Friends, those of us of a
religious bent are occasionally accused of entertaining mutually exclusive
concepts and ignoring the resultant cognitive dissonance, of being
intellectually dishonest both with others and ourselves. Well, I don’t know about that, but I have
found myself in an intellectual quandary that I see no way out of. Two of the pillars of my existence have set
themselves against each other, and I no longer know what to think.
I have said before that I am a
fairly firm monarchist. I wouldn’t ever
want an absolute monarchy, but I’ve always felt that the constitutional
monarchy that we have in the UK is the best of both monarchy and democracy. I’m a great admirer of our current queen, and
I have no problems with her son, although I’ll admit that for the sake of the
popularity and future survival of the institution, it might be better if he
abdicated in favour of his own son immediately upon his mother’s death.
I am also a great fan of
tea. I mean, obviously, after all I’m
British and a Methodist to boot. Tea is
important. Cheap for the poor and
elegant for the rich, a stimulant for the weary, a relaxant for the overwrought
and a comfort for the distraught, warming when it is cold, cooling when it is
hot, drink of the gods and an excellent excuse for a biscuit. This is true of regular tea (loose leaf, made
in a pot, served in a cup and saucer, milk in first) but also of its lesser cousins,
like Lapsang, Green and Earl Grey. None
of these latter though, as any civilised individual would be able to tell you,
are ever served with milk. Ever.
I am aware that there are some ‘people’ who do, but surely they can be
pitied, although never despised.
However. I have discovered something that has rocked
me to my core, cut me to my quick and shaken the foundations of my life. It having being her majesty’s birthday last
week, the papers and news sites have been full of stories and potted
biographies, and one of them revealed to me this shocking and distasteful
truth: The Queen drinks her Earl Grey
with milk!
What am I to do with this
information? How can I square my support
of the monarchy with my certainty that Earl Grey with milk is a sin and an
abomination unto the eyes of the Lord?
Must I become a republican (unlikely) or must I accept that it is
permissible to have milk in your Earl Grey?
I know that socially speaking I’m fairly liberal, but that seems a step
too far even for me.
Must I reject one principle or
the other at all? After all, I hold no
belief that the Queen is infallible, she’s only human after all, and I don’t
believe that she has any divine right to rule.
Perhaps I must accept it as a small but significant character flaw in
someone whose life has otherwise been characterised by duty and service to her
country. I think that I must hate the
sin but love the sinner, and forgive her this great wrong.
I may well write to her and
implore her to give up her wicked ways, but then again, she does have the SAS
onside, and I don’t want to provoke a sniper bullet through my bedroom window
by telling her how badly she gets her tea wrong.
On second thoughts, perhaps I
will remain silent on the subject, and merely pray that she sees the light and
repents before it’s too late.
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