In the Long Line of Human Life, Reach Back and Lend a Hand

“How many times have I been put at the front of the line without even knowing there was a line? How many times have I walked through a door that opened, invisibly and silently, for me, but slammed shut for others? How many lines have I cut in a life of privilege?”   --Andy Crouch, author

Sometimes getting ahead in this life all depends on where your find yourself standing in line.

Take Verdah Tetteh, a member of Fitchburg High School class of 2021, first in line among her classmates, at least academically. At the school’s June 4^th graduation ceremony Tetteh, a first-generation daughter of her mother from Ghana, was awarded her school’s General Excellence Award, that included a $40,000 scholarship.  The Harvard University bound Tetteh might have been content to just accept the check and head for Cambridge, take the money and run. But then she did the most surprising and selfless of acts.

She gave it all away. Yup. All of it. Every last penny.

Tetteh decided on the spot that day to ask that the school instead award those funds to a fellow classmate in greater financial need than her. A person of deep faith, Tetteh did what most folks do not do when they are standing at the front of the line. In first place. In a place of great advantage. She looked back and knew in her heart that her responsibility was to help the folks who were in the long line behind her.

Said Tetteh, “I am so very grateful for this, but I also know that I am not the one who needs this the most. Knowing my mom went to community college, and how much that was helpful, I would be so very grateful if administration would consider giving the … scholarship to someone who is going to community college.”

What would our world be like if more and more folks like Tetteh remembered just where they stand in the line of life and chose to look back and then do something? Be more generous. Help others to move up in the line. Show mercy. Act with compassion. Maybe even move backwards to stand in solidarity and support with the many at the way, way back of the line.

It’s been a hard year for the people in our world who are at the back of the line. Folks who suffered through COVID, low wage workers who could not afford to stay home, neighbors who had poor access to health care and got sick or died because of this disparity.  That’s a very long line. There’s also the line of racism that tells folks of color they don’t get to move to the front, a line that’s been holding them back for so, so many years. A line that once led to the very back of the bus, not so long ago, not when you look at the long arc of American history. 

Makes me look at where I stand in line.

At the very front, truth be told. I’ve got a great place in line; have since the day I was born. Not once in my long life have I ever been told to go to the back of the line because of my gender or because of my skin color or because of who I choose to love or because of the faith I practice or because of my heritage. Nope. Sometimes I’ve actually been ushered to the front. This way sir!

Our country is caught up right now in a struggle that is at once very new and as old as our republic. Is there really equality of opportunity when it comes to deciding where each of us as citizens get to stand in line? Or are there instead systemic forces that try their best to keep certain people at the back and certain people right up front, behind a velvet VIP rope in fact, first among unequals?

The person who began the faith I try to practice was an infamous line cutter. But the strange thing, is that he always seemed to be moving backwards in line, not forwards. Standing with the powerless and not the fat cats. In his world he chose to be with the poor and the excluded, the orphan and the widow, the sick and the lonely. He knew he could not be truly free, and his world would not be truly just, unless the line was in fact, flipped. Reversed. The first last and the last first, as he once said.

What a crazy guy, huh? Who’d want to live in a world like that?

Where the rich and the powerful, the privileged and the advantaged, have to stand in line like everyone else, maybe even give up their place for someone who does not get the breaks or the perks. People like me at the very front. Maybe like you too. What would this life be like if we all followed Tetteh, as she seemingly took the wrong way on her graduation day? On her way to Harvard but not before taking the hand of another, a fellow child of God, and inviting them to move up in the line.

Thank you Verdah: for your example and for your challenge to others, to all of us, in the line called human life. Something tells me that even before you got into Harvard, with your big heart, you were already first in line.

 

   

    

                  

 

 

 

A Week of Grief and Gratitude For Lives Well Lived

"And it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, ‘til we find ourselves on the path unwinding in the circle of life.”          -- Elton John and Tim Rice, “The Lion King”

One week. Just seven days.

One birth. One death.  One beginning. One ending. One life about to blast off into possibilities unknown and dreams yet unfulfilled. One life concluding, the final note of a life’s song played. It echoed and then it faded and then there was silence.

