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A Different Kind of Question

I nearly didn’t post a Saturday Slant this week. I wasn’t feel­ing much like com­ing up with a whim­si­cal diver­sion­ary query.

The Saturday Slant began as a means of explor­ing deeper thought and gen­uine emo­tion. The con­cept was that I would pose a provoca­tive or mean­ing­ful ques­tion or state­ment, that other blog­gers might choose to give their thoughts and opin­ions upon–colloquially, giv­ing their slant on a topic. More peo­ple responded to the lighter, less intense ques­tions about pet peeves, first kisses, and align­ment with faery tale characters.

These are all great ques­tions, they have received won­der­ful response the last two-plus years, and they are fun to write and, more so, to read the responses to. I’m not complaining.

This is the nature of the blo­gos­phere. Most blogs are writ­ten for fun; they are the mod­ern equiv­olant of chat­ting on a small town back porch in the sum­mer. Most meme ques­tions, from the Saturday Slant or any­thing else on the Memes List, are as ephemeral as yesterday’s lunch. They are a nightclub’s house band, their names and playlist for­got­ten even before the house lights come up. This is their pur­pose, memes, to be quick, easy to answer ques­tions that entail light, fun thoughts. Memes are not bad or wrong or use­less because of this; they are cre­ated, week after week, for this spe­cific pur­pose, and they serve that pur­pose well.

I, for one, enjoy pos­ing the ques­tions about pet peeves, first kisses, and faery tale char­ac­ters. More so I enjoy read­ing your responses, learn­ing about your pet peeves, your blush­ing rec­ol­lec­tions, and fan­tas­ti­cal thoughts.

Today, how­ever, is dif­fer­ent. Today is the day after a man died.

To some, he was the most impor­tant man in the world; to oth­ers, merely the world’s most polit­i­cally pow­er­ful man. His pass­ing, in and of itself, affects me no more than would the pass­ing of my neighbor–which is more deeply than it should, but this is not about me. Though Pope John Paul II was not my per­sonal con­duit to higher pow­ers, he was a man whose office and per­son­age I greatly respect. He was a great man, who did many good things for his fel­lows. He was a man who did not, in some areas, do as much as he should have. At the moment, his record of ser­vice in the world’s high­est office does not con­cern me.

I weep for the pain his pass­ing has caused my fel­low souls. The Pontiff held tremen­dous power in his abil­ity to sway roughly 80% of the earth’s pop­u­la­tion, and he was, for the major­ity of the planet’s peo­ple, the voice of God. This is all imper­sonal and nigh triv­ial because these are the robes of the office he attained. John Paul II’s great­est power, his most endur­ing trib­ute, is the love he earned in the hearts of mil­lions of my fel­low human beings. It is that love that now causes their hearts to ache, and it is for this great ache I weep.

Today’s Saturday Slant is a momen­tary return to the orig­i­nal intent of this meme, this ques­tion of opin­ions, ethics, and feelings.

What does the pass­ing of Pope John Paul II mean to you?

I don’t expect many–if any–responses, because this is not a ques­tion that one eas­ily for­gets. Long after my name and the loca­tion of where this ques­tion was raised has slipped from your mind, you will remem­ber the ques­tion and its answer. It is not a night­club house band. And ques­tions of this sort are not often addressed on per­sonal blogs.

What does the pass­ing of Pope John Paul II mean to you?