Meaningful
Rituals
“Rituals,
anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation. The rituals
we use for marriage, baptism, or inaugurating a president are as
elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major
life change, the crossing of a critical threshold...in other words,
with transformation.”
Abraham
Verghese
Just so you know, Abraham
Verghese is an Indian-American physician and author, Professor of
Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical
School, Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal
Medicine. He was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and is one of the
many immigrants who are making America great every single day. But I digress.
I dreamed this morning
that my friend, Libba, was being baptized and the ritual was entirely
in French. In the dream, she knelt and kissed the hand of the priest.
Now, just by way of background, Libba is neither French nor Catholic.
She was born in Dothan, Alabama, and grew up in the Methodist church.
But the dream showed a ritual of transformation, in a language that
neither Libba nor I know. I will live with this dream for a while and
let the images and content inform me. What I'd like to write about,
however, is ritual, and its role in our lives.
We secular Westerners,
even though we may be members of a religious community, tend to pay
little attention to ritual. Take baptism, for instance. It's more a
matter of rote behavior; this is what we do when a new baby comes
into our community, or when an adult wants to join the church, but
has not been baptized. We baptize first and then accept them as
members. There is a protocol, there is a liturgy, but the ritual
itself is pretty sanitized and neutral. Making the sign of the Cross
in water on a forehead, is abbreviated at best, meaningless at worst.
Baptism was a part of the
ancient Mystery Religions—the Greek and Roman temple ceremonies
involved ritual bathing. Then, it was and is part of Judaism. The
Jewish purification ceremony, Tevilah, is still practiced in Orthodox
and Conservative Temples. And, it is part of many coming-of-age
rituals in tribal religions. Baptism is supposed to be by immersion
in a natural water source, a river, lake, or ocean, to simulate death
and rebirth into a new life. In other words, personal transformation.
Some protestant religions still use this method, but are considered
“primitive.” This makes me sad, simply because the more we depart
from sacred rituals, the more separate we become from the moral and
ethical codes that underpin them. The more we sanitize the mystery,
the less impact it has on us. And while rituals such as baptism are
mainly associated with Christianity, they are much older, far more
elemental and soul connected than any single theological idea. We
don't want to lose them and we don't want to trivialize them.
Last week, we went
through the U.S. Navy's decommissioning ceremony with the Red Boat.
We spoke the words, we listened to the Naval Hymn, we rang the bell
eight times, removed the nautical flags and presented them to the
Captain and Commander. For many folks, this would seem to be a silly
ceremony for a small red wooden boat, but it was a meaningful ritual
to the people who loved her. It was a way of honoring her service, of
saying good-bye, and of breaking with the past. My friends will move
on. They will no doubt acquire another little boat, but the red boat
will not be forgotten. She is properly memorialized. Transformation
comes in many forms. Ritual is an essential soul connection to the
mystery that exists within and without. These days, we need to hold
on to the sacred with both hands.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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