That was my wonderful and sad, amazing, and heartbreaking week.

So, on a Thursday afternoon, I watched my 23-year-old Goddaughter Chloe graduate from Harvard University, mortar cap affixed to her head and adorned in the flowing robes of an academic career concluded. The fact her family and I watched Chloe do her graduation walk in the TV room of my house, as we viewed the ceremony virtually because of COVID; this took nothing away from the import of that moment, its joy and wonder. 

So, on the following Wednesday afternoon, I visited my 72-year-old friend Manley, and laid my hand on his warm arm, as he lay unconscious in a hospital bed, in the front room of his home. I watched as his chest rose and then fell, as he breathed slowly, in and then out, aware this was probably the last time I would see him. A dear and trusted spiritual teacher, his wisdom and guidance steered me through the hardest times in my life. Manley died about 12 hours later.

Sometimes this life is just too beautiful and too awe-full to understand, to take in all at once. Sometimes our Creator gives us a sacred synchronicity of events like those I experienced, that in their stark contrast, wake us up to the truth that we are all mortal beings. That the gift of life we are given is a miracle, that yes, we all start out fresh from our mother’s womb, all pink and wrinkly and squirming. And yes, we will all one day take in a final lungful of air, and then depart from this earth for mysterious places unknown.

You can’t really prepare yourself for what it is like to arrive at such crossroads. We can anticipate, imagine how these moments might unfold, how we’ll react. But then it happens. As I watched Chloe, my proud “Uncle” heart expanded and grew and I could not help but think back to the cooing and quiet infant that lay gently cradled in my arms, just weeks after her birth.  And as I sat and kept watch with Manley, I was brought back to all the times we sat together, cups of coffee in hand, talking about life, he patiently steering me away from the rocks and the shoals.

It does all go so fast. 

The river of time carries us along swiftly and inexorably and though we might wish for it to slow down, it moves on and on, and so all we can do is enjoy the journey as best as we can. When we are young, of course, we don’t think much, if at all, about death. No. With bodies that seem to be invincible, and thousands of days that we trust still lay before us, we rush headlong into the future. If there is one youthful mistake it is in thinking that we can go on forever. Life is somehow infinite and all that lies before us is tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

But then things turn. Something happens. Our minds shift and our hearts change and our bodies stumble. We realize that the march of days has an end. That this story of life we’re authoring and living: it does have a final chapter. My mortality epiphany might have come on the day we mourned and said goodbye to my father. As I walked alongside the casket in the church, on a warm and sticky August day; as the pallbearers accompanied him on his final journey, I just knew one day I too would be in his place.

If there is one mistake so many of us commit in growing old, it is acting as if we’ve got all the time in the world. We hang on to a grudge and say we’ll get to resolving it one day and then time runs out. We hold back showing our love to others out of fear and then one day, that opportunity has passed. We declare we’ll be happy “when”—as in “when I retire”, or “when I have more time I will…” and then our time ends. 

Seize the day!  If I had but one philosophy to try and live by now that I am into my seventh decade, let it be that.  As the Psalmist writes, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Godspeed Chloe, as you take on the world. I will be cheering you on, every day. And Godspeed Manley. You are on your way to the place Shakespeare called, “the undiscovered country.” I will miss you every day.

And the circle of life continues.

 

     

 

       

 

     

          

Even Now I May Still Mask Up. Call Me Prudent.

Prudence (noun) from the Latin, prudentia, meaning to see ahead.  The ability to govern oneself by the use of reason and foresight.  One of the Four Cardinal virtues, along with Justice, Fortitude and Temperance   --virtuefirst.info, et al

I’m not quite ready to fully discard my mask, not just now, not just yet. Even though, vaccinated, I have nothing that requires me to mask up.   

