RITUALS HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE MEMORIES

 

RITUALS HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE MEMORIES - don't discount them. 

All special days, across all cultures, have rituals involved in the observation of those ‘Holidays’.

While some rituals are so familiar to us we do not even think of them as ritualistic, foreigners may look at what we do and would ask why do you do these rituals? 

To which we would probably say “I don’t know, it is just part of the way we celebrate this particular holiday or event.”

IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH RITUALS?

Rituals are not good or bad in themselves, they are the building blocks of making Memories, but they can also lull us to sleep if we are just going through the motions. Rituals can be anything from the way we start the day, to how we squeeze or roll the toothpaste. Special readings, even cliches. 

Memories are built when we're successful in making the day special, and out of the ordinary. This may be a one-time event like a trip to a monument or to the Grand Canyon. It can also be a reoccurring celebration like a birthday or Thanksgiving. We have all been born into some familial rituals and as we become adults we gradually add to or dispose of ‘mini-rituals that were assembled to make up the day. Special elements that we have picked up along the way may be added. Maybe we read about a ritual it in a book saw it portrayed in a movie or at a friend’s house. We add them to our personal list of ‘must haves’ for that day or days that make it stand out from all the other days.

We call them Holiday traditions they vary from family to family but also have several common elements determined by the broader culture we grew up in.  

Let’s touch on a few that may be familiar to you.

First, let’s look at how we celebrate Birthdays. In America, we usually have Ice Cream, cake with candles (one candle per year of age) We have the person blow out the candles, but not before they make a wish? We wrap the gifts in colorful paper and give them to the birthday girl or boy to unwrap while everyone watches. If you dig deeper into the ways each family does these elements of birthday celebrations you will find that they are undocumented rituals. 

At some birthday parties, small children may wear pointed hats, and there used to be a tradition of Birthday spankings. This particular birthday ritual was prevalent when I was a child but fortunately, it has since been removed from modern birthday party traditions, and that is probably a good thing. Birthday celebrations have traditional colors associated with them.  

Colors: bold, bright primary colors.  When you reach forty, or fifty, the COLOR changes to Black, and phrases like “Over the Hill” are displayed.  All of the above are rituals or cultural norms learned and adopted by immersion in a culture.                                                                     

Let's look at some other 'feasts'...

New Year’s Eve – Party spirit - Drinking, eating, finger food, watching the ball drop in Times Square, kissing the person you love on the stroke of Midnight. 

Colors: silver and gold. Churches may have a more solemn watch night service tradition, in contrast to the world’s tradition of partying hard. Rising from your knees at midnight might replace watching the ball drop. 

New Year’s Day – Sleeping in, recovering from the night before, finger food, US football, and making resolutions to name a few. 

Vallentine’s Day – Hearts, flowers, candy, chocolate, handwritten, love-inspired notes, a special dinner out, or at home, colors RED and White

St. Patrick’s Day – clover, parades, drinking, funny green hats, “kiss me I am Irish” buttons, t-shirts.

Color GREEN for Catholics, ORANGE for protestants. Most people wear GREEN regardless of their denominational affiliation.

4^th of July  - going to the lake, watching a parade, Bar-B-Q, hot dogs, drinking beer, fireworks -  COLORS: RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

You get the picture right? 

Rituals fill our lives they involve what food, what drink, what activities, even what colors, and the order of the things we say. Why do we all say, "Red White and Blue" in that specific order? 

Why doesn't anyone say, "Blue, Red, and White"?  That would be the logical and alphabetical order. Nope, tradition does not allow it!

Why do we say the 4^th of July when in the United States of America we usually designate the month first followed by the numeric date? (i.e. February 14^th, December 25^th, October 31^st) for all other dates. Ironic for the date we celebrate our independence from Europe we use the European date sequence of day/month. Go figure. 

Making memories: - activation exercise.

1.       Close your eyes and recall your favorite holiday memory.

2.      NOW list all the things that are keys to the memory.

a.       The Colors

b.       Smells

c.       Visuals

d.       Shapes

e.       Etc.

3.   Think back and list what preparations were required for you to experience and store that memory – Let's say your memory was the smell of freshly baked ________ in the oven

a.       It required rolling out the dough in a prescribed manner – a ritual

b.       Forming the pastries, cookies, or bars according to the instructions – a ritual

c.       Glazing, filling, or topping them in a prescribed manner – more rituals

Let’s use the Dec 25^th Holiday for example. list all the steps you can think of that are required to meet your expectations for that holiday to be acceptable. 

What are you willing to give up?  What is a non-negotiable? 

Let’s look at just one aspect of this December holiday - THE TREE!

1.   PROCURE the tree – your ritual might require hiking out into the woods and cutting down your own, or going to the Ys men’s tree lot or just pulling the artificial tree out of the attic or basement.

2.   SETTING-UP the tree – Let me guess, you probably have a stand that has three green legs and a red bowl with a nail in the center and 3 thumb screws to hold the trunk secure. Was I right? Aha Tradition!

3.   SKIRTING the tree – maybe you do, maybe you don't, maybe require a gold skirt, a silver skirt, a red or green one, homemade or commercially made. 

4.   LIGHTING the tree – multi-colored or just one color, big or small, flashing or steady, changing colors...

5.   HANG ORNAMENTS on the tree – you probably use the same ones every year and even put them in roughly the same arrangement.  

6.   TOP THE TREE – Let me guess, you have either an angel or a star, and a few of you might still have an antique ornament that resembles a spike. Was I right?

Each of these items could be subdivided into more mini-rituals like the ones I mentioned. The main point is that they all work together to build the so-called 'perfect' holiday experience in your mind. If you can recognize that they are everywhere in your life to some degree… then Congratulations! You are guilty, you are a ritualistic religious person.

When we turn from our familiar traditions and look at a different culture, another family, or another religion, we see unfamiliar and perhaps conflicting ideas, rituals, and symbols. We may feel confused and overwhelmed and think to ourselves, "Wow that’s a lot of stuff to remember, boy, are they caught up in rituals."  

You learned our family’s rituals gradually as you grew up by observation and repetition. Much like when you learned to speak. First by hearing certain words and phrases spoken over and over, then repeat the sounds you heard. When you think about it, language and rituals are very similar in that they are built of many smaller elements that are combined to make up a bigger idea. Since they are both learned by observation and repetition, they are reinforced early in life by positive or negative feedback.  

If we can first see that we blindly follow many rituals and habits that we had to learn once, but now take for granted, then when we turn to look into the Biblical Feasts we can see that because they are unfamiliar to us they can be like learning a new language. We are not going to be proficient right away without putting in some effort.

Unfortunately, the Feasts of the LORD with their practices are unfamiliar to us because the Roman Empire purposely broke the chain of custody of the Biblical feasts, and discarded them with their practices. Rome replaced them with dates, rituals, and worship protocols of pagan idols, false gods, and goddesses. We have adopted these protocols and rituals believing that they are orthodox in Christendom, we will remain in deception unless we are willing to look into their origins. 

The root determines the fruit. 

Many of our holiday rituals even the tree rituals mentioned above do not come from the Bible. They are the traditions of men.  In many cases, they are in fact the rituals required by the worship protocols of pagan gods and goddesses. They crept into the Roman church centuries ago. As they absorbed the religious practices of every culture they conquered by adding their gods and goddesses and pagan holidays to their repertoire. Unfortunately, Luther only had 95 theses (revelations) about the issues in the Roman church but there were some things He didn't see in 1517 that we can see clearly today if we make an effort to look. 

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Various writings from the past
The Road Not Taken

At Home In MN