Ceremony
In a few days, many will process into bleachers and participate in a traditional commencement ceremony. Many may imagine that they would prefer to receive their diplomas in the mail (and to put them in a drawer instead of in a frame on the wall). There may be similar resistance for many who attend Eagle Scout Courts of Honor, weddings, funerals, inaugurations, church, chapel, and synagogue services, and other ritual ceremonies.
Why are we so resistant to this kind of activity, which human beings have been practicing since they have been known to be human?
Part of the answer lies in two big chips we carry on our shoulders when we enter into ceremonial occasions.
On our left shoulder is the unexamined assumption that anything that is not spontaneous, arising from immediate visceral instinct, is artificial and therefore false.
This chip we inherit from the Romantic movement of the 19th century, still very much with us. The spokesman for that movement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in many pages of argument, articulated the premise that man is naturally good and that it is society that corrupts him. The conclusion drawn by many was and is that in order to recover goodness, we must depart from the group and become entirely individual, which in practice means getting into touch with the most natural parts of ourselves: our bodies, spontaneous impulses, feelings, gut. The enemy is every fraternal, political, or religious institution, every tradition, every form of social conditioning or societal influence (except that which tells us to resist societal influence!).
With this chip on our shoulder, we experience any ceremony as a compromise of our sacred individuality, a succumbing to corrupting external pressure, a surrender.
And so we resist. The moment our elders tell us “This ritual is what we do and how we do it,” we inwardly rebel. (Who are you to tell me what to do? Nature is my guide to the good. You are society, trying to corrupt me.) The romantic enters the place of ceremony believing his best (natural) self is under attack by society in the form of artificiality.
On our right shoulder is the unexamined assumption that anything that cannot be scientifically demonstrated to our rational intellect is likely to be at best inadvertent error and at worst intentional deception.
This chip we inherit from the Enlightenment of the 18th century, still very much with us too. Here the premise is that man’s intellect is constantly growing in its mastery of reality and, given time and sufficient experimentation, will eventually comprehend all things that have in the past seemed to be mysterious. The conclusion drawn by many was and is that in order to attain to truth, we must examine everything with the eye of objective and skeptical rational observation supported by experiment. The enemy is every attempt to appeal to non-objective modes of experience: tradition, imagination, faith, revelation, obedience to authority (except the authority of science!).
With this chip on our shoulder, we experience any ceremony as a compromise of our sacred reason, a succumbing to corrupting superstition, a surrender.
And so we resist. The moment our elders tell us “This ritual is what we do and how we do it,” we inwardly rebel. (Do you really expect me to believe this is real? Reason is my instrument of truth. You are the ignorant past, trying to bamboozle me.) The rationalist enters the place of ceremony believing his true (rational) self is under attack by the past in the form of superstition.
We are all both romantics and rationalists—all of us. We can't help it. We came to consciousness being trained to be both, and reinforcement is all around us.
Except in our ceremonies.
Despite the inherited burden of those two chips, we nonetheless keep participating in ceremonies. We go to weddings and funerals; we look forward to the prom and commencement; we watch the ball dropping on New Year’s Eve or the President taking his oath of office. Why?
Because we are not only romantics and rationalists. We are also mysterious whole beings that transcend our own categories and prejudices. As it turns out, we want something besides the satisfaction of our impulses or the observation of facts. We crave it.
What is this mysterious other thing that we crave, this thing that we willingly participate in ceremonies in order to find?
The answer is meaning—which lies in the experience of being or becoming part of something bigger than we are—bigger than our impulses and our individual natures, bigger than our facts and our explanations. We crave the meaning of being taken up and absorbed into something even more real than ourselves. And we simply will not live without it.
As a result, despite the weight of those chips on our shoulders, we participate in ceremonies—because lurking within us, out of range of the romantic longing for freedom from constraint, out of range of the all-examining eye of reason, is the hope that yet once more we may be granted participation in the experience of something real.
This is why those of you who will graduate this spring will be at baccalaureate and commencement wearing your caps and gowns. You will be hoping to experience meaning.