So, last Saturday when I went into Starbucks for a large dark roast, I still spoke my order through the confines of my jet-black K-94 mask. Last Sunday when I led worship at the church I serve, still, I kept a cloth mask affixed to my face, save for preaching and praying with the congregation. I will absolutely, positively keep wearing a mask for the foreseeable future when visiting with my friends and their one-year-old son Ellis, whether we are inside or outside. When I pay a pastoral call to the bright-eyed parishioner who lives on the memory care unit of a local nursing home: yup, I will be masked. And when I visit with my friend whose immune system is severely compromised, I will have a mask at the ready.

I guess you could say I’m being prudent. Careful. Cautious. Considerate. I hate to admit to this seeming timidity, as I imagine some folks might see my continuing use of a face cover, after I am fully vaxxed. Yes, I know like everyone else in the United States, that two weeks ago week the Centers for Disease Control issued brand new mask recommendations in light of the roll out of the nationwide vaccination program and the hard science that proves the vaccines’ efficacy. The CDC’s new guidelines are simple and clear, stated right on their website.

“If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic. Fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.” Governor Baker affirmed that new directive and so, last Saturday morning, May 29^th, all of us who were vaccinated in the Bay State could enter back into the world sans mask. The exceptions to this rule include hospitals and health care settings, congregate living facilities, prisons, and public and private transportation settings.

It will be a treat to see folks’ full faces once again.  See smiles and listen to speech unfettered and play sports without an annoying mask and hug and kiss loved ones and once again begin to return to social normalcy. I’m already maskless around my vaccinated family and friends. That liberation has been a Godsend, especially for me who lives alone. It’s like a miracle in a way. People coming into and even staying overnight in my home again. It is amazing to hear other voices in my house, to not feel such isolation, as I’ve experienced for more than a year now.

I know my mask hesitancy is not fully logical or rational.  I imagine my more conservative friends or readers might even deem me a liberal snowflake, one who is fragile of spirit. I trust the science behind the CDC’s new rules, absolutely. My head tells me to just quit the mask and to let it go. And like everyone else I am sick of all the little annoyances that have accompanied our nationwide mask up. Having no mask in the car or having 167 masks in the car, as I seem to.  Having to put up with “maskne”, facial acne breakouts that many folks have struggled with.  Buying a mask only to discover it’s too small and barely fits my now chubby face, from all my additional COVID poundage.

I am ready to let go of all that but in a little while, okay? Not so immediately, not so swiftly, not so quickly. I know I am not alone in this reluctance. I talk to lots of folks who also plan to still wear masks outside and are still not ready to eat in at a restaurant and are still holding back from coming to church and are still being very cautious. They remember that COVID has killed more than 18,000 people in Massachusetts, 600,000 in the United States and almost 3.5 million worldwide.  I don’t think it is cowardice or wimpiness to consider such stark statistics when discerning how each of us plans to go about life now.

We’ve all lived in this strange and weird and scary COVID life for a very long time.  When the pandemic state of emergency, declared by Governor Baker on March 10, 2020, ends on June 10^th, it will mark a sobering statistic. That we have endured lockdowns and economic cataclysm and huge social disruptions and illness and death for some 15 months. That’s a good chunk of time. That’s why I think it’s okay if me or you or anyone needs to take extra time to get used to our “new normal”, whatever that will look like.

When it comes to masks I plan to try and be extra kind and patient and compassionate with all those who, for whatever reason, will keep on wearing a mask.  My faith teaches me that mercy and love should mark all my social interactions, with friend and stranger alike, and yes: with the masked and the unmasked too.

Go ahead. Call me Mr. Prudent. 

For the time being, that’s where I choose to stand in this still crazy and odd post-COVID, not all the way there yet, world. To mask or not mask? That is up to you.  That is between you and your conscience and your temperament and maybe even your God. That is the most personal of choices. I respect that.

I pray all of us will respect this choice as well.

                     

        

How to Live to 100? With Love and Gratitude.

“Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.”  --Confucius

One-hundred years old.

Now that is a long life. A very long life. The rarest of human lives.

If you or I were to make it all the way to the day we celebrate our one hundredth year of life on this earth, we’d be very much in the minority. In the world, we’d be among only 573,000 people out of 7.8 billion folks and in the United States, just 97,000 centenarians are alive out of 328 million souls. At 100 you’d also beat average life expectancies: for men in the U.S., it’s 75 years and for women 80 years. The toll of COVID shaved almost a full year off those numbers.

