At 5:30 AM this morning, my family was huddled on the couch watching the first British coronation in 70 years—and the last great ceremonial coronation in the world.
Thank you for this beautiful piece. I quoted you in my own essay on the coronation. I very much felt when I was watching the ceremony the truth of what you write: "The Coronation was a reminder that we were once a civilization that believed in something." This was richly evident in all of the ritual moments, this feeling that there used to be another way of seeing the world, a way of seeing that understood the value of ritual in bringing people together as a part of something far greater, and far vaster, than any individual. These ritual moments of the coronation unsettled the lie of the modern age - that we are interchangeable cogs in a meaningless secular world. I think that, most of all, is why some people rail so strenuously against it.
Beautiful. So true that it is the institution not the person. The Royal personages have been flawed but the institution deeply Christian. It is to be hoped that the Windsor’s will listen to the traditional voices not the ones who cite polls on popularity. It is the institution that keep our systems of government all be them imperfect and corrupt from faltering and descending into complete anarchy. I wonder if it is coincidental that the WHO pronounced the scamdemic over on the King’s coronation? A curious coincidence. We would have been spared the heartbreaking picture of Her Majesty the Queen huddled in St George’s chapel mourning alone without a family member to be close to her.
A brilliant take.
Thank you for this beautiful piece. I quoted you in my own essay on the coronation. I very much felt when I was watching the ceremony the truth of what you write: "The Coronation was a reminder that we were once a civilization that believed in something." This was richly evident in all of the ritual moments, this feeling that there used to be another way of seeing the world, a way of seeing that understood the value of ritual in bringing people together as a part of something far greater, and far vaster, than any individual. These ritual moments of the coronation unsettled the lie of the modern age - that we are interchangeable cogs in a meaningless secular world. I think that, most of all, is why some people rail so strenuously against it.
Thank you very much--I appreciate it!
Eloquently described and analyzed. Bloody Brilliant 😉
Thank you!
Beautiful. So true that it is the institution not the person. The Royal personages have been flawed but the institution deeply Christian. It is to be hoped that the Windsor’s will listen to the traditional voices not the ones who cite polls on popularity. It is the institution that keep our systems of government all be them imperfect and corrupt from faltering and descending into complete anarchy. I wonder if it is coincidental that the WHO pronounced the scamdemic over on the King’s coronation? A curious coincidence. We would have been spared the heartbreaking picture of Her Majesty the Queen huddled in St George’s chapel mourning alone without a family member to be close to her.