The Old Ways Are Still With Us
The King's Coronation Pokes a Hole in Modernity
The funeral of Queen Elizabeth was full of almost everything modernity seeks to erase; liturgy, ceremony, tradition, ritual, prayers, symbolism, and a public acknowledgment of personal and national dependence upon Jesus Christ. All of these dusty, oldfangled things that modernity sniggers at and derides suddenly were thrust into the forefront of the world.
Many bemoaned the pomp and circumstance of it all. The crusty old traditions. The gaudy, ludicrous out-datedness of the whole thing. And won’t somebody think of the economy! Others were in it for the dish. Every eye movement and hand gesture made by the Royal Family was an occasion for absolute gushing.
Now, don’t laugh, but when I watched the funeral, it was almost a reinvigorating moment. I watched it with a slight surrealness. I almost didn’t believe such things could even happen in public anymore. And while I knew that even for people in attendance much of it was only a meaningless exercise of keeping up appearances, there were some like me who watched it, even amidst the noise of grumbling critics and the hollow-headed gossiping, and felt something deeper. Something older.
Like a blast of fragrant Narnian air, it calls to mind the former ways and reinvigorates a soul. Like stumbling across an ancient creature, long believed to have been extinct, it fills you with mystery, wonder, and awe.
It’s easy to forget, but the Old Ways are still with us.
Too often we believe that modernity has forever eradicated the Old Ways. And so we are surprised to discover the Old Ways popping through the surface every now and then. And it hits harder when it pops through on a grand stage with the entire world as an audience. And now, right off the heels of the Queen’s funeral, comes the coronation of the King, which serves as a veritable a one-two punch.
With the coronation of King Charles taking place later this week the world will once again be confronted by the Old Ways. To be sure, the grumblers and the gossips will be in top form, but if you watch it, read about it, or merely consider it, try and hold them at an arms distance while you view this strange magnificent ancient creature emerge from a time so unlike our own.
You don’t have to like Charles as a person or as a public figure, nor Elizabeth, nor even England. You don’t have to like or trust a strange and ancient creature that has thrust it’s bulk onto the scene. Just watch and breath in the strange and fragrant air it brings. See how it works on you.
Take note of those things that fly in the face of modernism. All of those things considered irrelevant and outdated or unnecessary. The prayers, the hymns, the blessings, the oaths, the Archbishop, the cross, the acknowledgement of Christ as Lord and God. The procession, the pageantry, the ceremony, the liturgy1, the anointing with oil. The carriage, the robe, the scepter, the orb, the throne, the crown, and of course, the king himself.
People can write this off as sentimentalism or romanticism. I don’t care. I said something about Narnia earlier and so someone could chalk it up as striving after a fantasy or pining after a non-existent Merry Old England. I don’t care. There are truer things in Narnia and Merry Old England and in the King’s Coronation than there are in Modernity.
Take heart. Though a vicious war has been waged, Modernity has failed to destroy the Old Ways, even on the grandest scales. This week it will once again blast the world in the face like a fragrant wind. Breath it in deeply. Let it work on your soul. The Old Ways are still here. The fire has not died out. Is that not an encouraging thought?
Again, don’t laugh, but the King’s coronation gives me a hope that the embers of the Old Ways can be rekindled. And that the flames will burn away all the chaff that Modernism has foisted upon us.
Enormous events like the coronation of a King with thousand year old Christian traditions do not happen every day, so we should revel in it, but it also serves as a grand reminder for us to keep stoking the embers of the Old Ways in our own homes and churches.
I have a Prince Caspian mentality about it all. I believe in the stories of Old Narnia and I find new strength with every glimpse of it. (Unlike the Telmarines who believe it all to be fables and myths but still fear to go near the sea or the woods). There are still treasures to be found in the ruins of Cair Paravel. There are still those who remember Old Narnia. Still those who watch the skies for its return.
“I almost didn’t believe such things could even happen in public anymore”
Public ceremony and sincerity is looked at as silly. I was discussing this idea recently with some friends: In our modern western world, everything is ironic and mocked. The only art we create is some new “subversion”, to the point we are losing meaningful things to subvert. That is why, I think, corporate worship is so important: seeing your brothers and sisters publicly singing and praising God suddenly places your head in Old Narnia.
The waves of modernity lash out against anything with deep roots, anything that can't be supplanted and moved in favor of the new way of doing things. They tear down Chesterton's fence and laugh as the crude, boorish people who thought it was necessary, exclaiming how the crops and animals are still alive even as they are dying of disease before your very eyes.
Even the Americans who rebelled against such a monarchy has sacred traditions, as much as they are not nearly on as firm ground as our British counterparts.
As the sweep of post modern life removes these remnants, now's the time to either renew the lost traditions, or create new ones in our own households and community.