The King Of Truth

We fought a war, once, to get rid of a king. Two hundred and twenty-two years ago Americans took up arms to win our independence from King George III of England. Some of the biggest issues were trade and taxes, sound familiar? “Fast Track” and IRS reform, 18th-century style. I suppose it’s always that way, economic issues bite hard. But the big thing wasn’t the taxes themselves. It’s that the colonials didn’t have any say in the matter. They resented being pushed around, especially by someone who wasn’t even as much of an Englishman as they were. George wasn’t one of THEM. He was a Johnny-come-lately, a parvenu, an upstart; the Hanover line was German. He didn’t have any right to tell them what to do, and they weren’t going to let him jerk them around.

It’s not that the Americans didn’t want a king. They just didn’t want THAT king. And we almost got one. There was quite a push to have George Washington crowned king, our own George the First, but he turned it down, and no one else had the prestige to be accepted by all the colonies. It’s not that the Americans didn’t want a king. They just wanted a better one. Remember back in Israel’s early days, when judges ruled the land? When Samuel got old, “...all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, ‘You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.’” Did they think that kings would be more just than judges? What did they think a king would do for them?

No people - not even Americans - are free from the desire to have a king (or a queen!). Where do you suppose that impulse comes from? I don’t think it’s just a matter of protection, either, wanting a strong arm to chase off the local bandits. People crave royalty - of some kind - for many more reasons than that. Maybe we need someone to look up to, to be part of something larger than ourselves.

Have any of you ever been to Graceland? You know, the memorial-cum-tourist attraction that used to be Elvis Presley’s home? I haven’t, and have absolutely no wish to. But I’ve seen bits on TV, and heard people talking about the pilgrimages - and I don’t use the word lightly - they have taken there. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that people worship at his shrine. How did that happen? What are people looking for? We called him the King. Why did we do that? What was it about him, that made him royalty to so many? And what was his kingdom?

Elvis was larger than life, and yet he was just a country boy, one of us. He had amazing gifts and presence, and yet he seemed real, and vulnerable. His followers gave him their hopes, asked him to fulfill their dreams for them, so that in him they too could rise above the drabness of their lives. They loaded him down with their expectations, they fed on his life, and some continue to feed on him since his death. What a terrible thing to do to another human being! The crown his fans gave him to wear was too heavy for anyone, and I think it killed him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not equating Elvis with Jesus. But think about it. He died for his own sins, yes, but didn’t he also die, in a way, for ours? We asked too much of him, and he broke.

And what about Princess Di? What an incredible outpouring of grief, adulation, allegiance - worship, even - at her death! What made her everyone’s Princess, not just Britain’s? She was the fairy-tale princess of our childhoods’ stories, of course, but if it were only that, when the happy-ever-after turned out to be a made-for-TV movie, why didn’t her fans turn away? It didn’t happen. If anything, her popularity increased. What was her kingdom? What hopes and dreams of ours did she carry on those impeccably dressed shoulders?

I listened to a lot of commentators, after her death, trying to figure out what it was about Diana that made so many people love her. She was larger than life, of course, richer and more beautiful than the rest of us. That’s the easy part to understand. Hero - excuse me, heroine - worship - is natural. But the other piece of the puzzle is not so obvious. Because it was her wounds, her imperfections, her struggles and failures, that made Princess Di accessible to us. It became possible, because of her vulnerability, for us to identify with her and so to share in her beauty and riches. And her love of children, her compassion, her gentleness with orphans and AIDS patients alike, made it possible for us to believe that she returned our love. We invested ourselves in her. We wanted her to be happy, so that in her we too could be happy. We wanted to know everything about her, the People’s Princess, so that her life could become ours, to make up for what was missing in our own.