Sorry, Media Pundits . . . Windsor was Already "Woke" - by Lichen Craig

When I was a teen, back in about 1976, I went with a group of kids to the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee to do some charity work: we were helping to repair the backwoods shacks of some of the poorest of America'a poor.  One evening, some of us - a group of upper-Midwestern church-raised teenagers - went to a local service in a small town. It was for me, and many of us, the first exposure to what my grandmother might have been more familiar with and what she would have called "fire-and-brimstone" preaching. It was the dramatic, loud, hyperbole-laden preaching that invites congregation participation. We were not prepared for it.

You have to understand that I was raised in the Congregational denomination. It's dignified, open (the first Christian denomination, in fact, to openly welcome gays - back in the 1970s) and totally without ornamentation. Our interiors are plain, in keeping with our Puritan roots in America; our sermons are straightforward, scholarly, and hopefully humble on the part of the minister (we don't call them "preachers" - they don't preach, they serve). Our services are calm, but not boring, never about grandstanding or entertaining. (Or maybe "boring" is subjective!)

The union of two cultures: American and British

So here I was, a well-mannered, intelligent girl, staring dumbfounded at the man jumping around and screaming in front of the congregation - shrieking about the damnation awaiting us all if we didn't "repent" (I hate that word - it's so accusatory, so devoid of respect for the human spirit, so divorced from the loving God I was taught about). I glanced around at my companions and caught the eye of one young man, who was obviously stifling laughter. He winked at me, sharing the joke, and I nearly lost my composure. I really didn't wish to insult my hosts. I quietly got up and left, barely making it outside the tiny church building, before bursting into laughter.

When I had it out of my system, I went back inside, just as the service was ending. As I'd been taught, I walked up to shake the preacher's hand and thank him for the church's hospitality to our group. He
commented that I hadn't stayed for the end. I must have turned crimson as I carefully explained that I just wasn't used to that style. He laughed... to my relief... and said it was an acquired taste; he joked that I was leaving just before they were going to "bring out the snakes".  He was not offended in the least. There are many ways to send God's message. (He was, by the way . . . a white man. The style isn't unique to the black South - although the media has forced its association nowadays with black culture - it is unique to southern Baptist and charismatic history.)

Bishop Michael Curry at the Royal Wedding a Windsor

Much is being made of the sermon at the royal wedding this past weekend. If you didn't see the wedding, you really should watch a stream of it (check the Royal Family's YouTube channel - your friends and family will never know you did it!), not only because it was truly beautiful in terms of visual richness, history, symbolism and tradition, but because the sermon was truly special. It was very inspiring, from an excellent speaker - Father Michael Curry is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in America (the Episcopal is the American version of the Church of England) and he happens to be black. The style of the sermon was good old-fashioned southern preaching.

Something troubles me about the reaction of some of Americans to the sermon, and to the occasional black-inspired elements within the wedding. There is a sort of over-emphasis on race-based identity politics that has saturated American society, and it is itself uniquely racist because it assumes an individual's feelings and reactions based upon skin color. Here everyone, from the neighbor down the street to mainstream news anchors, is making comments - from snide, elitist ones to gushing ones - about how bothered the British at the church were about it. Bothered or surprised or annoyed or awed, depending on the view - and wishful thinking - of the speaker.

But here is my take: I don't think they were any of those things. Assuming they were is not only viewing people through the prism of skin color - itself a bigoted attitude - but it assumed these poor cavemen in Britain have never heard a black preacher. They have - trust me on that. They don't care.

Bride's mother Doria Ragland, Prince Charles and wife. 

Now, let me explain here that I have traveled extensively in Europe, since about forty-five years ago. I have in fact lived there. I married a European, I have close friends that are European. I have studied the histories of a few countries - including England - to an extent far surpassing most Americans and many Europeans themselves. From that background, I am about 99% certain that I know how they really reacted, generally speaking: they reacted the way I did all those years ago in Tennessee. And it wasn't about skin color!

This wedding was happening in one of the oldest chapels in England. Over a dozen royal unions have happened in that chapel, over many centuries. Its walls are saturated with European royal history. With hundreds of years of a certain tradition. The casualness, the theatrics, the over-emotionality, that a Southern-style sermon involves, would have struck some of the attendees as, well, a bit uncomfortable. Not because of the ethnic background. But because of the overly-dramatic nature of it within that setting. It's a theatrical performance, in a venue where reverence and understatement is the tradition. I did not notice any "shock" on anyone's faces - as some American news pundits have insisted. (Don't they realize that the queen, in her nineties, always looks that grumpy?) I noticed some suppressed mirth - with which I can totally relate. It's the sort of nervous laughter that comes at an inappropriate moment in reaction to an ironic situation - like when a speaker at a funeral says something untrue or too revealing, or inappropriate. Or...like hearing an over-the-top sermon in a traditionally dignified church.