But because this experience of meaning is mysterious, ceremony comes with a warning: There are no guarantees. There is no guarantee that even if you give yourself wholeheartedly to the experience you will be deeply moved by it. Ceremony invites meaning; it can't command it. But you can bet that if you withhold your willing participation, you will almost certainly not be moved.
How can we lose ourselves in what is bigger than we are if we are anchored to ourselves by those heavy chips? If the left chip tells us that the most important thing is our separateness, the right chip that it is our detachment, how can we let these overly precious selves go and actually join in the ceremony?
There is a way, of course, and it is the way of faith that things can happen that we are not masters of, faith in the wisdom of our forebears who established the ceremony for our benefit.
It is the way of hope in the power of something outside ourselves to reach in and change us, hope in the integrity and authenticity built into the ceremonial forms.
It is the way of love of our own good that longs to be, even for a moment, redeemed from the prison of our mere selves, love of our neighbors’ good that wills them to be moved even if we ourselves are not.
It is the way of surrendering the will to that otherwise inaccessible reality which the ceremony exists to draw into the here-and-now world of time and space.
So as you are marching to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance,” or stepping under the wedding canopy, or singing a hymn, or saluting the flag, know that if you let the chips govern you and keep your mental distance, the potential meaning will surely elude you, because you have closed the door and left it no way to come in.
But if you choose to participate in the ceremony with your whole self, if you open that door and invite the meaning in, it may or may not enter, but you have done your part. And if it does enter, the reward will be the fulfillment of your longing for meaning, a spirit that blows those chips off your shoulders like the dust of the earth and lifts you toward the stars.
Why are we so resistant to this kind of activity, which human beings have been practicing since they have been known to be human?
Part of the answer lies in two big chips we carry on our shoulders when we enter into ceremonial occasions.
On our left shoulder is the unexamined assumption that anything that is not spontaneous, arising from immediate visceral instinct, is artificial and therefore false.
This chip we inherit from the Romantic movement of the 19th century, still very much with us. The spokesman for that movement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in many pages of argument, articulated the premise that man is naturally good and that it is society that corrupts him. The conclusion drawn by many was and is that in order to recover goodness, we must depart from the group and become entirely individual, which in practice means getting into touch with the most natural parts of ourselves: our bodies, spontaneous impulses, feelings, gut. The enemy is every fraternal, political, or religious institution, every tradition, every form of social conditioning or societal influence (except that which tells us to resist societal influence!).
With this chip on our shoulder, we experience any ceremony as a compromise of our sacred individuality, a succumbing to corrupting external pressure, a surrender.
And so we resist. The moment our elders tell us “This ritual is what we do and how we do it,” we inwardly rebel. (Who are you to tell me what to do? Nature is my guide to the good. You are society, trying to corrupt me.) The romantic enters the place of ceremony believing his best (natural) self is under attack by society in the form of artificiality.
On our right shoulder is the unexamined assumption that anything that cannot be scientifically demonstrated to our rational intellect is likely to be at best inadvertent error and at worst intentional deception.
This chip we inherit from the Enlightenment of the 18th century, still very much with us too. Here the premise is that man’s intellect is constantly growing in its mastery of reality and, given time and sufficient experimentation, will eventually comprehend all things that have in the past seemed to be mysterious. The conclusion drawn by many was and is that in order to attain to truth, we must examine everything with the eye of objective and skeptical rational observation supported by experiment. The enemy is every attempt to appeal to non-objective modes of experience: tradition, imagination, faith, revelation, obedience to authority (except the authority of science!).
With this chip on our shoulder, we experience any ceremony as a compromise of our sacred reason, a succumbing to corrupting superstition, a surrender.
And so we resist. The moment our elders tell us “This ritual is what we do and how we do it,” we inwardly rebel. (Do you really expect me to believe this is real? Reason is my instrument of truth. You are the ignorant past, trying to bamboozle me.) The rationalist enters the place of ceremony believing his true (rational) self is under attack by the past in the form of superstition.
We are all both romantics and rationalists—all of us. We can't help it. We came to consciousness being trained to be both, and reinforcement is all around us.
Except in our ceremonies.
Despite the inherited burden of those two chips, we nonetheless keep participating in ceremonies. We go to weddings and funerals; we look forward to the prom and commencement; we watch the ball dropping on New Year’s Eve or the President taking his oath of office. Why?
