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Hi, y’all.
From nuns to hospitals to Trinity Wall Street, there was a lot about (Christian) religion on My Firedoglake today. We can see the nuns doing good while wondering about the other problems of (some?) organized religion, especially as it becomes mired in the politics of the 1% (Trinity Wall Street).
For me, I was raised in the Catholic church but have come to be an agnostic with a firm believer in the power of ritual. I think ritual helps us order our lives, helps us feel control, while building a sense of connection with the people we are near. It doesn’t have to be a religious ritual and it can be as simple as a regularly shared meal or as complex as the central effigy of Burning Man. I sometimes think this love of ritual is hard-wired into human brains, and some researchers support this notion.
Of course, I think we have to keep working with what works for us, and avoid doing things just because others tell us — then we’ve moved from ritual into the bad part of tradition, the part that can keep us from growing.
I’m going to cut this short here — I’m afraid I may be coming down with a cold — sore throat, achey head.
That’s what’s on my mind tonight, though. What’s on yours? This is today’s open thread.
14 Comments
Stunning music – I didn’t know it and went digging a little. If anyone else wants to know more, here’s the wiki link for a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_%26_Eno
Funny – ritual seems good but is low on my list.
Indeed the original Christian “every man his own priest” did not last long but while it did the “priest” just had a better memory for prayers that others and lead the assembled in public prayer, and volunteered to distribute to the poor whatever was given as offerings.
The “every man his own priest” had a come back of sorts with some of the Protestants – but by then various rituals were expected in “Church” gatherings.
Don’t get me wrong – I like rituals – it is just not that central to my prayer life. As for “burning man” – I always saw that as a poor bit of performance art based on an old short story (there are a couple of movies based on that story) where the story appears to be a reflection of a ritual in Great Brittan long long ago (when they actually burned men that way). Just atheists mocking the religious, albeit with a bit more effort than the usual. Insecurity is expressed in many ways.
I’m jiggy with ritual. I’m jiggy with spirituality. I’m not so jiggy with people who think spirituality requires belief in spirits.
I don’t share your love of ritual. I find them mostly tedious and uncomfortable. Even the loosest, most voluntary ritual in the world always becomes bound by rules and led by a clique of people at the top who get their positions by virtue of who they know, not who they are. No thanks, I already quit one religion, I don’t need any more ritual in my life.
I’m sorry your interpretation of Burning Man is of atheists mocking the religious. I doubt a single person involved with that event would agree with your interpretation. Is it possible to perhaps compare it instead with the buddhist rituals of creating beautiful artwork and then ritually destroying it as a reflection on change & impermanence? Or is that too irreverent for your tastes too?
I tend to be OK with what others want to do as long as it doesn’t seem to harm others. But I tend to have a pretty non-spirits based interpretation of reality as well.
So you don’t have any small rituals in your own life? A favorite way to unwind after a long day or an order to doing things you find personally comforting?
Kit, a sore throat is not good. Hope you get to feeling better. Maybe a bowl of soup might help?
I find myself pretty much where you are at having been raised Catholic. Now that I am a little older I am more reluctant to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Some of that throat coat tea, and some medicine to stop the post-nasal drip has me feeling a little better today. Fingers crossed that this is all it takes.
Maybe it isn’t human wiring at all, and just lapsed-Catholic wiring that leads me to love ritual. ;)
Thanks! Picking a song every day is one of the best things about the watercooler!
Some rituals are intensely moving.
Some rituals are outrageously uncomfortable.
Rituals are a form of the Oral Tradition of communication still alive today.
To me they are impressive for their Cultural Anthropology.
Rituals connect us with all others who have experienced the ritual, and in that way rituals connect us with our ecstasy and our birth and our death.
It is only natural to go through a stage wherein one rejects ritual in general, especially those of one’s own culture. But some connection with that culture may be advisable for self identity, and because it connects us and unites us with our forerunners in performing this ritual, and in our own culture and history.
The art work to destruction idea has been around for a long while – but burning man refers to specific English/Norman/Gaul practices for the treatment of the losers in a battle – and was thought of as “spiritual” at least in the films that have been made.
Everyone has an opinion – that is my opinion based on who attends and their apparent (to me) belief system.