I can’t believe I’m actually going to write a blog post about someone else’s blog post about someone else’s article. It’s just daft. But it’s only short, so here we go:
This morning my facebook feed presented me with this piece, slating (in a nice way) the even more bizarre list produced by Tatler, of “People Who Really Matter”.
My first thought was simply that a list of people who really matter would be an unranked list of about seven billion names, and that it would be quite a task to produce it and keep updating as new little humans are born.
My second thought was that the list would just get longer and longer, as people don’t stop mattering just because they die.
My third thought came at some point in the third paragraph of the blog post, when I realised that the problem with the list was framed around the fact that number one on it was a baby. It’s princess Charlotte, by the way.
My fourth thought was that, while the baby princess is ranked #1 because she is a princess, it is actually wonderful, rather than silly, that a baby is considered someone who “really matters”. Charlotte is a delight, and the light of her parents’ lives, I have no doubt, but really she hasn’t done anything much yet – most of her major life achievements are still ahead of her. She matters (in real life, that is, not in Tatler) because she exists, because she is beloved of God just as we all are.
If a person cannot “really matter” from the moment they exist, then we are left with the conclusion that our significance is dependant on things we learn to do only later in our lives, if at all, or worse still, on our contribution to the economy, and so on. So, Tatler, while I am baffled by your bizarre and strangely pointless ranking of people’s significance, I applaud you for placing a young child first, and reminding us that we are significant simply because we exist, for to exist is to be beloved of God.
reverendally.org 