight.  His last words to his son were, “I charge you to keep a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if you fly too high the heat will melt them.  Keep near me and you will be safe.”[2]

          And then father and son stepped off the tower, flapping their wings on their flight toward Sicily.  I cannot imagine the thrill that each of them must have felt with the prospect of freedom.  Daedalus would fly toward artistic and political freedom.  Icarus was overwhelmed by his sudden license of mobility, no longer bound by such conventions as gravity.  Playfully he swooped and dove, rose up through figure eights and loopy-loops.  The distance between Icarus and Daedalus grew as the boy sliced the air with the virility of adolescent enthusiasm.  He now enjoyed a power he had never known.  Fatefully he was compelled to ever-greater heights, sensing dominion over the earth that was shrinking beneath him.  With a surge of exhilaration his wings pushed against the thinning air as his smiling face absorbed the warmth and light of the sun. 

          It was at that very moment that he noticed a shudder that ran from wingtip to wingtip.  Looking over the frame of the wing, Icarus was aghast as he watched small feathers fluttering off the wings.  He yelled out to his father who was much lower and further away.  Daedalus never heard the frantic screaming of his son.  As the wax dripped from the heat of the sun feathers streamed off the wing’s frame like a snow blizzard.  No amount of arm waving could keep Icarus aloft as the wind now roared in his ears.  Plummeting downward Icarus could no longer breathe.  Tears burned from his eyes back to his ears until they finally mingled with the salty smack of the ocean.  The boy’s broken body floated in the flotsam of feathers, soft wax, and string.

          That was how Daedalus found him some time after he realized that Icarus was no longer close to him in flight.  He had yelled out to the boy, “Icarus, where are you?”  But the wind threw the words back down his throat, like the sound of laughing gulls.  Days later he waded out to the surf where the body of Icarus bobbed close to shore.  He buried his son in a land called Icaria.

          Daedalus would eventually make his way to Sicily – a free man.  But for the rest of his life he would bitterly remember that the artifice of his freedom was the vehicle of his son’s death.

          This wonderful and important myth is often used to describe the impertinence of youth and to warn adolescents about the value of obeying the instructions of parents.  Most people conclude that the death of Icarus is a graphic point about the dangers of wanton pubescent rebellion.  But adolescents are not the sole proprietors of disobedience and disregard for the laws of nature and society.  I think of Cardinal Wolsey in Shakespeare’s The Life of King Henry the Eighth.  Recall that Wolsey was Henry’s most trusted confidant, holding both secular and religious power.  But his true loyalty was to his own profit.  His scheme to fill the coffers of Rome and advance his own position was finally exposed.  Wolsey lamented:

“I have ventur’d

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,

This many summers in a sea of glory,

But far beyond my depth.  My high-blown pride

At length broke under me and now has left me,

Weary and old with service to the mercy

Of a rude stream that must forever hide me.

Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!

I feel my heart new open’d.  O, how wretched

Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favors!

There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,

That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,

More pangs and fears than wars or women have;

And when he falls like Lucifer,

Never to hope again.”[3]

 

No, many of us, young and old, have swam and flown the currents of pride far beyond what waves and thermals could carry us.  And like Icarus and Wolsey have fallen into the sea of despair.

          What so many of us forget is that the story does not end with the death of Icarus.  The story ends with the freedom of Daedalus.  The myth has as much to teach us about freedom as it does about obedience. 

          The warning of Daedalus to Icarus was to avoid the extremes of the sun and the earth.  Flying too high or too low would bring destruction and the end of the journey of freedom.  Let us be reminded that in Greek mythology the sun was identified with Apollo.  Apollo was the god of poetry, music, and the wisdom of the oracles.  Apollo was also representative of youth and manly beauty.  The earth was identified with the goddess, Demeter, who represented nature, fruitfulness, women, and marriage.  Daedalus warned Icarus against flying too high or too low.  Freedom is found in the balance of the masculine and feminine; ideas and labor; mind and body; poetry and nature; science and religion; empirical and intuitive knowledge.  Human beings get bound up when they lose their balance, regardless of their gender, their age, or their station in life.  We become prisoners in the extremities of life.         

          We live in a society that coaches us to live in the extremes.  We are increasingly an addictive society.  Think of all of addictions that plague American life.  They include drugs, alcohol, pornography, work, gambling, food, television, computer games, sports and even extreme sports.  We are a society that has lost its mind.  And by that I mean, we have lost our balance.  We are enslaved to these addictions, obsessed with their promise of power, gratification, and pleasure.  They cause us to lose our balance and enslave us.  Daedalus tried to teach Icarus that his freedom would be found in the balance.

          In this current political season I do wish that the debates between the various contestants would shift to the question of the balance of freedom.  I am sick unto death of various campaigns charging that their candidate is more patriotic than another or has rendered a deeper service to the country based on military or social service.  I do not care what their preachers have said or what lapel button they wear.  I do care that we recover our balance in the eternal vigilance of liberty, if I may paraphrase Thomas Jefferson.

          As we approach national elections it seems to me that there is very little that one single candidate can do to fundamentally change the economics of the United States, especially given the nature of a global economy.  Likewise, no single elected official can control the oil crises, which is also a global reality.  I do think that there are some things that the United States can change and politicians can have some real control over.  We can effectively govern and manage the fundamental principles that shape this democracy, and I would very much like to here a broad social conversation about the balance of freedom in this nation.

          For example, what is the balance between our civil rights and the security of the nation?  That is a serious question that I have not heard a candidate address.  I think it is a deeper question than withdrawal timetables from Iraq.  How do we restore balance to the question of immigration?  Must we rush to the extremes of vigilantes on the borders or the total abandonment or neglect of a fair legalization processes?  Where is the balance between capitalism and speculation on commodities like oil; or unbridled lending practices that have not only brought foreclosure to many families but also imperiled the nation’s economy?  Where is the balance between fair trade, wages, and environmental safety?  I believe that the election process would have far more meaning and substance if both candidates and the people of these United States would recover the balance of freedom.

          Jefferson’s warning that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” has never been so true as in the 21st century.  Our forebears worked and defended freedom.  Many of us have been born into it.  But in a society of entitlement, few of us know the labor that freedom demands.  Icarus was given the wings freedom.  He thought that freedom meant license for personal pleasure, for the gratification of his own desire.  He did not understand that his freedom required discipline – discipline in the face of the extremities of fear and hope. 

Freedom demands the risk of balance.  With all of the planning and work that the wings of freedom demanded of Daedalus, he had to step off the wall.  The flight of freedom is not a theory inviting us only to discussions about political aerodynamics.  We can never know the joy of freedom until we spread our wings and dare to step off the tower of tyranny – be it personal, religious, economic, or political.  We are required to fly if we are to be free!  For some people that means personal therapy to overthrow the despots of the mind.  For some people it means becoming politically active.  For some people it means working with an organization dedicated to a particular issue such as reproductive choice and health.  But there is not a single person in this room who cannot make a contribution to freedom if they are willing to risk balance with other ideas, other parties, and other agendas in the political process.  If, in fact, God calls us to be free people we must understand that freedom requires the discipline of balance. 

 Finis

 

 


[1] Thomas Jefferson, “On the Absence of a Bill of Rights,” Liberty and Justice (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), Vol. I, pp. 68-69.

[2] Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch’s Mythology, (New York: Avenell Books, 1979), p. 156.

[3] William Shakespeare, “The Life of King Henry the Eighth,” The Complete Works of Shakespeare, David Bevington, ed. (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1980), p. 940.