A wedding in London, U.K.
From Ted in Alaska: “Was there a wedding or something today?”
My reply: “Yes. And hundreds of thousands of poor people died of malnutrition”
From a former parishioner, Joseph Anderson: "What if we cared about the hungry as much as we do about a wedding and a birth certificate?"
From my nephew Mike Povey in England: "It's not 'The Royal Wedding'. It's 'Who can wear the most ridiculous hat?'."
Nuff said.
The British are not a patriotic nation in the same way as the USA. We don't go on about how wonderful it is to be British in the media and in song, and we don't venerate the flag everyday in our schools or anything like that. Very occasionally we throw a big party which costs a lot of money that is centred on our monarchy, which is the symbol of our culture and communal lives. These rare events bring us together into a nation of people who are able to unselfishly care for each other through such communal acts of charity as our welfare state and national health service. We would actually be a meaner, more individualistic society without such events. I doubt that it cost more than the stuff that goes on after the election of a new president in the USA.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice that you all took an interest in our parochial little wedding but you could only ever be spectators. You could never understand the cultural dynamics that were involved for those of us paying for the show. This morning the British are better people, more caring for each other, less distrustful of each other and, above all, happier. This may not last long before we are ground back down into selfish consumers by American capitalism, so we should enjoy it while we can. It was worth every penny.