All pointing to one truth: make it to the day you’ll see 100 candles on your cake, and you will be the rarest of souls.

One-hundred years old. Four years ago this Saturday, my grandfather Armand Bolduc died, after a long and very good life of 103 years. To put that number into perspective, I was blessed by God to have a grandfather until I was 56 years old! On the day he left this earth, he left behind four children, 17 grandchildren, 29 great grandchildren and one great great grandchild. He also out lived two wives, both of whom he loved very much.

Having attained my sixtieth year not so long ago, that big day made me wonder: what would I have to do to get on the same calendar as Grandpa? To live until the year 2064? I know chances are very much that I won’t. Most of us will not live so long and yet: there has got to be something special in the lives of centenarians that gets them to triple digits in age. 

There are obvious health factors. Don’t smoke. Drink and eat with care. Everything in moderation: that was my Grandfather’s go-to piece of life advice when asked. Get out and exercise regularly. My Grandfather never took up any formal physical activity regime, though he did bicycle most days while in his seventies and eighties, for errands around his home on the Florida Keys. That no doubt helped in his aging process. It obviously helps to have dependable healthcare and so I thank God for Medicare that took such good care of him and right now is also taking very good care of Grandpa’s soon to be 86-year-old daughter, my Mom. Watch out for high-risk activities. Grandpa wasn’t a sky diver or a race car driver though he did love to drive fast and fun cars, his first being a Ford Model T. These are all obvious longevity factors, I suppose.

But I think the best life and the longest of lives are also marked by intangibles, circumstances and life disciplines that can’t be measured on an actuarial table. To love and to be loved fully, faithfully, and generously: I’ve no doubt that this made Grandpa a healthier and happier person.  There is something so debilitating about a lack of love in this life and loneliness, absolutely. I wonder and worry about how many of our senior neighbors and friends and family member this COVID year have lost years of life, for lack of simple human contact. Human touch. Face to face conversation. Hugs and kisses from adult children and grandchildren. Shared meals around a common table. I pray coming out of COVID we might recommit ourselves to such simple and lifesaving actions of the heart.

So too I imagine faith—faith in something bigger than yourself, faith in God; it must be of help to living a rich life in the fullest sense. The best faith reminds us daily of the need for gratitude in all circumstances and of our responsibility to love our neighbors. Grandpa rarely if ever missed Catholic Mass on Sundays and often during the week he would also watch a service on TV. His was not a faith of cliché platitudes or showiness: no.  He loved his God in quietude and commitment and lived out his faith in humility. There’s a life lesson for all of us.

But in watching how my grandfather lived, I’d say that one thing, more than any other, brought him into his tenth decade on earth and then some. He appreciated each day as a gift from God, every day. The great ones where life is sweet and kind and easy and the hard ones too, when life is a slog or painful or difficult. It helped him to have lived through two world wars and the Depression and having been widowed twice in life. I think he knew just how precious this life is, all the days, not one left out or wasted. In my phone calls to him later in his life, I’d always ask, “How are you!” and he’d always answer, “Good! I woke up and I put my feet on the floor. That’s a good day.”

Hard to believe he’s been gone now, four years on.  His life makes me want to pray for all people, that they too might have someone special like him in this life, a kind and good soul, who teaches us about how to live a good life and how to live well every day, until that one day we die. He certainly gave that gift to me. 

Will any of us live to 100? The few, the very few. Me? I’m just trying to live my best in this one God-given day. It’s the only one I have. The only day any of us have.  And that’s a good and a beautiful thing.      

Thanks Grandpa. I miss you. Love you!

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn (pilgrimsherborn.org).  If you have a word or idea you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org or in care of The Dover-Sherborn Press (Dover-Sherborn@cnc.com).

 

 

        

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IT'S BAAAAAACK! Damn This Traffic Jam.

