On March 5, 2020, her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II addressed Great Britain, her Commonwealth, and by extension-- the world. Why her message was so well-received.
My mother and Queen Elizabeth shared a birth-year. And although they were raised an ocean apart and in very different circumstances, it was my mother I heard when I read a transcript of her majesty's address yesterday.
I say that because for all their differences, they were in many ways alike. Their generation had contact with the roar and crash of the Twenties, the starvation and madness of the Thirties; the bitter struggle of Western Civilization in the Forties and the sad dilution of all those experiences learned, by each subsequent generation through the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies and beyond... My mother bemoaned her lost prom-- (a causality of the war); her majesty had to round-up rationing coupons from her family and friends to piece together a wedding dress.
These may feel like fillips we flick-off our hand as trivialities-- but both of these women were young adults at the time, and for them-- these were ghastly realities indeed. But they survived. And in doing so they transcended obsession over the trivial and learned to focus on the pragmatic.
Since my mother was forty before I turned one, my experience was very different than that of my contemporaries; and since I was blessed with grand-aunts who lived to 99 and 105 respectively, I was further blessed with a direct connection to experiences dating back through the Gilded Age. I loved to listen, and sitting in the rocking chair in my mother's bedroom as she sat at her dressing table preparing to go out, I heard so many stories of that period. Likewise from my aunts, who although they abhorred talking about the past, would let little jewels slip out as parts of anecdotal stories.
The picture that formed from the mosaic of these anecdotes was one of determination and sacrifice. Not grim determination and begrudging sacrifice, but resolved determination and effortless sacrifice. When I hear people refer to our president as that man!" All I hear is the appellation applied to Franklin Roosevelt-- "that man in the White House." It's easy to forget that many people loathed Franklin Roosevelt (and likewise Winston Churchill) but that didn't mean they just disregarded their elective leadership because one was a hack apple farmer and patrician from upstate New York, and the other the grandson of a duke who was born with every privilege imaginable, in Blenheim Palace.
Queen Elizabeth resonated on Sunday because she knew Churchill personally, and knew of of Roosevelt from a very reliable secondhand source (Churchill). She resonated because I'm sure as she watches the antics of her grandson Harry and his petulant wife-- she can't help but think. "Really? I had to collect ration coupons to make a wedding dress."
Our current society, for all its sound and fury over equality and inequality; the environment or its demise; rights and privileges, or the denial of rights and privileges-- it all boils down to one unfortunate fact. Selfishness and greed dominate our discourse. For the socialists its corporate and capitalist greed; for the Whigs (Republicans) its re-distributive greed; for libertarians, its governmental greed. But in none of these grabs and pulls for power and money is there any voice of selflessness. Taking from one to give to another is not selflessness-- its larceny. Giving of yourself graciously and asking nothing in return-- that is selflessness; something the Queen has done all her life.
If we want to be good and have rewarding lives, we should use this time to reflect on the fact that our suffering is minimal and our dispossession sublime. We live in a time of true magic and plenty, where poor people have internet and cell phones even in the most dire of nations. Does everyone have everything? No. Is everyone equal in the world? No. Does it matter?
Only if your focus is greed and your concerns are yours alone. If you are selfless and true to yourself and others, you are thankful for what you have when you have it and not worried about what somebody else has that you want either for yourself or faceless, abstract others.
Elizabeth II never wanted to be Queen; she was perfectly happy and prepared to be a navy wife. But fate had other plans for her. Thank heavens for Britain, her Commonwealth (and by extension the rest of the world) fate interceded, and gave her the crown and a long life. It's nice to hear an adult voice of reason tell us to get over ourselves (ever so properly) and carry-on.
God Save the Queen!
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