Types of events

 The Papal Conclave is taking place. As of the time I'm writing this (10:24 am CDT), there's no decision yet.

 

I found a "chimney cam" online and have it on in the background; I presume if we get white smoke (there's supposed to be a vote taking place now) there will be cheering and I can click over to it. Or if there's black smoke, there will be some reaction.

 

I don't know. I'm not Catholic but I'm weirdly invested in it. It does feel like a worldwide news event (I think the majority, or at least a plurality, of global Christians are Catholic).  And it feels to me like there is a shortage of news events that aren't some variety of "oh no!" or "what now?" 

Especially now, given the times we are in. Too much bad news, too much news that will adversely affect me or people I care about. So it's somehow a relief to see something happening that will directly affect me not at all, but may be good news for some folks (depending on who is elected Pope)

It also, I admit, gives me a feeling of being part of something. And I don't feel that often enough - these days, everything feels very atomized and especially for me, as alone as I am much of the time, it's easy to feel like my connection to the rest of humanity is frail, and at times to ask myself "well do the rest of them really even want me here?" (in the current cruel times where unmarried women or childless women or educated people or college professors or even people with empathy, for goodness sake, are demonized as being bad and wrong, it's too easy for me to slip back into 13-year-old-me mode and wonder if anyone outside  my family even cares if I exist or not). 

But watching and waiting and knowing other people are doing the same, while at the same time the outcome will be neutral at worst for me, somehow helps make me feel part of something.  

I also remember seeing the results of the conclave (I can't remember now if I saw the white smoke live, or on a recording on the news) for Francis, and maybe for Benedict? And I know when Francis was elected I flipped over to EWTN and they had a big "Habeamus Papam" (we have a Pope) graphic up. 

And I don't know. Maybe I invest a little too much in trying to shake hands across the centuries, but the sense of continuity is maybe kind of nice, in a world that is changing (deteriorating, it feels to me) rapidly right now. 

But it may also be of interest to me because it's something related to faith, and related to a form of the faith I practice, but in the congregation I am in and the denomination I was raised in (Disciples of Christ), things are done very differently - much less pomp, generally pretty low-church*, and each congregation is tasked with choosing their own minister and while there's a loose hierarchy, they are mostly pretty hands-off of the individual congregations. 

(*I admit I'd like a little more high-church stuff. I like formality and pomp and the sense that "this is different from your mundane life" even as I understand you can argue that your day-to-day life should not be different from the practice of your faith)

So I watch, and will be interested to see who they pick. I have my preferences, but I don't really know much about the candidates other than what little I've read filtered through people who have more of a direct reason to care. 

But as I said: the fact that the effect of this on me will be at worst neutral is nice, it's a relief from the tariff news I've been worrying about, or the tensions rising in India and Pakistan, and other things.

 

Update 11:09 am: cheers going up alerted me and I got to see the white smoke on the cam. Wonder who it will be.  I am strangely moved even though this in no way affects me as I'm not Catholic.