Don't get me wrong. I liked the sermon - when I thought of it apart from where it was given. I'm not sure that giving it there, at that place, in that situation, was the most respectful thing to do. After all, the bishop was a guest in that chapel, that country, and to that tradition. Not the other way around. I heard someone say that it was so melodramatic that it detracted from the bride and groom. I would tend to agree. It certainly has dominated talk of the ceremony, even days later. Did we really need a veiled  lecture on American civil rights and racial division at a wedding, in a country that ended slavery decades before America did?  I don't think so, but that's me.

The out-of-left-field analyzing by the American Left - and some of the Right as well - has extended to commentary on the black choir, the black cellist (the choir was based in Britain, not the U.S., and Heaven knows all black cellists must come from America! Good grief...) and the implication that those Dark-Ages-befuddled Britons have just never seen anything like it. Nonsense! They have, they do, they don't care. They likely thought the whole thing pleasant and interesting, and were positive about it. News reports all back that up.

Along with the exuberant black gospel choir, the attendees also likely enjoyed the cathedral choir and its selections from white European Christian traditions - with several outstanding boy sopranos (one black) and the traditional hymns - two of the most beautiful and ones many of us grew up singing. I thought to myself as the thundering sound of that choir filled the soaring, echoing space of the beautiful, ancient building during the final hymn, that when such a choir is that good one can't help but believe the sound is as close to the sound of angels as we get on earth. As I had that thought, the camera focused on the bride's face, her joyful face turned upward, her eyes filling with tears as she listened. Apparently, she had enjoyed both choirs.

I don't know why people can't put race, and identity, and assumptions about others, aside. The wedding was about both traditions, two ethnic groups. Why glorify one and diminish the significance of the other? Why glorify one skin tone and diminish the other? In either direction? The reluctance to appreciate either tradition, and favor the validity of one over the other, is in fact ethnocentric, and yes... it is racism.


I heard one news pundit - a black man - gush that the bride was black. No, she isn't. She is - like our
past president - of mixed race heritage. Half her heritage, half her blood, is white. The celebration was a reflection of that, and of both heritages. With his stupid, inaccurate comment he showed his own bigoted mindset. Another pundit - a white man from the South no less - could barely contain his joy as he shrieked, "Windsor is woke!" He said this in front of a British commentator, and I cringed to think how insulting and incredibly ignorant she must have found that comment.

Too bad that so many Americans - so blinded as they are by the desperate rush to seem more virtuous and progressive than the next person - or perhaps so much less white - don't appreciate the two heritages equally. Because once, when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, it was equality we talked about. That was the goal. It wasn't bringing the "dominant" race to its knees - which really is the same hate and ugliness reversed, isn't it?  And the really pathetic thing about it is that now these people make the same mistake that others did about the Native Americans - in overly-romanticizing one culture at the expense of overly-demonizing another, a person really just demonstrates that they have no real understanding of the true history and value of either one.

Meghan Markle - now offically the Duchess of Sussex - was not the first royal with African blood. (Yes, American pundits, you read that right.) She won't be the last. As was the case centuries back, when a woman with black blood married into the royal family, she is accepted, she is welcomed, and it isn't nearly as big a deal as some Americans would love to trumpet that it is. The British are actually, yes, that enlightened! Because you see, Windsor was already woke.

I am weary of every event becoming a big analysis of race relations - even something as joyous and apolitical as a wedding. I hope that in coming decades the pendulum swings back to the middle: that calm, wonderful place where equality - equal appreciation for all races and ethnicities - is the goal. Only then can the words the bishop offered about love of all people for one another, ever come to mean anything.

An Open Love Letter to Men by Lichen Craig

Dear Men,

Recently, a female acquaintance commented that I seem to bowl better in my Thursday night mixed league than in my other three women-only leagues. I told her that year to year, I have the highest average (not to mention the most fun) when I bowl with men. She seemed perplexed, perhaps naturally, so I hastily blurted, "Well, I just enjoy the company of men more, present company accepted, of course!"

Truth is, I bowl better with you guys. I like the no-nonsense approach you have. I like the way you incessantly analyze the ball trajectory against where you stand against the current oil pattern. I like how you exercise your minds until the world makes sense. I like how you keep the cattiness down and gossip to a minimum - it might interest you, but not for two hours like it does the women.  I like the way, when I throw a gutter ball, you look me in the eye and say, "What the hell was that?"  Without smiling. I don't want to be coddled; I want to be expected to get my shit together by the next turn.

