{"id":184,"date":"2022-09-19T22:44:08","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T03:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/humanencounter\/?p=184"},"modified":"2022-09-20T00:53:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T05:53:01","slug":"5-things-queen-elizabeths-death-has-taught-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/humanencounter\/2022\/09\/5-things-queen-elizabeths-death-has-taught-us\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Lessons Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Death Has Taught Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
I thought I had nothing to say about Queen Elizabeth\u2019s death that would be relevant to spiritual care, but then social media got ahold of it and\u2014like almost all controversial things\u2014it became a rorschach for broader grievances.<\/p>\n
1. It\u2019s OK to feel relief when somebody dies.<\/strong><\/p>\n
When people with complicated histories die, there\u2019s an inevitable wave of grief, grief-shaming, relief, and relief-shaming.<\/p>\n
I used to be a big proponent of relief-shaming, scolding people for celebrating death in any context. I even called out my friends for being too glib about the execution of Osama bin Laden. The death of a person who has done wrong precludes the possibility of that person ever publicly repenting, of ever doing anything to make up for the harm they\u2019ve caused. It feels like a collective failure when a person makes it to the end of their life without living up to that possibility.<\/p>\n
John Donne\u2019s poem \u201cNo Man is an Island\u201d<\/a> sums up my thinking on the matter:<\/p>\n
Any man\u2019s death diminishes me,
\nbecause I am involved in mankind.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nOver the past few years I\u2019ve done less scolding and more listening, and one of the things I\u2019ve noticed is that decent people\u2014the only people I\u2019m likely to reach with these kinds of ridiculous idealistic appeals\u2014already don\u2019t celebrate someone\u2019s death unless they have an emotional\u00a0reason<\/em> to, and it does no harm for them to let those emotions out of their system and a lot of harm for them to feel like they have to bottle them up.<\/p>\n
Queen Elizabeth II was the longest-serving head of the British Empire, one of the most abusive institutions in human history. It\u2019s wrong to scold those it harmed, or people who are feeling acute solidarity with those it harmed, for feeling relief in this situation, making light of it, or otherwise behaving in a way the mainstream press might not find appealing. By the same token\u2026<\/p>\n
2. It\u2019s OK to grieve for anybody.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Grief is messy and complicated.<\/p>\n
People routinely grieve their abusers, and this grief is not toxic or wrong; it\u2019s not some kind of permission for the abuse, or a betrayal of others abused by the person being grieved. Grief is sacred and none of us arrive in it from a place of rational argument.<\/p>\n
Over the course of your life you will grieve many people you don\u2019t expect to grieve, or think you don\u2019t have the right to grieve. That grief is still sacred. Honor it and give yourself space to process it.<\/p>\n
3. It doesn\u2019t generally make sense to judge somebody by how we think they\u2019re reacting to someone\u2019s death, period.<\/strong><\/p>\n
We\u2019ve all seen by now, I\u2019m sure, the British social media response to Meghan Markle\u2019s alleged \u201csmirk\u201d (i.e., ordinary non-performative resting expression) at Queen Elizabeth\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n
Putting aside for a moment the sad and obviously racist undertones in this whole business, grief is such a universally relatable emotion that we\u2019re all going to be tempted in moments like this to police other people for signs of inauthentic grief\u2014just so we\u2019re not<\/em> tempted to identify with what they\u2019re going through.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t like to believe we\u2019re as much like our real or imagined enemies as we are because if their humanity ever completely sunk in, we wouldn\u2019t be able to hate them anymore. Recognizing the existential vulnerability you share with your enemies will change your life. Let yourself do it.<\/p>\n
4. Presence and attention are special gifts.<\/strong><\/p>\n
The main reason Queen Elizabeth is the subject of such a massive global outpouring of grief is very likely because she was simply present as queen for 70 years<\/em>, and present as a symbol of the future in Britain during the existential threat that was World War II.<\/p>\n
Photo: Public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Chaplaincy is often called a ministry of presence. If you ever doubt the value of chaplaincy, if you ever think mere presence doesn\u2019t affect people, the past week should resolve that question for you. Queen Elizabeth was visibly present and attentive for a long time, and she was especially visibly present and attentive during a grave long-term national crisis. There\u2019s immense power, immense potential to do good, just in that.<\/p>\n
5. Everything ends.<\/strong><\/p>\n
There are already thinkpieces on King Charles making the rounds.<\/p>\n
However you feel about the death of Queen Elizabeth, her successors aren\u2019t immortal either; however you feel about the history of what she represented, it faces an uncertain future.<\/p>\n
Queen Elizabeth\u2019s long reign may have given some of us a false sense of permanence. We should take this opportunity to reflect on how we\u2019re living, and the sorts of legacies we want to leave behind in our own little empires.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On relief-shaming, grief-policing, and the underrated power of just being present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4777,"featured_media":190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n5 Lessons Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Death Has Taught Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On relief-shaming, grief-policing, and the underrated power of just being present.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/humanencounter\/2022\/09\/5-things-queen-elizabeths-death-has-taught-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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