Our Queens and Kings

If you're going to have a monarch, you couldn't do better than Queen Elizabeth II, who never got in the way, took the world's vicissitudes forever in stride, and offered, always, a lovely warm smile. Despite her incredible reign, she was--as King Charles III will be-- an anachronism. No really substantive reason exists for having a monarchy anymore, the royals, in point of fact, having no substantive power. Yet, even as we speak, England waits in huge lines to say goodbye to their beloved queen. It's an amazing thing.

We've been reading, slowly, through the early David stories, stories as much about his predecessor, King Saul, who was impossibly hard to understand. Some scholars of holy writ believe he carried an undiagnosed mental illness. Of course, from the get-go God almighty didn't want him--He, God almighty, was the only King his people needed. But the people wanted to be normal. They looked around at all the Amelkites and Hittites and Jebuzites and assumed they needed a king too. So the Lord God took pity on them and had Samuel (what a life he had!) do the honors of naming this tall, dark, and handsome Israelite to be the very first Jewish king. 

That didn't turn out well, but it did usher in a new monarch, a boy with a sling, the Bible says, the man closest to God's own heart, the fabled King David, poet and a musician, a man savvy enough to know when he needed top-shelf advisors like General Joab to run things he had trouble running, like wars and the military.

In our house, the television is on for news in the morning, then again at lunch and supper, and at ten. Sometimes it plays as background noise, as it was yesterday when suddenly the Queen's body was brought into Westminster Hall, where the sheer beauty of the place was royally enhanced by the stunning voices of the choir. Take a minute and listen in.   

It's all akin to King David, really, who had his most poignant moments in prayers the world will never stop praying--like Psalm 23 or 100, or the pageant of nature in 104. But, good Lord, the man suffered too--"Absalom, Absalom. . 

But then the news is full of royalty these days. When it doesn't feature something from or in Great Britain, it's down at Mara Lago or somewhere in the Ukraine, where two men fiercely want to be king. There's a war on--and, if you listen to the news at someplace other than FOX, Putin seems not to be doing well right now, which is not difficult to understand, given the odd reason he's given for Russia's being there--his romance with 19th century Russian history, a weird dream that spends lives like plugged nickels. It's mad. It's insane. Talk about anachronism.

The other would-be king, the Donald, has no sense of history, and the purposeful dignity of a bully. What he cares about is power, his. Even though there's not a thing about him that's royal, he wants to be King because people bowing to him is somehow comforting. He threw a temper tantrum when someone with a camera caught him on the golf course, zombie-like, without his royal orange makeup.

The dramatic arts include only two genres--comedy and tragedy. Well, maybe three: we should mention farce. 

What's what? Go ahead. You call it.