“Well I left my job, About five o'clock, It took fifteen minutes, To go three blocks, Just in time, To stand in line, With a freeway looking, Like a parking lot. Damn this traffic jam....” --James Taylor

“BEEP!!!!!” 

I beeped my car horn last Friday, while sitting in an epic traffic jam on Route 128, at that most hellish of times for auto congestion, the late Friday afternoon commute. Folks all rushing to get home or rushing to get to the Cape or rushing to get to the mall or rushing to get to their kid’s sports game or just rushing for the sake of rushing, I suppose. With white knuckled grips upon the steering wheel, we commuters started and stopped and rolled and halted in an all too familiar vehicular dance.

Cars and trucks were backed up as far as I could see, behind and in front of me. I sounded my horn when an errant BMW SUV cut me off, zooming by on my right, in my blind spot; hence the toot. But he or she only made forward progress for a car length or two because very quickly they were also at a dead stop in that sea of vehicles, a tsunami of packed and idling pick-up trucks and sedans and minivans and delivery trucks, lined up from horizon to horizon.

Damn this traffic jam.

The odd thing, the telling truth of this story is that it was the very first time I’d found myself trapped in this kind of traffic since March of 2020, some fourteen months. Like everyone else in our COVID times, I’ve lived a largely traffic free existence for some 400 days. In those carefree times of driving without delay, I glided with nary another car around, down a quiet Route 93. I maneuvered like a silent and meditating monk over the Mass Pike. I vroomed up to Vermont on deserted stretches of Route 89. I even zipped right through the middle of downtown Boston and found a parking space without a hassle. That’s a miracle!

It was driving bliss then. But now? Traffic is back.  Big time. 

According to statistics from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, at the height of COVID’s grip on our state, traffic was down by a whopping sixty percent in April 2020. But one year later, we are all back behind the wheel, it would seem. By mid-last month, traffic was down by only about ten percent. And now in mid-May? Full on traffic has returned, as if it never missed a beat, was hiding and just waiting to make its comeback. 

So too returned is my high blood pressure and scrunched up shoulders and fuming frustration that always manifest in a driving slowdown or a terrible traffic jam. I fiddle with the radio. I call 511 on my phone to get the latest traffic update. I listen to my book on tape in the hope that it can soothe the savage beast just below the surface of my spirit. It cries out. “LET ME OUT OF THIS TRAFFIC! NOW!”  But the traffic gods are fickle and so I sit. I wait. I watch as the time to arrival estimate on my GPS goes up and up and up.

There are so many realities that were and still are just awful when it comes to our COVID lives. So many deaths. So much sickness. So many unemployed. So many businesses shuttered, and houses of worship closed and ball games cancelled and face to face visits with loved ones curtailed. Like everyone else I want to escape the weird times we’ve been living in. Yet I also confess I’m a bit anxious about our return to the status quo.

Because if COVID has taught us anything it is this: there was some grace to be found in how much our world slowed down and our lives opened, and how we had space to breathe in this past year. To clear out and simplify the calendar. To spend so much more precious time with the people in our households. To be reminded of just how important our relationships are in this life: with family whom we’ve zoomed with weekly, and friends we’ve shared driveway cocktails with, and jobs made less stressful when performed from home.

And with traffic that went away.

I’m not saying we should go back somehow, no. Absolutely not. But I am wistful about what we are losing and seem on track to return to in the coming months. Busyness. Rushing. Stress. Already cries of “I’m so busy!” and “My schedule is jam packed!” and “My weekends are booked solid!” are becoming the norm again in conversations. What a gift it would be if we could leave COVID behind but retain some of the space, the amazing space, and the extra time and the quiet and the simplicity we were given in the fourteen months just passed.

That’s what I was thinking about last Friday, as I sat in my car, averaging a top speed of four miles per hour. 

Damn this traffic jam.

 

           

            

  

    

 

When It Comes to Being Snobby, Is Massachusetts Really #1?!

Snob (noun) 1. one who tends to rebuff, avoid, or ignore those regarded as inferior. 2. one who has an offensive air of superiority in matters of knowledge or taste.  --Merriam-Webster.com

I’ve got some bad news. Or good news, depending on where you think you stand in this life.

