Pageants and Celebrations
03/06/12 05:26
As I sit down to write this morning, it is about 11:30 a.m. in London, where crowds are braving wind and rain to get to just the right spot on the River Thames to watch the River pageant. Some of the people have been camped out alongside the river for 24 hours or more. The flotilla of over 1,000 boats festooned with flowers will feature the royal barge with the royal family as its centerpiece. Commentators say that there has been nothing like it for centuries along the river. As many as 20,000 people will be on the boats themselves. The entire show is being coordinated and some boats were turned away from the flotilla in order to make the show run smoothly. The pace of the flotilla will be set by rowing craft that will lead the procession down the river, followed by the royal barge with the Queen and over 10,000 flowers. Next will come historic craft of many different kinds. It should be quite a show.
Although bright sunlight might show off all of the gold leaf that has been used to festoon the royal barge, rainy weather probably won’t dampen the spirits of all of those gathered to celebrate. Londoners are used to the rain.
We had a wonderful and sunny drive home from Aberdeen yesterday. The weather was perfect for our little South Dakota road trip. Good conversation made the miles pass quickly and we were at our home by 8 p.m. As we approached the hills, we could see that they were shrouded with thunderclouds. We didn’t notice many flashes of lightning, but we could see that it was raining in many areas. We had the car unloaded before the rain started here. It was just right to freshen the grass and trees and garden.
Next came the real treat. As the storm clouds blew off to the east, the sky was very dark in that direction. Meanwhile there was a sliver of sunset under the clouds to the west, which set up a gorgeous horizon-to-horizon double rainbow. It was stunning. I reached for my camera, but I’m not the most skilled of photographers, and I don’t have a lens that captures as wide an angle as would be required to get the entire rainbow in a single frame. Still the pictures are a reminder of how beautiful it was.
Even the grandest of our celebrations pales in comparison to the spectacle of nature.
I am not a big follower of British royals. I have no aspirations to live in a monarchy. I think that much of the expense and attention paid to the jubilee seems a bit silly. But I do like boats. I would have gone to some effort to look at the procession of boats if I happened to be in London for the celebration. I did check out some of the pictures on the live camera from BBC this morning.
It seems as if the people of England are simply looking for a reason to celebrate. The Queen’s diamond jubilee gives them an opportunity to come together for a party. In a time of economic stress, high unemployment, long deployments of troops in a war that seems to have no end, and other problems people need some ways to come together and celebrate. It is a demonstration of British patriotism and the celebration of the long life of a popular queen.
We all look forward to events and occasions to celebrate. It is one of the joys of living a life immersed in the cycles of the Christian year. We know that there are festival days that come each year. My life is organized by anticipation of Christmas and Easter, but also by the coming of Pentecost and the long journey leading up to the celebration of the reign of Christ.
Reign of Christ Sunday, the last Sunday before the beginning of Advent, has been deeply influenced by the Church of England and the authority of the royals. In England, the Queen is not only the head of state. She is also the head of the Church of England. Although this queen doesn’t take a very heavy-handed role in the day-to-day operations of the church, there have been, in the past, kings who assumed direct leadership, sometimes in conflict with bishops and other church leaders. The language we use in our churches is deeply influenced by the language of the British monarchy. The King James Version of the Bible, commissioned to use language that would reflect the structure of British hierarchy and the authority of earthly kings, remains very popular in our churches today despite the fact that it was banned from the Mayflower and its use was frowned upon in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The roots of our church were an attempt to protest against the structure of authority in the Church of England, but we cannot deny the influence of that church that remains in our everyday life. The use of the word “Lord” as an English translation for the Hebrew YHWH and as a title for Jesus is directly related to medieval social order in Europe, but has come to have much different meaning for most contemporary Christians in our country.
What we do know is that as individuals we long to belong to something that is bigger than ourselves. We want to be a part of a history that began before our birth and will continue long beyond the span of our earthly life. We want to stand in line with previous generations and look forward to generations yet to come. It has been the desire of people from the beginnings of Biblical history. The story of Abram and Sarai begins with a mention of those who came before and is driven by the promise of future generations. Thousands of years later we tell their story as a way of identifying our family of faith and rekindling our sense of promise and hope for the future.
I won’t be celebrating the jubilee. I won’t be paddling or rowing today. But I will be paying a little bit of attention.
Everybody enjoys a good party.
We had a wonderful and sunny drive home from Aberdeen yesterday. The weather was perfect for our little South Dakota road trip. Good conversation made the miles pass quickly and we were at our home by 8 p.m. As we approached the hills, we could see that they were shrouded with thunderclouds. We didn’t notice many flashes of lightning, but we could see that it was raining in many areas. We had the car unloaded before the rain started here. It was just right to freshen the grass and trees and garden.
Next came the real treat. As the storm clouds blew off to the east, the sky was very dark in that direction. Meanwhile there was a sliver of sunset under the clouds to the west, which set up a gorgeous horizon-to-horizon double rainbow. It was stunning. I reached for my camera, but I’m not the most skilled of photographers, and I don’t have a lens that captures as wide an angle as would be required to get the entire rainbow in a single frame. Still the pictures are a reminder of how beautiful it was.
Even the grandest of our celebrations pales in comparison to the spectacle of nature.
I am not a big follower of British royals. I have no aspirations to live in a monarchy. I think that much of the expense and attention paid to the jubilee seems a bit silly. But I do like boats. I would have gone to some effort to look at the procession of boats if I happened to be in London for the celebration. I did check out some of the pictures on the live camera from BBC this morning.
It seems as if the people of England are simply looking for a reason to celebrate. The Queen’s diamond jubilee gives them an opportunity to come together for a party. In a time of economic stress, high unemployment, long deployments of troops in a war that seems to have no end, and other problems people need some ways to come together and celebrate. It is a demonstration of British patriotism and the celebration of the long life of a popular queen.
Reign of Christ Sunday, the last Sunday before the beginning of Advent, has been deeply influenced by the Church of England and the authority of the royals. In England, the Queen is not only the head of state. She is also the head of the Church of England. Although this queen doesn’t take a very heavy-handed role in the day-to-day operations of the church, there have been, in the past, kings who assumed direct leadership, sometimes in conflict with bishops and other church leaders. The language we use in our churches is deeply influenced by the language of the British monarchy. The King James Version of the Bible, commissioned to use language that would reflect the structure of British hierarchy and the authority of earthly kings, remains very popular in our churches today despite the fact that it was banned from the Mayflower and its use was frowned upon in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The roots of our church were an attempt to protest against the structure of authority in the Church of England, but we cannot deny the influence of that church that remains in our everyday life. The use of the word “Lord” as an English translation for the Hebrew YHWH and as a title for Jesus is directly related to medieval social order in Europe, but has come to have much different meaning for most contemporary Christians in our country.
What we do know is that as individuals we long to belong to something that is bigger than ourselves. We want to be a part of a history that began before our birth and will continue long beyond the span of our earthly life. We want to stand in line with previous generations and look forward to generations yet to come. It has been the desire of people from the beginnings of Biblical history. The story of Abram and Sarai begins with a mention of those who came before and is driven by the promise of future generations. Thousands of years later we tell their story as a way of identifying our family of faith and rekindling our sense of promise and hope for the future.
I won’t be celebrating the jubilee. I won’t be paddling or rowing today. But I will be paying a little bit of attention.
Everybody enjoys a good party.