Snapshot

Last week the poignant and the political occupied every available pixel on cable TV. I am still writing my last Terri Schiavo post. It's stale now; perhaps it will seem fresh again by the time it's published. Despite all the coverage -- all the arguing, crying, and midnight legislating -- it is still a story that hasn't been told. With a little time and the buffer of other big stories, some good students of America - journalists, sociologists, priests - will come forth and help us understand what it is we just went through, and why.

I look forward to listening to them, just as I have listened intently to those who would help explain the significance of the life and death of the Pope. It's a rare, worldwide conversation. There have been beautiful photographs of the Pope with children, with doves, with people of all races and religions. I've learned much about the story of his life that I wish I had known before. People have responded with sincerity, and in numbers that astonish, even jaded as we are by big turnouts for big events.

Tonight a friend sent me a link to this QTVR panoramic picture of people paying their respects to the Pope in St. Peter's Square yesterday. I think it tells a nice story.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

- William Blake, "The Divine Image"