The royal culture dominates our sensibilities. Sometimes I almost feel as if Americans are jealous of Royal society. We're not only fascinated by Royalty but we also adore them. Where were you when Princess Diana was killed? We love to dress up in Medieval Garb, and our little girls love to become young Princesses wide with power and imagination. Brits are voracious gossip hounds rife with the largest rumor mill in the world. But, we in the U.S. rival their appetite for celebrity news, but are, at the very least celeb lovers. I know that we sometimes dump Royals into the celeb barrell with everyone else. However, when the queen of Britain came into our side of the Atlantic several months ago, the red carpet was unambiguously rolled out for her.
Americans live under one of the greatest forms of Government ever devised and yet we're not comforted. We cry for a King! We want to find Camelot. The U.S. system is difficult because common people question the pile of work and research needed to make good choices for their government, good votes for their issues and excellent reasons for all of them. It's a lot of work to make a good choice but we simply want not to be harmed. We want to be kept. It's a lot of work to be kept in our system. The people under the Monarchy are not issued such vulnerabilities such as choices.
So we make it up...we call the Kennedys our Camelot and the Astors are the nobility. Paris Hilton calls herself the closest thing America has to royalty...but we won't go there. I think we hate the flippant levity bred into our royals. And yet we love the idea of power. Marilyn Monroe sings an interesting birthday song to her President and one knows after the first note that shes horny like a fox. Yet Camelot survives.
We live in an unsure world. But, we live with the knowledge that our choices, our votes, our reasons may have wielded the wrong sword. Choice and freedom is precious in the U.S. We need to make the best of it and we must take it serious. Our system breeds uncertainty and yet we're also protected by a system, by a constitution that doesn't allow any one group to become dictatorally powerful. I think this is good.
However, The Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie alike love to Hate the President. How many devote most of their political conversations with complaint? How many of us rail and protest against the Compliant? Anyone who says something excellent about the President is often deemed to be as dumb as the President. Why? well according to us, He Spends too much (as if you understand money Mr. in debt up to your eyeballs), He hates the Military (How was Canada Mr. Draft Dodger?), He's dumb as a stump, he can't even talk (He graduated from Yale...and you?). But it's not only our current President, it's every President! Absolute Power corrupts absolutely, but so does Absolute Freedom. I cannot threaten to Kill the President, but I can turn every tom, dick and harry against him, doing him much more harm than if a bullet had actually passed through his heart. What does that say? Pare that back to our churches...then pare that back to our denomination. We hate the pastor's emotion, or we hate that he uses film clips, or we hate that he preaches too long or we hate that he caters to one group of people, or we hate that he doesn't spend 12 hours a day at church. It's no wonder a Pastor has only about a 6-7 year cycle in any given church. I long to hear something good about freedom. I often seek (and find) circles of positive people...people who have drive and who are excited about potential. I think that knowing good in your culture helps build your societal self-esteem thereby making one more effective within it.
Believe me...I'll take freedom and capitalism and democracy over a Monarchy. My opinion of course. I opine that democracy and capitalism still have the power to fuel all that is good about people. Despite what you hear, Americans are the most generous of all peoples. We give more, volunteer more, do more, see more and live more.
But we long for the King as the Israelites longed many years ago. We long to be led and placed into our social quarters. Kept. I long to walk the pearl colonnades girded by golden trusses. I long for great marble walls, frescoes and a royal throne under which I might bow. I long for it because I've been invited to it. I'm American Royalty. I'm Kept. I get to work for the King, to know that His will be done. That's all I need to know. My societal self-esteem in tact. In fact, I get the best of both...I am now completely free AND completely kept.
We all know there's no way to enter Royal chambers unless you are invited. Great Feasts, Knighthood and Kingship come out of our imaginations and our ideas. However, in the end, none of us can hope to achieve such a thing. For instance, I have Elgersma blood. Elgersmas did not come from a royal line. Therefore it is a biological, mathematical, historical and all other ways impossible desire to somehow become of Royal blood. It is an impossibility to insert ourselves into royal blood lines. I can't simply close my eyes, click my heels three times and say "I have royal blood, I choose to be a royal, I choose to be a royal, I choose to be a royal!" It is the same with the Kingdom of Heaven. Beyond our ability or achievement, we are simply given such a thing. That is just one more reason that I could never hope to comprehend God except of what I am told by His Spirit who is within me.
I thought yesterday evening as Lucas John Beaumont was passed into the arms of His loving and deeply passionate parents, safe and sound, with no fear of being dropped, with no ill account against his birth mom and dad or his parents. And as I saw that safely guarded little boy I realized that, according to the promises of God, he also is invited to walk through the great porticos mounted by Seraphim. In fact, I believe he already has a seat in the great feasting hall. God handed courage to the birth parents and the adoptive parents...perks of being Royalty. God gives gifts to royalty. So trusting was Lucas. He only has to be held...kept. He didn't have to prove valiance, or courage, or brevity to receive his white heart. God awarded him such a thing before the foundation of the world. My little Leah too dances to her drum, a 3 year old princess, without need to be beset by worry. She held her cousin the Prince last night. Kept. I believe they intrinsically know...they knew what we sometimes forget--that they are allowed to come unto Him who calls them to His lap.
There are Jesters in this game who will dance and arouse, clanging their circus act before God, hoping to Gratify Him by claiming every good and faithful act and God will say "Leave me...I do not know you."
And when the circus dust clears there we will all be, there Lucas will be--standing within the white palace...kept.
Yesterday was stressful...but the King was watching.
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