Rituals Grow and Change

Rev. Lilli Nye reflects on rituals:

“They give us the opportunity, a series of anniversaries, to celebrate what we love, to recognize what has changed, what has been lost or gained, and what is timeless. If we let them, they can help us to touch the transcendent and to enter the healing presence of the sacred.”
(From Nye’s sermon, “Seasons, Symbols, and Ceremony: Why We Need Ritual in Our Lives”)

Rituals can be a way of acknowledging our history, and creating continuity with it. When we do something we have done many times before, we remember the ways in which it has been similar or different in the past. We need moments where we can feel connection with our past and reflect on it.

Connecting with and reflecting on the past can be difficult when our lives go through significant changes. For instance, if you move to a new place, you may find it hard to maintain past rituals. Suddenly, the rhythms of life are different. Maybe you no longer talk a nice long walk to work in the morning. Maybe in this new place you ride the subway or you drive. Or maybe instead of meeting up with your best friend for a drink on Tuesday nights, you have to telephone her at odd times.

When I grew up in Baltimore, I was used to a slow, drawn-out spring full of tulips and breezy days. In Boston, spring comes and goes in a few weeks, and then the hot summer is quick on its heels. I still haven’t fully gotten used to this change, and when I get a whiff of real spring weather, I feel a connection to childhood.

Nye writes about the seasons:

“So entrained to the seasons are my body, mind, and imagination, so visceral is my expectation that the seasons will recur in regular succession, turning in their eternal wheel, that when that cycle begins to melt and morph into an unrecognizable blob, my own being feels strange and wobbly.”

It is a fact of life that in order to move forward, we have to accept some adjustment to our rituals. We will make changes throughout our lives such as moving to new places, taking new jobs or starting new relationships. And these changes will impact our rituals.

I believe the challenge for us is to maintain rituals in our lives, but also to adjust them under new circumstances, and to create new rituals when needed. As Nye notes, when the rituals we expect are not there, we ‘feel strange and wobbly.’

Flexible rituals can provide us with stability even in times of change. Rituals should be like trees that grow, produce flowers, bend towards the sun, shed their leaves. Rituals should both be recognizable over time and adapt to the world around them.

I look to my congregation to help me develop rituals. On my own time, I like to schedule every day a little differently. But the schedule of the congregation is fixed. Every Sunday morning, we will worship together. Whether I am having a great weekend or a horrible weekend, a great year or a difficult year–Sunday morning worship will still be there. The topics of worship, the format of worship, and even the person who leads worship changes. But the tradition of Sunday worship persists. When I go, I am reminded of all the happiness and sadness I have experienced in the meeting house, all the moments I had amazing realizations, and all the times I dragged myself in even though I didn’t really feel like going.

I have heard of congregations whose buildings have been destroyed by natural disaster, yet they are worshipping on the roadside or in another building on the very next weekend. People love the continuity of being part of a church—the sense that the church will be there for you in all the changes of life.

Let me leave you with one more example of how rituals can adapt in healthy ways over time. Rev. Rob Hardies reflects in his sermon, “Making a Difference,” about how the ritual of performing weddings at All Souls in Washington D.C. has changed over time:

“All Souls was one of the only churches in the area that would marry an interracial couple; now — decades later — it’s one of the few that will marry a gay couple. Time and again, this church has used its sacraments to bear witness to a love far beyond the wildest imaginings of other churches. Times change, but some things remain the same.”