I’m not big on ritual. I like the idea of ritual but my idea has always been based on the ritual meaning something. A bit vague, I realize, but …
Growing up, once a month or so we would “celebrate” the Lord’s Supper, a.k.a. take communion. We would drink our grape juice and eat our cracker niblets while sitting in our pew. (Yes, the good ol’ Protestant version of the Eucharist sans kneeling, walking, Latin, &c.) This could have been ritual — should have been a ritual what with the “do this in remembrance of me” and all — but it wasn’t because I was always stuck on the part that came before. I was stuck on the “do not partake unworthily” which, to me, meant “have no unconfessed sin in your life” so I spent the whole time sitting there confessing every sin I could think of. So, this mother (or father) of all rituals was not really a ritual; it was a time to focus on saving my ass from the unpardonable sin (I was a bit naive back then).
We always prayed before most meals but that, too, was a chore to say the “right” words and never “came from the heart.” It was just something we did that embarrassed me when we were out in public. I remember our assistant pastor would do the “long” Sunday morning prayer and mention all the prayer requests: the sick, the missionaries, &c. I would often time his prayers and always giggled to myself when he used the word “unction,” which he did quite frequently. So prayer was never a ritual for me.
Lately, I’ve tried other rituals: journaling in the morning, keeping a paper checkbook, writing my poems and blog posts on paper instead of on the computer. But none of them lasted very long. It was always “easier” to go back to the old habits.
I think my problem has been that I’ve always expected the ritual to mean something and none of these things did. They were meaningless things that I tried to do just for the sake of doing them. But, now I’m starting to think that that’s exactly what a ritual is — a meaningless thing we do just for the hell of it (more or less).
Ram Dass, in The Only Dance There Is, says the ritual, itself, is an offering. The act is an offering. It has nothing to do with my getting something out of it just like an offering is not about receiving but about giving. The ritual is something we give to God. But, he continues, once we realize that I, as the one performing the ritual, and the offering itself and the one to whom the offering is made are all part if “it all,” that it’s like
“[I am] pouring energy into energy for a matter of energy in honoring energy. So big deal, so nothing’s happened. Certainly knocks a hole in orality to start to see the universe that way. What are we doing? Nothing. How could you ever do anything, it’s all here?”
So, I think I need to rethink ritual and try a few new ones on for size — with a new attitude about them.
How about you? What rituals do you regularly do and why?
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