This last week has been full of rituals.
Last weekend I joined RevDMac‘s family for the celebration of his Priesting, the ritual whereby the Church of England accepted and recognised him as a Priest. Taking place at Norwich Cathedral, the event was large and filled with well-wishers for the eight candidates. Words were said, vows were made, gifts were exchanged, tears were shed and the rituals were observed.
During this week, on Wednesday, the whole cohort of teachers with whom I have been training for the last year came together to organise and run a special day at a Lincoln school, focused on teaching the Year 7 (10-11 year old) students the meaning of the nebulous concept of ‘Community Cohesion’. A good day was had and, at the end, there was a final assembly in the Sport’s Hall. Each group of teachers, who had each run a specific set of activities for groups of students, set about presenting the outcomes of the day to the whole year group. Words were said, praise was given, awards were awarded, music was played, cheers and clapping was bestowed, and the rituals of closing were observed.
On Thursday and Friday, as the PGCE course came to a close, again we teachers observed a set of rituals. For the RE gang, ever aware of the value of ritual, we designed and shared a special ritual farewell; we played pass-the-parcel, wrote words of thanks to one-another, exchanged ‘secret Santa’ gifts, ate a final meal, recorded advice for next year’s trainees and more. One again, tears were shed, special words spoken, and thanks given. On Friday, as a whole PGCE cohort, a similar ritual meal was shared.
From my experience we are ritual creatures, beings who find it important to mark the changes and key events of our lives with special words, deeds, gifts and emotional sharing. Birthdays, religious festivals, story remembrance, anniversaries, coming of age, joining, leaving, marriage, death… all include ritual and feel empty without it.
Why is Ritual Important?
Ritual (rit·u·al) [rich-oo-uhl]
–noun
1. an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.2. a system or collection of religious or other rites.3. observance of set forms in public worship.
Does the dictionary do this word justice? Is connecting ritual to religious action too narrow?
Are we fundamentally religious, whether we connect that idea to a specific religious tradition or not?
Why celebrate birthdays? Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t, but most other cultures do. The passing of another year seems to have significance for humans. Whilst one of my friends quips, “Happy Staying Alive on this Planet for Another Year,” another deeply reverences the passing of a birthday. For many families, birthdays are the most important ritual of each year.
Ritual varies from household to household, from person to person. For my family birthdays are, whilst celebrated, nowhere near as elaborate as they are in my wife’s family. British reserve is thrown to the winds in her old home as the day is marked with much good humour and tom-foolery. Where I come from it’s a quiet exchange of gifts, a meal, some brief ritual words like, “Happy Birthday” and then on with life. Neither is right nor wrong, just different.
Significance is placed upon special moments, sometimes in repetition and even thoughtlessly (as with Christmas in many homes in the West), sometimes as a unique event in a person or group of people’s life. You will have only one ‘coming of age’, only one death. It seems that, throughout our history of many thousands of years, humanity has performed ritual. Bodies of ancient 40,000 year-old Neanderthal show remains of ritual burial involving red ochre and other special elements.
Whatever the reason, we keep performing rituals.
Are You Conscious of Ritual?
One of my goals in teaching RE is to encourage folk to value and consciously think about the rituals they perform. I feel that all ritual is a basically religious act in the sense that we seek to gain special favour or remembrance of something through the enactment of the rite. A life without ritual is impoverished and dry.
Children often ‘feel sorry’ for the Jehovah’s Witness friends who do not celebrate birthdays; non-Muslim children react similarly to Muslims who do not celebrate Christmas. I have no doubt that Jewish children feel that Christians are somehow missing out when they do not take part in Passover or other key events in their own calendar. Our rituals are always precious and something we’d wish for others to emulate.
There are homes in Britain today in which the secular life has combined with deep cynicism of commercialism, not to mention with poverty, to lead people away from precious ritual. Birthdays are no longer celebrated, Christmas is stripped bare (possibly wisely for the non-Christian), and the key moments of growing up and living are not marked. Even marriage has been emptied of value, and death is perhaps the only ritual that remains.
Is a life stripped of ritual one that is also stripped of joy and celebration? Perhaps I overstate the question… but still, I wonder.
Think about your own rituals. Do you own them? Are they deep enough? Can they be re-invigorated? Why do you celebrate them?
When you figure out the answers you might find that you discover something significant.
