Photo credit: The Guardian
Beginning at 4 a.m. today, I watched the second Coronation in my life.
On the cork-covered living room floor in front of the finely polished mahogany encased RCA black and white television, as a young boy, I saw the first Coronation. From my mother’s sharp focus on the screen, I could tell that this was something especially important. Mom glowed as she watched Princess Elizabeth in the royal horse drawn carriage pass the crowds towards Westminster Abbey to be crowned Queen of England.
It is a Norman Rockwellian memory. A mother standing behind her ironing board. Performing such a mundane task. A task of toil so ordinary in the presence of such a beautiful and extraordinary occasion.
Although Mom was just 30 years old that day, she had already experienced the ugliness of the Great Depression, the absence and death of her father from TB, and the death of her mother from pneumonia. Looking back, I realize Mom needed to witness such beauty, grandeur, and pageantry to forget for a little while those things.
Reflecting on indelible memory of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 70 years ago, I witnessed another—the crowning of King Charles III of England. This time in color. As a grown man. Sitting up on my Tempur-Pedic queen-sized mattress with my Queen of Royalty in the Family Emmott, my wife Dorothy.
I saw and appreciated the importance to England, the Commonwealth, and to the British people of the crowning of their King. I was captivated by the sheer beauty, symbolism, and historical significance of the rituals of the Coronation. I was amazed by the sheer number of participants required to perform the process of crowning their King. An event accomplished so well and so perfectly in an otherwise imperfect and dysfunctional world.
I will always remember the music, the pomp and circumstance. The majesty and pageantry of the entire Coronation of King Charles. The King and Queen waiving to hundreds of thousands of people standing in front on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Yet, what I think was the most important aspect of the Coronation were five words spoken by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“Service is love in action.”
The Archbishop said that with great privilege comes the duty to serve and not be just served as the Head of England. Service. Servants acting in love and with love of others.
Today, every person needs to witness golden-leafed moments of beauty, perfection, and exquisite adornment alongside the ugly, broken, dysfunctional, frightening, violent and divisive world in which we live. However, what we truly need is service, love in action. Can you imagine what our world would be and become if everyone served with love? Not with indifference but with acceptance. Not with judgment but with kindness. Not with resentment and anger but with forgiveness and peace. Not with hate but with love.
We were given a privileged life gifted to us by God. In return each of us has a duty to serve our God with acts of love towards another. Serving the King of Kings. Bearing to others gifts of unconditional love.
In my collaborative divorce and family law practice I strive every day to be “love in action.” God is calling me to serve, to love, and to give. It is possible to uncouple with civility, dignity, and respect. With love the relationship between couples during and after divorce can be protected and preserved.
If everyone would serve the King of Kings with love in action in all things, Heaven would descend on Earth. Our time on Earth would be grander and more glorious than any Coronation of a King of England.
God has spoken in Scripture on serving with love.
John 13:34
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
Let us pray.
Dear God, I thank You for my life and for Your help in living it.
God, I praise You for the beauty on Earth and for the perfect spirit You ensouled in the imperfect child of Yours I am.
God, may I serve You as my King, Creator and Redeemer, in my actions of love to others. May I love others as You have loved me and love me now and forever. Amen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist
Leave a Reply