July 19, 7:00pm (Kevin Westling)
Suddenly we see with new vision the hierarchy of our priorities. Suddenly, we know what we care about most, and we are inspired to put our lives in order – giving more time and money to some things and less to others. Death, near death and crisis, all bring life into focus.
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Trinity @ 7
July 18, 2010
“A beat up old table”
by Cam Miller
“…But now, after baptism,
the eyes that see the world have changed.”
Nikos Kazantzakis
I want to tag that notion,
along with the opening prayer
of “things sacred but sacred no longer,”
and talk about ritual.
The Protestant Reformation in Christianity
was partly rooted in a rejection of ritual
because of the severe abuse
that the imperial church wielded with its rituals
in order to pay for the art and architecture
of the high renaissance.
The Reformers,
and the later Puritans,
rejected almost every kind of previous religious ritual
as emblematic of an institution
and the institutional hierarchy from which it
violently separated.
So the Protestant movement
created worship space
and worship
marked by clear glass and light,
straight lines and simplicity,
and focused upon the Bible and a Sermon
rather than Communion and priesthood.
Then what happened was the birth of Masonic Orders.
Out of that rejection of ritual and hierarchy
was born a highly ritualized religiosity
with an intricate and secret hierarchy.
It was secular and separate from Christianity
but it was born within Protestantism.
In Judaism and Islam too,
when a movement is born that rejects ritual
in favor of some purer,
truer and unadulterated version of the religion,
what springs up, almost immediately,
is a highly ritualized order within the new movement.
When the culture rejects the old time religions
as too old and too rote and too ritualistic,
what emerges somewhere,
is something to satisfy the profound human craving
for an encounter with God.
Ever since the age of Enlightenment,
when so-called “Pure Reason”
has ruled alongside a hierarchy of sciences,
the old poetic idea that
our vision changes
once we are baptized
or initiated into any religion,
seems ludicrous.
Of course a little sprinkling,
or even a major dunking,
does not change our vision.
How absurd.
How stupid.
That’s just ignorant.
But wait.
Think about a near death experience.
A near death experience
often changes the eyesight
if not the heart-size
of the person who has gone to the edge
and come back.
Any big or deep crisis
can bring life into focus
in a way that it wasn’t before.
Suddenly
we see with new vision
the hierarchy of our priorities.
Suddenly,
we know what we care about most,
and we are inspired
to put our lives in order –
giving more time and money to some things
and less to others.
Death, near death and crisis,
all bring life into focus.
That is also what ritual is and what ritual does.
Ritual is the rehearsal of sacred moments.
Ritual is the putting our bodies in place,
in motion,
in the moment
with the hope that by doing so,
our lives will come into focus in a new way.
Does baptism or bar mitzvah or bas mitzvah
actually change our vision? No.
But can they awaken us
and invite us into new perspectives on life?
Yes…hell yes.
Ritual rehearses the sacred
for those moments when the sacred actually arrives.
Ritual stops us
and reminds us
of who we are
and whose we are,
so that our arrogance begins to melt just a little.
My favorite examples of a ritual with purpose,
one so common we don’t think of it
as a ritual,
is a romantic dinner.
If we want to have a romantic dinner with someone,
we know exactly what to do.
We pick a setting that has soft lighting,
food that is pleasing to the other,
music that is soothing or stimulating…
and privacy.
In short, we ritualize both
the moment and the space.
Why? Why do we do such things?
If we love one another,
or are just hot for one another
as the case may be,
we do not need that preparation –
presumably we are already predisposed for romance
to begin with.
We will not suddenly become different people
because of a romantic setting.
But we will become more open
to the emotions that are already present.
In the right setting,
with a fortunate arrangement
of sensual stimulus,
we will be more open and more receptive
to what was already present.
That is what ritual is for:
to open us to what is already present.
Ritual sensitized us
to what is present in the moment already.
Ritual stimulates our receptors
and opens us to experience what is already
available within us
and around us
and among us.
Ritual does in fact increase our vision,
and heighten our senses,
and allow us to see and feel and know
what we might otherwise miss.
What holy or sacred means, literally,
is to be “set apart”.
Holy ground
is ordinary old dirt
set apart for special purpose.
It then becomes, over time, imbued with that purpose.
A sacred space
is only ordinary old space
set aside for special purpose.
It then becomes, over time, imbued with that purpose.
I remember moving my parents out of the house
my siblings and I all grew up in,
and there was a very ugly old yellow linoleum table.
It was beat to shit
and real ugly. But…
it was the kitchen table all of us had
eaten around
played cards around
matched wits with games around
argued around
cried around
sat in silence around…
all the common, ordinary old things a family does.
It was an ugly,
rickety old table…that all of us wanted.
It was sacred,
holding as it did
the real presence
of a family that didn’t exist anymore –
at least not like it once did.
That is what sacred is:
the ordinary
that has become extraordinary
because we allowed to
by investing it with substance and meaning.
Holy places
and sacred rituals
rehearse the sacred among us
until the sacred actually arrives.
We need them.
We crave them.
Even the most iconoclastic among us
must have ritual and holiness
with which to give us new and better vision.
So tonight…
as we enter into our little Trinity@7
candle-lighting ritual,
in this space we have set aside
at this time we have set aside
in order to rehearse the arrival of the sacred…
I invite us to open wide;
to open wide
and listen for a whisper that reminds us:
who we are
and whose we are.
