Keeping Our Center ~ Day 125

Ritual. It’s sort of a stuffy word relegated to the grand, vaulted ceilings of churches. According to Google, a ritual is “a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.” But ritual is much more than that, and I wonder if some of our angst and frustration with this pandemic time we’re in has to do with the disruption of our rituals.

For those of you brought up in highly liturgical churches (Catholic and Episcopal especially) you may understand better how doing the same thing over and over again can bring a sense of grounding and comfort as you wrap yourself once again in the familiar sounds, smells, tastes and actions of worship. I know a number of people who just can’t leave those religious rituals even though they don’t believe much of what those churches espouse anymore. 

That’s not to say that we don’t have ritual at Sacred Journeys. We do. They are just a little more informal. Greeting one another at the beginning of worship, joining our voices in song, sharing our joys and concerns, watching in fascination as Pastor Kaye wrangles with the children at Kid’s time, gathering our gifts in offering, and coffee hour are (or were) all weekly rituals. The fact that so many people choose to sit in roughly (or exactly) the same spot each week is a ritual! Of course, there are also the special times we share communion, baptize, light candles for loved ones, or light the Advent wreath.

Just thinking about these things stirs up feelings of longings. But I know that we have other personal rituals that may have been up-ended. Maybe coffee with special friends has been temporarily halted (and Zoom just isn’t the same), or the art fair you go to every summer isn’t happening, or you have more people at home and less private time to just “be,” or your annual trip was canceled, or your theater dates have been postponed, or you can’t sit in your regular booth for the Friday night fish fry. I bet you can add to the list.

These rituals, as ordinary as they seem, take on a sacred quality when they serve to comfort, ground and center us. Without the fireworks, without the yearly family picnic, without being able to attend funerals and weddings, without the usual big birthday parties, without church, it sort of feels like the rug has been pulled out from under us.

What rituals have you missed most? Sometimes it helps to just name it. I think I’ve missed our Thursday night band practices most, which was a weekly ritual of music, laughter, and sharing

Have you developed any new rituals during this time? Do you have rituals that help connect you to the Divine? If not, is there something you could do that would help put that rug back under you? Or at least be a temporary crutch until we’re all back on our feet?

I know things are going to be different for a while, but I do believe that someday we will be able to return to most of the rituals – small and large, communal and personal – that brought us so much joy. In the meantime there is still much of life to live!

Love & Light!

Kaye