My Idea of Jesus's Birth. The Stable and the Manger.

Here's an aspect to the Jesus birth story that I thought was interesting.

According to biblical scholars Jesus was indeed born in Bethlehem and that Mary and Joseph were there visiting. But rather than an inn, where observant Jews would not stay, they were likely housed in a private home, presumably with friends or relatives. But were they unceremoniously sent out to the barnyard? That's how we tend to interpret it in modern times, but actually the situation seems to be that since the house was crowded, probably from other visitors, they were put up in the lower level where some of the household animals were kept. To us it seems strange, but to a society which was 90% agrarian, and in which farm animals were very valuable, keeping them in the house was ordinary and routine.

It's not so strange to me either, and here's why. The house pictured on my home page is very special to me because it is the ages old stone house on a plot of farmland where my father told me he was born in Palazzo, a little town in the plain below the breathtakingly beautiful city of Assisi. He was brought to Scranton by his father in 1906 at age 18 months, and finally went back for a visit in the 1970's to see his cousin who was still living there. He visited the old house which was then occupied by a tenant farmer who evidently was still using oxen to plow the fields since he showed me pictures of the animals, sure enough on the ground floor, what the Italians call pianterreno. The family lived on the upstairs level. My dad told me there was no heat in the house, the climate being something like Northern California, but the animals gave off a lot of heat which rose upward in the cooler months.

I finally got to visit the house in the early 1990's. At that point it was unoccupied since it had been damaged in an earthquake, and I didn't try going upstairs but I did open the door, which was a little off kilter, to look around the pianterreno. It was empty, stone plastered walls, and sure enough, along one wall, the feeding trough, or if you'd like, the manger. So, in a pinch, to people of that time, being put up in a room downstairs, near the animals, wouldn't seem so strange.

So this place, now completely boarded up, which still chokes me up to visit, gives me a bit of an idea of what the scene might have been like in the countryside around Bethlehem, 2 millennia ago, when the one we celebrate today was born.

 

 

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The Great Impeachment Show

I hate to give any attention at all to the impeachment fiasco, but I can't help myself. The actual articles of impeachment that the Democrats have come up with are so contrived and inconsequential as to reveal the true nature of what is going on, namely that they are driven to distraction and so desperate that they will grasp at any straw to make themselves feel better. That fact that their efforts are certain to fail in the senate has not deterred them. It's likely that another motivation is that they have felt that they will blemish the President enough to make him fail in the pending election, particularly since none of the Democrat candidates that are presently offering themselves seem likely to do it. The public response to their efforts so far seems to be having the opposite effect.

 

Mr. Trump's personal qualities grate on their nerves, as to be sure they do on some of the Republicans, most especially the small group of never-Trumper "conservatives" who find themselves being replaced as the philosophical spokespersons of the party. But his real crime is his success, not only in being chosen over a very substantial group of establishment Republican candidates and then, against all predictions and assumptions, over Mrs. Clinton, but in also his ability to articulate and carry through his policies.

 

The whole affair is obvious fakery. From the moment of his inauguration there were calls for impeachment, and since then a variety of justifications have been put forth to remove him before fulfilling his first term. Appeals to the 25^th amendment, the emoluments clause, the 2-year Russia investigation have all failed. In 2016, however, the new Democrat controlled House seized its opportunity and have relentlessly investigated, seemingly to the exclusion of all other activities, to come up with something that would fill the bill. The result is totally unconvincing to anyone who is not hopelessly biased and likely would not pass muster even if the Senate was not Republican controlled. I suspect that the ultimate political result will be for the Democrats the same thing the Republicans suffered after their failed impeachment of Bill Clinton over lying to a grand jury about his sexual peccadillos.

 

Ms. Pelosi has cautioned her followers not to gloat or appear jubilant. Accordingly, the Dems are wearing long faces, black clothing and announcing that they feel sober and solemn, another indication of subterfuge since they are no doubt gleeful and high fiving in private. In this I agree with them that there is a sadness to the occasion. The body of the elected representatives of the people of this great republic, whose duty is to debate and legislate over matters that concern us, has become a circus show. We can only hope that eventually they will be chastened enough from their actions that the show will not now be repeated in each successive administration.

 

 

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