According to the job search website zippia.com, Massachusetts is the snobbiest of the fifty United States.  That’s right. We’re number one in our overly inflated view of ourselves here in the Bay State. How zippia (sounds like a food delivery service--We get it to you ZIPPIA!) came to this conclusion is a bit suspect. Here’s their criteria: percentage of population with bachelor’s degrees, percentage of degree holders who studied arts and humanities, number of Ivy League colleges, and the kicker, 21 bottles of wine consumed yearly.

Thus, if I went to Harvard and studied art history while slugging back 4.1 gallons of wine, I’m a snob. Apologies if you fit this description. I don’t think I’m a snob. I went to UMass, studied English (strike 1), and stuck to drinking mostly Rolling Rock beers for my four years there and yes, it was a lot more than 525 ounces of Latrobe Pennsylvania’s golden hued libation per year. Okay—libation is kind of a snobby word, but back to the insult that we here in Massachusetts are like the two guys on the Grey Poupon mustard TV commercial.

When I ask friends not born here, if we are in fact snobby, they’re often quick to answer “Well, yes!” There’s our nickname for Boston: “the Hub”, as in the absolute center of the universe, a description penned by poet and Harvard man Oliver Wendell Holmes. We’ve also called ourselves the Athens of America, the Cradle of Liberty and Titletown, for all the sports championships we’ve won lately. But ask a Chicagoan or New Yorker if Boston really is the Hub and they’ll chuckle and point out that Beantown could easily fit into one of the neighborhoods in the Windy City or the Big Apple. Or the fact the New York Yankees have won twenty-seven world championships to our nine and they stole Babe Ruth too.

The Hub? Maybe not.

If snobbery is marked by thinking of yourself as better than others…do we really fit the bill? Do we sound like snobs, speak with a Boston Brahmin Kennedy-esque accent as in “chowdah” or do we actually speak like most of my relatives from Dorchester? You know, “Haavad”, and “cah”, and labeling everything as wicked good. That’s what I think of when it comes to our home. Not so high-falutin.

There’s also the fact Massachusetts claims more Dunkin’ Donuts per capita than any other state, one for every 6,072 people. What’s more down to earth than coffee in an orange emblazoned Styrofoam cup and yes, the first DDs opened in Quincy in 1950. Or that we invented Marshmallow Fluff, right here too, in Somerville. Or that we have a state polka, “Say Hello to Someone from Massachusetts.” Take that zippia!

And perhaps what might be the anti-snobbery fact that brings us back to earth: the plastic pink flamingo, was invented right here, in 1957, in Leominster, Massachusetts.  If that isn’t downscale, and tacky and goofy, well nothing is. And yet….

Harvard University was the very first college for higher education, founded here in 1636 and the Boston Latin school is even older, established in Boston in 1635. Does the truth that we Bay Staters highly value education and knowledge make us snobby? Or what of the cliches about Harvard’s hometown? Some say it is the most opinionated zip code in America and others call it the People’s Republic of Cambridge. Lefties and liberals and progressive like me: we do tend to be self-righteous, even overly smug about our “rightness”, while driving around in our bumper sticker covered Volvos and Priuses, our feet shod in Birkenstocks, a six pack of the latest craft beer cooling in the backseat.

Maybe zippia is right! Who knows?

Let’s confess and own up to this: snobbishness is true for some and a false label for others. The ultimate truth is that no matter what the size of your bank account, no matter how posh your family tree might be, no matter how refined your accent is, no matter what school you went to, in the eyes of God, all those human-made distinctions are moot.  Don’t matter at all. The God I know creates us all, not for self-righteousness, but for humility, as in being down to earth.  Harvard or Holyoke Community College?  I don’t really care. And most of the folks I know don’t get caught up in the race to the top of the heap either.  I put my pants on one leg at a time and I know that you do too. Unless of course they’re Velcro.    

Now, please excuse me. I need to sit out in my flamingo laden front yard and enjoy a fluffernutter, washed down by a large DD’s iced coffee, as I listen to the Sox on the radio.

