Today is also the 7th anniversary of the election of Pope Benedict, and the ceremony announcing his election shares a bit of that “drop everything and pay attention” quality as this video. The white smoke and bells are timed so that people will have time to run down to St. Peter’s in time for the announcement. Very quickly people come running in to fill up that giant space — no cars or vehicles can come there, you just have to run. People around the world now can also drop everything and tune in for the announcement on tv or internet.

Very few things like this in our world, and they seem very precious.

I’m personally struggling for words to explain the fact that once the sirens stop, people immediately go back to their business. I mean, within a heartbeat people are getting in their cars and driving. Saying it’s “weird” sounds pejorative, which isn’t what I want to do at all. “Otherworldly” is perhaps better, in multiple ways. It’s like something out of the Twilight Zone, and again I do NOT mean that in a bad way–just that this phenomenon seems so FOREIGN to the way we live our lives here.

I’m reminded of growing up on military bases, and when the flag was being lowered at the end of the day, if you were within sight of it, you similarly stopped what you were doing and waited respectfully until it was done. A similar recognition that whatever it was you were doing, it wasn’t the most important thing in the world.