We suppose we see ourselves as Paul.
We have an overpowering need, having had a blinding light fall on our faces but not fully understanding, to get the word of Quin to the masses. And we have a giant thorn in our flesh, which is Quin himself.
The problem is this: We never liked Paul very much with all his talk of it is better to marry than burn and all that. What he preferred was that men have no sex at all. He presumed that women had no need of if except to make children. Perhaps since we have no churches yet which write us endless letters filled with tedious detail about how to do this or that--which clothes to wear, how to wear our hair. Whether women should speak, and all of that--when it is our turn to write letters to our Thesalonians, we will do better.
Jesus was supported by rich women, did you know that? Did you ever wonder how he managed to wander about Judea speaking and being charasmatic and getting the word out? He still had to eat after all, and pee and wear clothes and sandals. Well, he had a lot of rich and middle class women on his side. He stayed in their homes, accepted their gifts, ate their food, let them sit at his feet. Remember Lydia? She was a buyer of purple as we recall [we beg Quin's mother to correct us in the comments section as to whether she bought sold or wore, but we remember that Lydia and purple are inextricably linked in the holy writ]. Purple was a very expensive commodity in those days. Hard to come by. Lydia was a wealthy woman. She supported Jesus. And the Magdalen, she seemed to be doing all right in her business. She did well enough that she could give it up and follow him. Some of the gospels not officially condoned by the Church with a capital C when the Church decided which gospels would go in and out of the bible list her as one of the deciples, right along with John, and John the one Jesus loved [we've never fully clarified that issue either have we?] and Peter and Peter's brother, and all the rest. The Magdalen must have saved up a tidy sum over the years to be able to afford to just drop everything and follow like that. She was played by Anne Bancroft in one of the Jesus films we saw part of over the blessed holiday of consumption.
What Quin needs is some rich women.
Perhaps he hasn't found them in all these years because of this 'Beth' character that he insists is real. Women do not like rivals. And if you're carting one around in your head all the time, it is likely to make the rich women uncomfortable. Much preferable to have a nice tasty set of male deciples to mix and mingle with. Big fishermen and all that. But what's done is done. Marx had his 'Beth' as did John Donne, and Shelley and Hammett and many other geniuses. However look at the records of their prosperities. Marx always lived in horrible poverty, living mainly off his womanizing friend, Engels, John Donne, imprisoned for a time for marrying his, then living in poverty creating hordes of children, twelve or thirteen altogether, seven of which lived, quite a record for the Elizabethans. The Donne familiy also lived entirely off of their friends until he finally gave in and took church orders when she promptly died. Her death caused him to write some of his most wonderful holy sonnets. He was really broken up about it. Obviously he liked her quite a lot to run off with her as he did, and then make her bear twelve children. Shelley was quite a womanizer himself, but in Mary he found an equal. He ran off with her as well when she was about 17. He had married another 17 year old previously, and couldn't marry Mary until that woman finally committed suicide. Shelley's writing never really was very good. But he was intelligent and handsome and an adventurer. Even in school he was blowing up buildings with his experiments. Hammett finally made some money, but by that time he was pretty much bedridden from alcohalisma and unloveable, living in Lilian Hellman's house and viciously critiquing her plays, The Little Foxes and so on.
At any rate. We summarize that men with living muses don't seem to do as well financially as those without. Because all the rich women stay away.
Some will complain that we are so quick to compare Quin to Jesus, but we don't have much problem in that. We think that Quin has a lot of avatar potential if he would just give in and let there be a god that he could personify. But he won't give in. He's very thorny like that. Quin's god is the future. And even though he sees it, he can't get to it. Interesting isn't it. He really does actually see it, but seeing it doesn't take him to it. Quin's vision for all of us here below or wherever we are is not all that much different from Jesus after all. He wants all these stupid wars over money to stop. He wants us to all have enough so that we can live our lives in modest comfort, doing what it would be best for us to do. [Marx said much the same thing, but the Marxists don't like Marx's words about everyman an artist . . . we think they prefer art to be elitiest, which it isn't anymore now that paint is so cheap]. Quin's vision of a peaceful world is very modest indeed. But without some big pie in the sky god to back him up, or at least a few rich women to support him, he doesn't get to get out much to talk about it.
Another way Quin's message is like Jesus' has to do with class structures. Quin acknowledges that they exist [Give unto Cesar and all that] but says that they are bogus. The American class system is just like all the others. It is about money. Little pieces of folding paper that we pass around and exchange for this and that. Except that some people don't exchange it very much. Either they have so much of it that they can just sock it away somewhere or pay people to build tanks and things with it so that they get more folding pieces of paper, or they have so little that they have none to exchange for things, dead chickens to cook and can's of tomato soup, things like that, and so they can't exchange it very often. In America, and indeed on much of this small green planet, those with more bits of folding paper make up a higher class, and even as in the olden days of the bible [old and new testaments both--remember the Pharasees and Sadgasees, sorry for this spelling, but you get the drift] those with more of this stuff get to have all the knowledge and they get to argue the fine points of economics, politics, god, how to overthrow the Roman Empire and so on.
Enough to chew over for those who will.
12:15:42 PM 
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