August 2 - The Royal Cloister

We have been exploring some of the aspects of majesty, as it touches upon our lives in Cor Unum.

Elizabeth II, Queen Regnant of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, leads a life nearly as monastic, in some ways, as the nuns in Regina Laudis Abbey.

As a young Queen, at the same early hour every morning, her “Bobo” (MacDonald) came to her with a cup of tea. Someone else performs that task since “Bobo’s” death, but Elizabeth is awake and dressed for the day and early at breakfast. A Scots bag-piper plays as he marches back and forth beneath her window whenever the Queen is in residence. Perhaps it isn't worship, but it is stirring, and it REMINDS.

She spent time with the children after breakfast in earlier times . . . then she went immediately to the “red boxes,” the official files of correspondence and state papers to which she had to attend every day of her life, weekends included. Those boxes arrive for her no matter where on the earth she may be; they travel with her.

On certain mornings she meets with government and palace officials; at other times she speaks with those whose appointments have been on her books for a long while. She gives out medals and awards. She receives all manner of those whose business or request has been given a coveted slot in her day. She is available . . . by appointment.

She meets once every week with her Prime Minister, always at the same hour. The same for her hairdresser. And the Lord Chamberlain who runs things around the palaces. And dozens more. Her year is mapped out, often to the minute.

Her cloister and "Divine Office" might give some of us a royal tummy ache! It is grueling in the day-to-day fulness and sameness, but she knows that for each visitor, each politician, each applicant for her attention, the moments they spend with her have been long anticipated and by the careful screening of her private secretaries, they are important to someone, perhaps to many. For many, those minutes will be "once in a lifetime" minutes.

One of the primary descriptions of the Queen over the years has been . . . "indefatiquable."

Might we profit from a bit of “royal” discipline in our lives? We will look again tomorrow at more of hers.


No Rest for the Royally Weary
photo by Kerry