The world does make better sense around you men. When it's ugly, you know exactly why. Sometimes, you're the cause of the ugliness, but if you don't own up, you do manage to make each other pay in the end. I like the way you confront each other. Women smile to your face while plotting your future pain just because they don't like the color you wore yesterday. But a man? He'll make you miserable right on the spot, without apology (at least not immediately - that would be pointless), and he'll have a damn good reason to do it. A reason that is, well, reasonable.

Men are rarely intellectually lazy. They can't afford to be, because they have to earn a complete living. The least educated knows his way around an engine, crop fertilizers, a meth lab. Men take real joy out of verbal sparring - some annoyingly have never learned to combine that urge with self-control. But all that jousting forces them to use their brains, constantly. They don't give each other an inch, or a break. Just a good hard contest.

Men value things like integrity and honor and courage. Check out some novels written by women - they also present some higher ideas - often love, sacrifice - but it will be those written by men which contain sweeping and profound truths about the human condition.  Men ponder these things - with regularity. Men tend to contemplate and comprehend patterns of the universe, realities of war, subtleties of affection, hope, loss . . .

Men spend a lot of effort and time shielding their loved ones from difficulty. I see this a lot - and it often goes unnoticed. Their female companions take it for granted. Women whose fathers, boyfriends, brothers, husbands all protected them, rarely note the ways in which they are shielded from too much hardship. Those of us who have had little such care or protection in our own lives, though, notice it all the time, everywhere, with so many men.

Women often have some shield to hide behind, some safety net to catch them. Most men don't. So you have to be brave - there isn't another choice. And you are brave, so often, and often in quiet ways. Every once in a while, one of you will do something spectacularly and idiotically cowardly - being men, you always go big - but when that happens, your fellow men call you out on it loudly. You don't get to pretend it didn't matter. It will always matter if you behave as a coward, when you're a man. For that reason, you must be terrified when fear comes. Women fear other things, men fear themselves most. That's what I would guess.

Men don't pussyfoot around. They insult you, they tell you off, they acquire disgusting habits. With men, you get exactly what you see in front of you. There isn't a lot of secrecy, manipulation, backbiting. It's all laid out on the table. When I was 30 years old, I informed a doctor that I liked to be given the respect of being told the truth up front. So he looked me in the face and told me, two days before emergency surgery, that I would be wise to "put your affairs in order this weekend", because my life as I knew it might be over. Or simply over, actually.  I trusted him from that moment. Here was a person who put sentiment aside and prepared me for reality to hit. My mom on the other hand told me, "I know everything will be all right, honey."  I wanted to scream, "NO YOU DON'T."  I did not trust her advice, believe me. Even today, when a female friend coos, "It'll be all right."  I feel little but rising disgust at her disingenuousness - but I know that's a learned trait in females.

I like the way you smell. I love your cologne, and your skin. I love the stubble on your chin. I love the ease with which you swing an ax - and the joy you have in doing it.  I love the way you set a fencepost straight and then pound it in. I love the way you hold fast to the rope and squint up at the rearing horse above you, knowing your brain will keep you from being trampled. I love the way you love that suicide bike you refuse to sell. I like the way you snap the briefcase closed and swing it off the desk. I love the way you smile at your daughter across the table. I love the way you throw a baseball. I love the way you smooth your hair back and turn your face up into the shower after an exhausting day. I love the way you plan surprises, and how you worry about whether your wife, or kids, or grandkids will have to pay too much tax on your holdings when you die before them.

Oh, I know some of you cheat, many lie, too many of you walk around thinking your dick is bigger than it actually is - both figuratively and literally. I know some of you are inexplicably and unforgivably selfish to the core. I married one of those once, and that difficult twenty years was enough to last a lifetime - believe me. But I know I might have been very lucky had I chosen a different one of you.

In today's world, too many of you are being maligned. You're blamed for that which isn't your doing. You're shamed for carrying testosterone. Your natural instincts are treated as threats to be suppressed. Today we refuse to acknowledge that your hunger for progress built empires, your beautiful curiosity and need to conquer brought technological innovation, your soaring spirits brought the biggest piece of the world's great literature, art and music; your tendency to protect what you love fought and won wars for peace we take for granted now. How many of you willingly ran toward a sword, a spear, a fire, a gun, a bomb, for something you understood was far greater than your one life?

Yes, over a beer, or a bowling alley, I do love your company. I love the candor, the stumbling lack of finesse, the mental gymnastics, the uniquely male insight on the world, the instinct to protect. I know that so many of you are bombarded daily with reminders that you as a gender have somehow failed your species. I'm here to tell you that's hooey.

You're wonderful and glorious and beautiful to look at. You're strong. You're good for the world. And ultimately - no matter what you're made to feel - you are necessary. What you were on the day you were born, and what you have grown into, will always be exactly what you are supposed to be. In this woman's book, that's pretty damn good.