Rituals

Rituals seem intrinsic to human existence. Every culture has its rituals. Big ones, little ones. Probably something to do with security, dependability, and a way to bring us together.

So many of our rituals are ways to pause, recognize the good things of life, and the beauty of divine. Sometimes they are just reminders of what makes us happy. Holidays, seasonal expressions, eating together, garden tours.

Shortly after I planted my garden I realized I had developed a new ritual for myself. Most mornings I would take my second cup of coffee and the previous day's kitchen compost out to the side yard. I would sit with my feet on the strawberry pot and observe and think. Eventually I’d take a walk around the garden pulling a weed here or there looking for new shoots and new growth and as the summer came, searching out any fruit for harvesting.

One of my first realizations was that I wasn’t alone. Truth be told, I never was one to talk to plants. Some say it helps. Don’t know. But I’m not above discussion with more animated companions, like birds who would get a kind word. So would worms, particularly if I bisected the poor things while digging. I'd apologize and offer hope for recovery. Worms are not particularly social, but after getting over a sort of visceral dislike of them, I found them kind of cute..

This little ritual became important to me. Not because I really did any significant gardening, but because it put me in relationship with this little bit of nature and, by extension, the world around me. It kept me aware and reminded me of the sacred in the mundane, of God. and gratitude. and reverence. Somehow it affected my state of being and helped me remember how generous and giving the world is. It made me feel good.

I think that is what religious rituals are at their best. Even the simplest ones can have depth and beauty and can help us understand the most important things in the universe, like our interrelatedness.

I once read an essay by an orthodox Jewish woman explaining the kitchen rituals of food preparation, including the need for separate dishes, dishwashers etc. for meat and dairy. She described how she initially resented it all, found it meaningless. But then one day she realized that she was carrying out a tradition that was literally thousands of years old. She felt connected to all those generations of woman who had followed the same tradition and to all the women across the world who were doing the same thing. Jews, she said, that have so often been scattered from their roots, were connected in a very profound way through these traditions. It gave her joy and an important sense of belonging to something large.

Islam has a ritual of praying in unison five times a day. It is a powerful pause in the day’s activities to remember the “big picture” and express gratitude and reverence for the whole. It is so easy to get caught up in life but 5 times a day all Muslims have an opportunity to connect to their international community and life itself.

The Buddhist monks make beautiful, intricate mandalas out of sand. They may spend many days on an elaborate and often breathtaking mandala. And then, almost immediately upon completion – no pictures, no time to send a iphone image to mom – the sand is scrapped into a greyish looking pile and disposed of. The lesson is one of detachment and acceptance of impermanence. Something can be very beautiful, but being “attached”, or trying to hold onto such things is a source of terrible suffering. Change is, and always will be a constant. Resisting change brings pain. We could all learn to let go of those things we feel are so important.

It seems to me that Christian Communion is one of the most powerful religious reminders of our interconnectedness. Eating together is always a communion of a sort and for the whole congregation and indeed congregations across the world to take part in this ritual of sharing bread and wine can have a deep effect on people if they choose.

Some Christians believe the bread and wine is not symbolic, but is the actualflesh and blood of Jesus of Nazareth, which of course sounds pretty creepy. But to symbolically take in the body of one who lived an admirable life and is a compelling image of the oneness of humanity, can be life-enhancing and a reminder sacred within us all.

Christian baptism, as practiced by John the Baptist was a symbolic “washing” away the wrongs a person feels he or she has committed, and a catalyst to self- forgiveness. Today, it is a ceremony usually performed on babies, likely unencumbered by evil past deeds. Nonetheless, it remains important as a formal introduction of the child to the community. Often, members are specifically assigned as “godparents” with a special concern for the child’s welfare. Together, members of the community welcome the child and commit to providing for it.

Of course, the list of beautiful religious and cultural rituals is long, and they all, at their best provide ways to help us experience our shared divinity and call us to broaden ourselves.

Trouble is – we humans have a habit of taking the cheap way out and in doing so, cheapening the sacred. Rather than deeply pondering these rituals and letting them change us, many cultures and religions, over time, have come to see the rituals themselves, not the deep symbolism, as important. We perform these acts because we are told to and/or we are afraid not to, which immediately degrades any value it might have. We start putting magical properties on the rituals, as if the rituals themselves will do something for us.

In that incessant need humans have to get all our ducks in a row - or at least get other humans under our control - some religions that will insist that only rituals of their particular traditions are valid and, those who do not perform them will suffer serious consequences.

One of many examples is Baptism. Some teach that without Christian baptism a soul will spend eternity burning in hell. For centuries, largely because of the teaching of St Augustine, it was believed that infants who died before they could be baptized would spend eternity crying from the lake of fire in constant torment. One can only imagine the suffering this caused to countless parents over the ages. But even today, many people are so convinced of the supernatural properties of these types of rituals that they suffer terribly when loved ones of a different tradition choose not to go through the motions of certain rituals.

Many years ago my aunt, a good Catholic, caused family discord when she insisted my dying mother, an equally good Episcopalian, receive the last rites from the Catholic church. She was also distressed that my mother had chosen cremation. At the time the Catholic Church taught this would destroy ones chances of resurrection into heaven. I was young, and in no way sympathetic to what I considered to be an overbearing effort by my aunt to take advantage of my mother’s vulnerability and force unwanted religious practices on her. As I look back on it, I appreciate the anxiety my aunt was experiencing. She truly cared about my mother and did not want to see her chance for a joyful afterlife destroyed my a stubborn refusal to engage in simple rituals. My aunt experienced significant anguish over this, probably until she herself died a few years later.

Rituals that originally came about to help us connect with the whole, with each other, and with the divine, often become tools of division. Instead of broadening us, they can narrow us into our own fears and become tools to inflict misery.

It behooves us to look for the beauty, life-enhancing and joyful meanings of the rituals in our lives while avoid meanings that feed our prejudices, and reduce the sacred to mechanical acts.