NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
COMMENTARY
August 29, 2007
Two women
It has been reported to me by an aging hippie that he still has the odd “acid recurrence,” in which some impression burnt into his brain during an LSD “trip” in the 1960s returns briefly to animate the present, and he doesn’t know quite where he is. If you can remember the ’sixties, you weren’t there, according to many who survived that era, but my friend’s experience may provide an exception to this general rule.I had the feeling I might be suffering from something similar myself when I started spotting big photographs of Princess Diana on front pages this last weekend. It was an unpleasant moment of déjà vu. I could have sworn, until that moment, that I knew exactly where I was when I first learned of the decease of Lady Wind-Candle (as I came to think of her). Surely it was not all coming back, again. The simplest explanation is often the true one, and I soon realized that, yes, the media must celebrate the 10th anniversary. A death itself is always sad -- even the “good death” of a saint, for those left without her guidance and inspiration. But in the case of this fairy-tale girl, the public outpouring was itself a story no media could ignore. It was at its most acutely embarrassing in England, but no part of the world reached by television failed to participate in some degree. That Diana was no saint, has become more apparent in the intervening decade, as we’ve been treated by the tabloids to unedited scraps and vignettes, from her unedifying life. It was clear enough, then, however: for she had died by misadventure in the course of a sordid tryst. Yet in death as in life, she had succeeded in playing the victim. Both Diana and Prince Charles behaved badly, and in public -- hard to forgive in the heir to our throne -- but I have always thought less badly of the latter because he did not play the victim quite so well. He had made a bad marriage, and a worse hash of getting out of it, but for the most part took the knocks he’d earned. For this he was despised. Diana played the victim instinctively, and not without some cause (everyone has an excuse, when they need it). For this, she was celebrated -- with the kind of ululations one associates with the most primitive and barbaric tribes, amplified via high technology. I wonder how many who participated in the hysteria, have since realized what their fame-worshipping vacuousness revealed about them? For a projective narcissism should be decently concealed, not flaunted in public. Perhaps the 10th anniversary can be an occasion for many to remember how foolish they were; and even if this late in the day, begin acquiring that purchase on reality that would have kept the funeral of Diana discreet, and restricted the pageantry only to what was strictly necessary, given her rank. * The death of Mother Teresa of Calcutta a week later, a decade ago, came as if by way of a reality check from our very Maker. For here was a plausible true saint, who had lived a life beyond serious criticism by anyone less jaded than Christopher Hitchens. By the luck of being a journalist on assignment, I witnessed her funeral in the city she had helped ennoble, and felt myself uplifted from its heat and grime when what seemed like all Calcutta -- Christians of all persuasions, but also Hindus, Muslims, even Jains -- joined in celebrating her memory. Without the slightest mawkishness. Lately we’ve been reading about the contents of Teresa’s own human heart, the “hidden struggle of her faith,” revealed in private writings to priests and confessors and close friends. It is the kind of material left by many Catholic saints: apt to be entirely misunderstood by just such people as shed maudlin tears. I’m a Catholic, so I will try to explain it. Sanctity is not a New Age trick, like yoga or transcendental meditation, or the jogging that you do to get a “high.” It is not a drug, but self-abandonment to the will of God, so far as we can discern that, in humility. And going down the road with Christ requires that we participate in moments, perhaps for our whole lives, in the terrible words of our Master from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It can be a very rough road. As John Henry Newman wrote, on his own mission: “If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him. In perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. ... He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.” David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top