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.

 

   

 

        

 

The Stubborn Sin of Human Hate: When Will We Change?

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."    --Nelson Mandela

It’s hard to turn around these days and not be confronted by hate, by the sin of human hatred: in acts of hate carried out by one human being upon other, by one group of people upon another group. Three hate stories are really haunting me now. I just can’t shake them.

There is the rise of acts of hatred and violence against Asian-Americans, the shootings in Atlanta, the random and frightening attacks on the streets of our cities. There is the ongoing trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd last year. A white knee pressed against a black neck, nine minutes of suffering and then Floyd was gone.  Then there’s this awful story out of Duxbury, Massachusetts, where the high school football team, for reasons I just cannot fathom, have been using anti-Semitic language in their play calling, casually tossing out the term “Auschwitz” before the ball is snapped.  WHAT!?!?

I just don’t get human hatred, human bias, human intolerance when it comes to how some feel called to treat fellow children of God. Maybe it’s because of the faith I try and practice, a faith that teaches me every son and daughter of God, everyone, is created in the image of God, in the likeness of God. So, when I hate another, in a way I hate God. I deface and mar the part of God that resides in every single human heart and soul and person.

I don’t understand hate because—and here’s a confession—I’ve never experienced hate, not at all, not once, not ever in the sixty years I’ve lived. White, I’ve never been discriminated against or threatened because of my skin color. Straight, I’ve never been dismissed as “less than” because of whom I choose to love.  Christian, I’ve never been told the way I worship is wrong or false. Male, I’ve never been leered at or groped or been denied any of my rights, because I have an X and Y chromosome rather than two X’s. This lack of experience must somehow breed a lack of empathy. Maybe that’s why, according to the FBI, of the 8,552 hate crimes reported in 2019, 52.5 percent were committed by whites; that’s double the next closest number.

And so, hate: it just is that most stubborn and intractable of sins, of human brokenness. To see the other, not a person, but as an “it”, and therefore to hate that person or hurt that person even take away that person’s life and why? Because they are different. Because they are a threat (real or perceived) to someone’s privilege in the world. Because we are all potentially blind to one truth. The “other” is not the “other”. The other is you, is me, is everyone. We are all equally worthy of love and respect and all because of how and who God makes us to be.  Period.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela is right: hate isn’t somehow buried in our DNA or living in our bones. No. Hate is taught. Hate is a learned behavior. Hate is passed on from one generation to the next. Hate is fomented by xenophobic self-serving politicians and leaders. They use the language and actions of hatred to stir up and exploit the fears of those they claim as followers. They hate because it serves their thirst for personal power. 

So, perhaps, if hate is taught, then love can be taught too. Love, to combat hatred. Love, to reveal the ignorance and falseness of prejudice and stereotypes and bias. Love, to see, not a stranger in the person we share this world with, but instead a friend we’ve yet to meet. I’m crazy enough to believe with all my heart and soul that love will finally vanquish, once and for all, the human desire to hate and to hurt.

I’m also crazy enough to have faith and hope, in the generation of humans that are coming up behind me, the young and the younger, the hopeful and the justice committed. Maybe this is the generations who will finally bring us ever closer to the day of love for all, no one left out. Some days I feel like I must apologize for the actions of my age group! Thank goodness that one age and time are now moving us off the stage and that a new age and time are now ushering in a group to lead us and to teach us how to love.

The difference in attitudes sometimes, between oldsters like me and those youngsters is startling and stark. So many of the young people I know either don’t see differences or when they do see differences, they celebrate that God created a human tapestry. They dare to believe these threads can be woven into the whole cloth of a beloved community.

I don’t get the need to hate. I do get the duty for all of us to love. What a day it will be when hate becomes a distant memory and love becomes the law, and not just in the world but in every single human heart too.

No more hate. I can dream, can’t I? Can’t we? Let’s get to work.

                 

                  

Hello Spring! It's Great to Hear From You Again.

“The day God created spring was probably also the day God created hope.”--Bernard Williams, philosopher                

It is a sound I associate with pure joy. With rebirth.  With hope. A sound that evokes in me that most immediate and happy of responses. My heart leaps, my spirit soars, my soul calms when the notes of this springy tune tickle my ear. It is a sound all too easy to take for granted, but is, for many of us in the northern climes of the United States, the sound of spring.

Now you might name the sweet whistle of an American Robin as your spring sound. You wouldn’t be wrong. With its distinctive tweet, the red breasted robin’s short and quick song, that always ends on a high note, certainly lays claim to being a harbinger of the second season. Nor would you be off base to name the radio call of your first Red Sox baseball game of the year, your spring sound. Joe Castiglione’s voice, with his mellifluous and dependable delivery of play by play, for almost 40 springs now; it a spring symphony for many the fan. Maybe your sound is the click clack of your bicycle chain as it shifts gears, sounding a bit clunky, as it adjusts to being on the road again after six months of hibernation in a chilly garage.

I have a special love for spring sounds and for all sounds really, perhaps more so than any of my other God-given senses and the gifts these offer me. As a young boy, ear infections and benign tumors in the bone behind my right ear necessitated surgery; that produced scar tissue and that took away almost half of my hearing.  So, straining to hear in a noisy setting or positioning myself in a room or a crowd to hear better: it reminds me often of how grateful I am to just be able to hear. To listen. To be still and enjoy the sounds of life. The sounds of spring.

Oh, almost forgot…my cherished spring sound?

Peepers peeping: the sound of tiny tree frogs sending out mating calls at dusk from the wetlands and swamps found all over New England.  Officially the peeper is called the Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer), an amphibious creature that makes a big sound for such a diminutive animal: they are about the size of a paper clip. They gather by the hundreds in cool and wet woodlands, awakening from their winter slumbers to herald the return of spring. Their distinctive “trill” sounds like…well, like peepers. When all those peepers peep at once, they offer such a familiar and comforting sound, their peeps combined provide a spring soundtrack. This is my absolute favorite spring sound.

So, the other night, as I set off on my daily walk just as the sun was setting, for the first time in a long time, since last October, the peepers returned, and they called out to me. Maybe you heard them too. In that sacred moment, winter was permanently banished, and spring returned to its rightful natural throne. That sound makes me want to take in and then let out a deep breath, to breathe a sigh of relief, for the peepers are telling me and all of us, that we made it through our winter of discontent, and may even be getting to the other side of a very, very long and trying year.

Apologies for those spring sounds there is not enough space to write about here. Like lawn mowers chugging and leaf blowers whining and ice cream trucks dinging. Don’t forget the sounds of youth sports games, the cheer of parents and grandparents rising up into a blue sky, and the shrill sound of the ref’s whistle—that is spring, absolutely. What else am I missing? Oh, yes: the sound of a chilly spring breeze as it blows through the budding canopies of the trees—with a ssshhhhh and whoosh.

What sound marks spring for you?

In the spring, in all seasons, there are so many lovely sounds to appreciate, to just listen to, sounds that mark the passage of time and sounds that somehow ground us on this earth. The sounds of each of the seasons remind us of one final miracle: the turning of this world, the yearly chance at redemption we receive from God in the gift of spring and all the ways this season of new life speaks to us and calls out to us.

Spring seems to say, “You can always begin again. Just listen to the peepers.”

Thank you, God. Thank you, spring.