The public response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales took many journalists by surprise. It took the British royal court by surprise. For an entire week, people all over the world, but particularly in England, poured out their grief over the death the one they called "the people's princess." One commentator observed that Princess Diana satisfied the longing that people have for recognition from some great figure whose very presence will lift them out of the meaninglessness of the drab existence of modern society.

I. An Aloof Monarchy

Princess Diana contrasted sharply with the aloofness of the monarchy. Queen Elizabeth certainly has a very public role filled with an endless circle of ceremonial occasions sprinkled with all of the pageantry and tradition which sets the British monarchy apart. Despite her continual presence in the public eye, however, Queen Elizabeth has a very private life.

No one really knows the Queen. They know about her, but no one really knows her. She always appears with dignity and a bearing that sets her apart from ordinary people. She speaks with formality, and anyone in her presence assumes the same tone of formality. In 1992 when the marriages of the Queen's children fell apart and Windsor Castle caught on fire, my five year old daughter drew a picture of a castle to make her feel better. Several weeks later Rebecca received a letter from Buckingham Palace expressing the Queen's appreciation and signed by a lady in waiting. The Queen expresses herself, but does so through intermediaries.

For most people in the world, God seems a far and distant figure. He lives far away and know one ever sees Him. No one can touch God. And when God speaks, it only comes to us through an intermediary.

The divine is so distant to the Hindu that a person must go through an endless stream of transformations through many lives before they can get close to God. For the Buddhist the divine seems so distant that God has completely disappeared and we are left alone to be lost in the great cosmic unconsciousness that does not know us or even itself. To the Muslim, God is the great king and lawgiver who remains aloof from the world and demands strict obedience to the law if one ever wishes to come into the presence of God.

When Princess Diana left the palace and wandered among the people, she struck a deep spiritual nerve among people who longed for this kind of royal visitation. In the song What If God was One of Us, Joan Osborne sings for a secular audience about the longing people have for God to come down to our level.

II. A Life of Sorrow

Princess Diana had a brief and sorrowful life. Her mother abandoned her when she was a child of five or six, and Diana grew up feeling unworthy to be loved, even by a mother. She had so much of what other people seek in life, but it did not make her happy. She had fame from the moment the press discovered she was seeing the Prince of Wales. Her wedding had more television viewers than any other TV event up to that time. But the fame did not make her happy.