Well, I didn’t plan on writing anything about the troubles of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, his wounded family and his Argentinian lover. Like, I am sure, many others of a conservative bent, I was just dismayed to see another Republican of fairly strong repute falling to a scandal, and I preferred to avoid the story as much as possible. Yet, the story is out there in such a public way — thanks in part to the apparent openness and straightforwardness of both Mr. and Mrs. Sanford — that it does have elements of the salutary parable to it. By all appearances, it does seem that this is not the usual case we see in political life of a serial philanderer finally getting his comeuppance, but rather the case of a poor schlub who genuinely fell for someone in an initially unintentional if still stupid and adolescent fashion.

And then a reader (thanks to Linda) alerted me to an oblique Dylan connection in the whole thing.

In the leaked/stolen emails published by The State newspaper, the governor at one point — in trying to explain to his mistress why he’s wondering if they should stop their romantic relationship for the sake of her life in the long-term — quotes St. Paul from I Corinthians 13: “Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude, Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in the wrong, but rejoices in the right, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.”

Indeed. The Dylan connection that Linda picked up on is that this is the passage of Scripture which is at the heart of Bob Dylan’s 1981 song Watered-Down Love (from his album Shot of Love). I’ve invoked that song in this space on past occasions, of-course.

Love that’s pure hopes all things,
Believes all things, won’t pull no strings,
Won’t sneak up into your room, tall, dark and handsome,
Capture your soul and hold it for ransom.

You don’t want a love that’s pure
You wanna drown love
You want a watered-down love

Honestly, it seems like Governor Sanford is probably knowledgeable enough, and Christian enough, to have some appreciation of the irony of referring to these lines of St. Paul in the context of an adulterous affair. The love of which St. Paul is writing is not merely romantic love, or whatever kind of overgrown teenage infatuation it is that leads poor sinners into his predicament, but rather the highest and most all-encompassing kind of love — the kind that God commanded all of us to show to our neighbor. In the King James and some other older translations, a distinction is asserted in that famous passage from St. Paul by using the word charity rather than love. Aficionados of the Greek are fond of talking in hifalutin’ terms of agape versus eros versus philia (and it’s certainly all Greek to me).

The fairly obvious if tardy retort to the governor’s musings on 1 Corinthians 13 in his email is that he would have been better first considering his obligations of patience, hope and endurance with regard to his own wife and family, rather than with regard to his illicit love. But he’s likely spending plenty of time thinking about those things these days.

An interesting thing for me is that Dylan’s song Watered-Down Love, at first glance (or hearing) also seems to be mixing Paul’s profound words up with the kind of boy/girl pop-song-love about which we’re so used to hearing. It’s a bouncy tune with a catchy hook, and it sounds like the singer is addressing a lover — or someone he would like to have as a lover — and telling her, more or less: You’re going for cheap love — stick with me, baby, and I’ll show you the real thing. But Dylan — who at this point had been studying the Bible for a long time — certainly knew on what level those words of St. Paul really resonate. And a close hearing or reading of the lyric, I think, reveals that he was not trying to cheapen the words at all, but rather just using the medium at hand, and the metaphor of a boy/girl pop song, for an exploration or exegesis of the text.

Of-course, you can’t brow-beat someone else into feeling love or into acting in a loving way. So I think the song comes into its own only if it is understood that the singer is singing it to himself. It is he himself who most urgently needs the reminder of that kind of love he ought to be expressing and practicing. After all, anyone can grasp the import of St. Paul’s words, but who can hold onto the spirit of those words very long with the the darkness of this world pressing at every turn? It is, if you like, the “man in the mirror” who constantly needs the admonition not to give in to the temptation of “a watered-down love.”

Love that’s pure, it don’t make no false claims,
Intercedes for you ’stead of casting the blame,
Will not deceive you, lead you into transgression,
Won’t write it up and make you sign a false confession.

This love won’t lead you into transgression in the first place. So, for Governor Sanford, this is a song to which he could well listen not to remind him of his mistress but instead to remind him of that love which he (perhaps only temporarily) forgot to practice when it came to his own family.

…

Now, as far as the relationship between Sanford and his Argentinian lover goes, there is no doubt some very real pain involved for both of the individuals concerned. You can’t read those emails without believing that there was something genuine — however stupid — going on between those two. Perhaps they might find a little cathartic solace in this song by the great Paddy McAloon (of the British group Prefab Sprout), called The End of the Affair.

Some of the lyrics:

In bed beside you with the curtains drawn
For an hour at least I can pretend we’re born
To be together and fate alone is keeping me from you
But there’s a price we pay when we live a lie
And you find it hard to meet my eye
When you start to dress as we kiss goodbye
And I know we’re coming to

I could love you till the stars don’t shine
But I’m not yours and you’re not mine

(And Paddy threw this tour-de-force away on a b-side — go figure.)

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I know I’m guilty of having my strange kind of fun with this story here, but I do wish the Sanfords well in saving their marriage. And indeed, charity demands no less …

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