Of all the sweeping ceremonial moments that marked officialdom’s farewell to the United Kingdom’s longest-serving monarch, the essential interval arrived mere moments before Queen Elizabeth’s coffin slipped beneath the floor at St. George’s Chapel.
Then, before the assembled extended family at Windsor Castle and in rarefied silence, the continuity of the Almighty in the nation’s life was reaffirmed.
Here it was in disarming simplicity, a grand, inspiring, breathtaking scene that embraced an all-important truth: the moment when the symbols of the sovereign’s office — scepter, orb, and crown — were lifted from the queen’s casket and surrendered back into the Church’s safekeeping, awaiting the next coronation.
It was a sobering gesture that, at least in the British tradition, revered an enduring truth: On Earth, the license to govern descends from God. More than 70 years had passed between such proclamations. Many, no doubt, were due a reminder.
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Yes, it’s all antique symbolism dressed up in jewels and velvet, given the nature of the British throne-keeper’s official authority. But it’s also useful and timely to remember, in Western culture, from whence authority and the rights of human beings come.
Even as we split from England and its medically unhinged king in 1776, we acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence the enduring and overarching source of our rights. We are endowed by our Creator. Similarly, with her service to the realm complete, Queen Elizabeth II returned to the eternal owner that which had been merely on loan.
This was everything. There was no more powerful, meaningful moment in the entirety of the proceedings.
Approaching our midterm elections and beyond, there is much in that defining gesture from which America’s politicians could learn.
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