Because we are not only romantics and rationalists. We are also mysterious whole beings that transcend our own categories and prejudices. As it turns out, we want something besides the satisfaction of our impulses or the observation of facts. We crave it.
What is this mysterious other thing that we crave, this thing that we willingly participate in ceremonies in order to find?
The answer is meaning—which lies in the experience of being or becoming part of something bigger than we are—bigger than our impulses and our individual natures, bigger than our facts and our explanations. We crave the meaning of being taken up and absorbed into something even more real than ourselves. And we simply will not live without it.
As a result, despite the weight of those chips on our shoulders, we participate in ceremonies—because lurking within us, out of range of the romantic longing for freedom from constraint, out of range of the all-examining eye of reason, is the hope that yet once more we may be granted participation in the experience of something real.
This is why those of you who will graduate this spring will be at baccalaureate and commencement wearing your caps and gowns. You will be hoping to experience meaning.
But because this experience of meaning is mysterious, ceremony comes with a warning: There are no guarantees. There is no guarantee that even if you give yourself wholeheartedly to the experience you will be deeply moved by it. Ceremony invites meaning; it can't command it. But you can bet that if you withhold your willing participation, you will almost certainly not be moved.
How can we lose ourselves in what is bigger than we are if we are anchored to ourselves by those heavy chips? If the left chip tells us that the most important thing is our separateness, the right chip that it is our detachment, how can we let these overly precious selves go and actually join in the ceremony?
There is a way, of course, and it is the way of faith that things can happen that we are not masters of, faith in the wisdom of our forebears who established the ceremony for our benefit.
It is the way of hope in the power of something outside ourselves to reach in and change us, hope in the integrity and authenticity built into the ceremonial forms.
It is the way of love of our own good that longs to be, even for a moment, redeemed from the prison of our mere selves, love of our neighbors’ good that wills them to be moved even if we ourselves are not.
It is the way of surrendering the will to that otherwise inaccessible reality which the ceremony exists to draw into the here-and-now world of time and space.
So as you are marching to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance,” or stepping under the wedding canopy, or singing a hymn, or saluting the flag, know that if you let the chips govern you and keep your mental distance, the potential meaning will surely elude you, because you have closed the door and left it no way to come in.
But if you choose to participate in the ceremony with your whole self, if you open that door and invite the meaning in, it may or may not enter, but you have done your part. And if it does enter, the reward will be the fulfillment of your longing for meaning, a spirit that blows those chips off your shoulders like the dust of the earth and lifts you toward the stars.
posted by G.Rap | 11:54 PM
7 Comments:
Comments now enabled.
Another reason we don't appreciate ceremony and ritual at age 17 or 18 is that we have the luxury of time with our friends and parents. Once you get to be older than 25 or 30, you realize you don't see your friends or family nearly enough, and ceremonies are a great excuse to see them. And much as I didn't want to go to prom or graduation or my grandfather's funeral, I can't imagine not going. The litmus test of friendship and adulthood is showing up to things that matter. The chair of the department of medicine at my school--who doesn't have time to go to the bathroom most days--clears out a full afternoon every year for graduation. This isn't middle-school graduation or some other meaningless gig. Graduating high school is right up there with the other sacramental milestones on the road to happy destiny, and it's one of the only ones you get to do with a group of people who have had such a similar hazing, unless you go to the Naval Academy or a professional school. Make no mistake: getting from seventh grade to the end of puberty--and learning your three Rs--is an heroic feat. So even if you're going only because you're forced to go, you'll be glad you went ten years later. It puts a bright red bow on those four years you crammed AP classes into your brain until 2 a.m. When you go to college, you'll be in a stadium-sized auditorium, where the dean will mispronounce your name. Rent the black polyester and put on the dorky hat. Smile. You've earned it.
Yes! A fine argument for the jaded and cynical modern individual. Growing into adulthood is largely a process of growing out of our nascent narcissism and into an awareness of the other; of the unified field of human experience. The ability to "lose ones' self" is toyed with in common homemade rites-of-passage such as getting drunk or high and other similar examples of the suppressed need for ritual surfacing in warped ways.
