It’s About More Than the Party After

Around the nation, and indeed around the world, people are missing out on celebrations.

• Graduates are missing the pomp and circumstance that acknowledges the work they have done to finish a particular part of their education.
• People who have had loved ones die as a result of the pandemic are denied a traditional funeral gathering.
• Our Muslim sisters and brothers are not able to celebrate Ramadan in traditional ways. (This Saturday marks Eid al-Fatr, a celebration marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.)
• Our Jewish sisters and brothers are unable to celebrate bar and bat mitzvahs.
• Baptisms/child blessings are on hold.
• Corporate worship during the Passover and Easter season was cancelled, as is weekly worship even now.
• In the Hispanic community, there are no Quinceanera celebrations marking a young girl’s transition to womanhood.
• In the Amish community, Rumspringa is being marked in a different way. Rumspringa is the time when young people are encouraged to go and enjoy all that life has to offer outside the Amish community. Then, if they return to the community, it is believed they make a more conscious choice to live in the Amish tradition.
• Wedding celebrations have been changed, postponed or drastically changed to meet social distancing and safety rules.

There is a combination of religious and cultural events that traditionally happen in the spring. For adolescents these rituals signify the transition from childhood to adulthood. For the grieving, these rituals signal the end of life as it is known and the transition to whatever comes next. Funerals also give a toe hold into grief, a socially marked time to express the sadness of a loved one’s death. For those getting married it signals a transition to a new and mutual partnership through life.  Weekly worship both encourages faith and expresses faith.

As all these life cycle rituals are put on hold, there are some amazing and creative ways people are celebrating. It is heartening to see all the ways graduations are being marked in communities across the country. Drive-through-weddings are now a thing…who thought that would ever happen? What’s next, drive through baptisms with a super soaker?

Joking aside, what all these rituals have in common is that they are more than the sum of their parts. They are not just words that are said in front of a bunch of people, followed by a party. Ritual is what gives us a place to stand for a moment, to mark a specific moment, as time inexorably marches on. Rituals punctuate time and proclaim the moment as significant.

Rituals also need people to bear witness. While some people may show up just for the party after the ritual, most people acknowledge that being present for life cycle rituals is important. The gathering of people who witness various rituals is a symbol of the present and the past. Saying the words of ancient history in a present moment, with a gathered community, connects us to our ancestors. We are reminded that we stand at a specific moment in history that is longer and larger than our lives in the moment.

We become vessels for tradition when we participate in the ancient rites of our particular people.  We embody the past and ground ourselves in the cloud of witnesses that has gone before us, saying the same words and promising the same things. They surround us and are there to remind and encourage us when we falter in the promises we have made. Rituals bear witness to the promise that we are never alone.

Rituals also touch something deep within us. As we punctuate time with a celebration and mark our place in history, we are internally grounded in a moment that is more than a moment. These rituals change us and acknowledge a new chapter in our lives. Rituals are not a magic switch that is flipped and we suddenly become someone else. Rituals, however, give us a new identity to live into and new expectations to live up to going forward. Rituals stand as a reminder that we stood in front of people, and in the midst of our ancestors, and pledged to do certain things and be a certain way. Such commitments are not to be taken lightly.

The loss of ritual in this time of global pandemic represents a kind of unmooring from the things which normally ground us. Grief and sadness are understandable responses to these losses, even if they are not fully articulated. We are created to be people of community. When that community is taken away we are bereft of a significant part of who we are. When ritual is absent from our lives, we are separated from the moments that solidify our identity, remind us who we are and what we have promised to do.

There are no easy answers, or even hard answers, about how to remedy this. A friend of mine is fond of saying that “The only way out is through.” We don’t have much choice except to get through it as best we can. Acknowledging our losses along the way and the sense of disconnection we feel in the absence of our usual rituals is an important part of validating some of the malaise and ennui we feel in this time.

Be gentle with yourselves, dear readers, be gentle with yourselves.