Have you heard? They are a wicked good team this year!

 

       

 

 

 

Our Odd Fascination with All Things Royal: Not My Cup of Tea

 “All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.” –The Adventures of Huckleberry, Mark Twain

I don’t get all the attention so many of us give to the royal family in Great Britain. There, I said it. I confess my anti-royal bias. I await banishment to the dungeon by my Anglophile friends.

Why all the fuss we seem to make whenever there is a kerfuffle or change in the House of Windsor? It’s sad, yes, that England’s Prince Philip died at the age of 99 earlier this month, but does that event really merit so much media attention, front page coverage everywhere, from the Boston Globe to the New York Times to practically every other major newspaper? Or the dust up over Prince Harry and his American wife Megan Markle, and their decision to renounce their royalty and move to Los Angeles. And I should care because…? But Oprah interviews them and the ratings are through the roof as 17.3 million American TV sets are tuned in. Glued to the news, about the scandals and backbiting and palace racism, that shouldn’t be too surprising as the royals embody WASP privilege on steroids.

I really don’t give a whit about royalty except to say how anachronistic it is, at least to me, how irrelevant and kind of weird it feels to ascribe powers and pomp to someone, and all because of their genes, the luck of their birth, the lineage they claim. How odd is that? To think that someone is better than me, could actually rule over me, and all because they and their ilk have been swimming in the same small gene pool for a thousand years, or something like that.

Yet the world still loves its monarchs. As of 2019, 44 nations claim a monarch as head of state. These rulers come in all shapes and sizes and histories. There’s Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, who also rules the Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, etc.). Or the King of Saudi Arabia, who rules his land, a theocracy, with fear and violence, as he also bathes in obscene wealth. Then there’s the Pope, who is considered the “king” of the Vatican State. He rules over 825 people, to be exact, in a country that’s 109 acres from stem to stern. Kind of weird, huh?

Of course, we in the states threw off the shackles of royal rule in 1776. Our nation was born in a revolt against the idea that a sovereign is somehow selected by God to have absolute power to rule over his or her subjects. Even though such autocratic rulers are now the exception and not the rule, and even though most kings and queens are now more figureheads than actual governing authorities, kind of like paid living statues, it is still strange that royalty lives on so strongly in 2021, this fascination with royals.

Royal worship in our country is most concentrated in Maine, according to Google search trends for queries about Prince Philip in the past month. Massachusetts is right up there at number four in the United States, which I wouldn’t expect from a place that was once the heart of anti-royalty fervor in our country. Why such kingly care, queenly curiosity, royal reverence?

Got me. 

I’ve always been a bit creeped out by worship or adulation for any one human being: kings, queens, politicians, athletes, or Kardashians. In election season, when crowds of political acolytes fawn over candidates, swoon as they take selfies, and preen to get on camera, I’m perplexed as to why anyone would raise up to demigod status another person. Especially someone who uses their power, not to serve the people wisely, kindly or with wisdom, but instead rules with contempt, imperiousness, and arrogance. Kings and Queens and royal wannabees are mere mortals, subject to the temptation for human power just like anyone else.

Royalty once claimed, “the divine right of kings.” This is the political doctrine that declared sovereigns could not be held accountable to any earthly power for any of their actions and thus only answered to God. Look at the wreckage of European history, the royal intermarriages, the jockeying for earthly power, and the wars begun by royals for petulant or selfish reasons and it’s clear the price the world has paid for this form of government.

In the faith I practice, there is no divine right for any man or woman. Humankind is instead created as equal across the board, as loved and precious and good, no matter where you come from or what your background is or who you love or how you look…you get the idea. Royalty is the antithesis of God created egalitarianism. If God has favorites, I think it would be the powerless, not the powerful; the poor and not the royal rich; the throneless, the ones our world seems unable or unwilling to pay attention to, even as monarchs still make us gaga.

Here’s the extent of my royal worship: watching “The Crown” on Netflix. It’s good soap opera-ish, dramatic and funny and smart TV.  As to the rest of royal drama? 

Not my cup of tea.