"That which tells us to resist societal influence" is that which is skeptical of any demand for societal obedience. The danger in the Amercan myth of civil disobedience is the turn into uncivil disregard. The myth of the precocious and rebellious youth vs. the clueless and empowered adult is rampant in our present time and has grown (fungus-like) from our earlier Romantic ideal of the self-made hero. Unchecked, it leads to a demise in conscience and a disregard of consequence. That said, we must remember why we had these revolutions of thought in the first place: the abusive demand for blind obedience and the insidious propaganda of "traditional" forms to maintain an unjust and intolerant social order. Let us not throw out the baby with the bath water. We cannot go home again. We must continue to seek ritual, spiritual communion with our larger family and history but we cannot do so blindly. We must find our way toward intentional obedience in service of our highest ideals. To be willing to lose ourselves only when our "selves" have agreed to be lost. The danger of abusive power and unjust authority is still with us, if not on the commencement ground, on the battle fields. Ultimately however, they are linked. The soldier in Iraq must know and accept that his life is worth losing for his country's current agenda; I think it is not. The graduate must know and recognize that his self is worth losing for a membership in the elite community of the enlightened and educated; I think it is, provided that the elitism is itself participating in the ongoing pursuit of a just, tolerant and equitable society of all. Amen.
I disagree with David not only about the war but about the gnostical idea that the world is divided into the past era of "unjust and intolerant social order" and the glorious future of "just, tolerant and equitable society of all." This is a false dichotomy. The imperative to seek justice is always with us, always has been, always will be, and injustice and intolerance live not merely in "social orders" but in every one of us. Men in the past struggled with how to be just in an unjust world just as we do, and we now are blind to all sorts of forms of injustice which would horrify men of the past and will no doubt horrify men of the future. The "just and equitable society of all" is a fantasy if it is not imagined as being based upon eternal universal principles that must be fought for at every moment in every one of us and throughout history. And there would be no image of a "just, tolerant and equitable society of all" if it were not for those past demands of clear-sighted (not blind) obedience to traditional absolutes. To reject the absoluteness of those principles (justice, kindness) is to abolish the very grounds of the equality and tolerance we so often blindly value. Once again, I say read C.S. Lewis's "The Abolition of Man."
I honor all those in the American Military who dedicate their lives, and all those who (to our lasting sorrow) have sacrificed their lives, for the sake of the universal principle of justice as they understand it to be embodied in the ideals of American democracy, imperfect and compromised as that embodiment must be in this still unfinished world of human fallibility and mixed motives.
I can see how you arrive at a false dichotomy. Yet the historical experience of injustice certainly puts us on guard against more of the same; within as well as without. The desire for a just, tolerant and equitable society is not in opposition with an absolute principle of justice and kindness. I think you are confusing "absolute" with "traditional." To say "traditional absolutes" is an oxymoron insomuch as it renders absolutes, which stand on their own, subservient to traditions, which are man-made. My caveat was simply that we must be aware of the founding notions of our institutions and their traditions even as we lose ourselves to them. Surely you are not in favor of all ceremony and all traditional beliefs - that would include the student who dons a white robe and hood to participate in a KKK ritual and the theologian who argues the culpability of the Jews in the death of Jesus. I think we are essentially in agreement on this.
As to the war effort, however, we are not in agreement. As honorable as our servicemen and women are and as tragic as their sacrifices are, their mission is badly misguided. I have indeed read C.S. Lewis and our current engagement with Iraq is a perfect example of "men without chests" acting as the Conditioners for young men and women who have been reduced to "natural resources" and are suffering the treatment we give all such commodities. A pre-emptive war and a renewed age of torture built on false pretenses is antithetical to the principles of justice and kindness.
David is quite right, of course, that not all traditions and ceremonies are good. Like everything else, we must judge them as best we can in the light of absolutes.
As for the war, we will simply have to remain in disagreement until history clarifies what now we see only in part. Patriotic fervor can go astray, but so can cynical criticism, and I mistrust those who give more benefit of the doubt to fanatical terrorists abroad than to law-bound governmental leaders at home. Nonetheless, it would not be good for any of us to be too sure we see the whole picture.
Enough. Peace. Thank you.
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