Good News!

I try to stay away from politics and social issues. I really do. But sometimes one just has to dip a toe in the waters.

Here’s the best news I’ve heard all week. Someone, somewhere, moved by the touted interview between Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markel, and Harry the Prince started a Go-Fund-Me page. Why? To pay off the aristocratic couple’s 14-million dollar home mortgage. This lofty goal could be accomplished, the author of the page stated, surprisingly easily if several million people tossed in a measly $5, $10, or $20.

Look, a mortgage that big has to be a millstone around the neck, don’t you think? Especially when you can only bring in several thousand dollars each time you make an appearance.

Seriously, though, when I saw an article about this fund-raising endeavor, I clicked through due to raw curiosity. The amount raised after two days was indeed just $110 dollars, with $100 of that coming from a single donor. True, by now, the amount may be larger. But not much larger, I hope.

The good news? The hopes of the person initiating this fund have not panned out. She really believed that millions of people would race to toss in their money so that, voilá, these two semi-royals would have a clear slate and better enjoy their new lives in America. Rather, Canada. No, I guess they came back to America.

After all, the couple needs to get in the best possible financial position if Meghan’s goal is to run for president, right? (To quote Will Rogers: I only know what I read in the newspapers.) All I can say is, I’m glad that their 23-million dollar wedding was paid off by the Crown. Sheesh.

The combination of entitlement, pomposity, and greed is nothing new. Today’s celebrated potion of victimhood amplified by media coverage is new though. Tell me: what historical cultures of the past have glorified victimhood? I cannot find any, at least any culture that has survived.

Of course, Meghan and Harry constitute but one “phenomenon.” Fortunately they do not represent my life, or yours. Our lives are fairly well grounded in reality, no matter how much reality has been stretched and changed in the last calendar year. Furthermore, at least in many places, life is taking a sharp turn back to the road of reality. Things are resuming their proper positions. Business and cultural events are launching again. When you read this, I will be in Greenville, S.C. for the first of the 2021 season’s Great Homeschool Conventions. Not zoomed, but really there.

The following week, the conference in St. Louis will kick off, again in real time! I’m hopeful that most, if not all, of my still-pending 2021 Smithsonian tours will indeed go, too. I’m ready (not packed, but I’m never quite packed).

Granted, the Zoom World gave all of us, particularly us adults, fabulous chances to do things previously unfathomable. That we of the “Classical Consortium” (Messrs. Cothran, Kern, Perrin, Pudewa, and I) could stage multiple conference events directly on the heels of last March’s shutdown, and include a big number of attendees from around the globe—well that was spectacular. I’ll long remember taking a question after one morning talk from a mom in Nairobi who was tucking in her children to sleep at that very moment. If anyone doubts the global expansion of today’s educational renewal, these on-line conferences brought further proof.

Not everyone is ready or able to travel yet, I know. Still, bit by bit the straitjackets and strangleholds are falling away. I just got the news that a granddaughter’s school will no longer require kids to wear masks while at their desks. Hallelujah, right?

And the Dallas Winds will be playing a live concert on March 23rd (streamed as well) which brings a goodly collection of these top-class musicians back onto the glorious stage of the Meyerson Symphony Center. The spring season for the arts across the world may not be whole, but certain wounds are beginning to heal.

But here’s what I’m excited about: that moment when babies and toddlers, once again, can see smiles all around them. Think of these little ones, ages 6 months to two or three years. All they know is big, round shapes wrapped up like mummies (not mommies) perched on top of confused bodies. The panoply of normal signals sent out from an adult’s face (smiles, laughs, frowns, groans, whoops of joy) got reduced to a crinkle of a mask or a muffled sound projected through fabric. How much will have been irreparably lost in terms of these children’s basic development, both speech development and emotional connections? A lot, I daresay.

So, put your five dollars into the Sunday-School plate or the food pantry and be glad that Harry and Meghan’s world is not the real world. At least not yet. Proclaim the joy that Easter soon will bring (it’s just fine to express joy in Lent!). You alone know when you’re ready to get out and when you feel ready to shake hands and embrace. If you see me at a conference, do know that I am ready to do the same. And most importantly, let’s value seeing each other’s faces again—smiles, grins, pursed lips, quizzical mouths, whatever arises within that spectacular language of facial gestures that we humans alone have. And finally, again, will be able to use.