4 January 07
Continuing
Many thanks to all who commented on my End post or who emailed or who spoke on the phone. (And thank you for all the good wishes for my friend, which I will pass along.)
I am spending a lot of time thinking about this. It is not a bad time nor certainly a waste of time.
Numenius said something the other day that struck me as odd: he wondered why religious ritual needed to be connected inherently with belief. It would never occur to me not to connect them, but that’s not an answer. Look, he said, it’s a good thing, in itself, to observe Shabbat.
I certainly do crave ritual. It’s just that if it’s not backed up by substance, it feels empty to me. But it doesn’t stop me — the font at St. Francis is huge and central; I sloshed my hand in it on the way out to bless myself. Even with these thoughts of emptiness running through my head. The water was cool and, well, blessing. It always is.
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I’ll take any blessing I can get :-)
I don’t know. Often nowadays I wonder, why do I feel called upon to have an opinion on all these things?
I used to take my responsibility to have opinions very seriously, as befits a Liberal, but now I can’t see that it ever did anyone, least of all me, much good.
Of course, it must be trickier with a church that wants you to hold a particular set of opinions. I don’t know how I’d negotiate that.
Like Numenius, I am coming around to the position that ritual and belief do not have to be married. In fact, what I liked about my Spirit Rock experience on New Year’s Day was the lack of belief, or more to the point, the ritual of going about emptying the mind.
I’m enjoying (that’s the wrong word, but it’ll have to do) my recent journey of being able to take forms as blessing, and ignoring their content.
It’s important to me ignore the content of Bach’s cantatas, content that, strictly speaking, is gobbledegook. But, good Lord, when the oboe and English horn start on a duet, how my heart lifts (and falls, and lifts and falls). The content of the muezzin’s call is—if I’m brutally honest about it—vaguely fascistic. But his voice, oh his voice, that floats across from the minaret and wakes me in the morning. There are few things more beautiful. A Gothic cathedral, an old giant temple bell, a sudden line of saffron-clad monks on a busy Bangkok street, Andrei Rublev, Anglican vespers, a Nigerian mega-church in full-voice.
A paradise of form.
The separation is not easy, but the struggle is worthwhile.
Best wishes to your friend.
I think that the need for some kind of “belief” is the new idea; for centuries, it was enough for people to say they worshipped, they prayed, they did good deeds. I don’t think “content” is the appropriate term for belief. Ritual is its own thing, a kind of practice and meditation. It has lots of content without being linked to any particular belief about deity, the supernatural, or the universe. It’s a way of making yourself a better person. Period.
Catholic nuns & monks, especially those living in ascetic communities like the Carmelites, have always understood this, I think.
The “content” of the muezzin’s call, or the prayers recited in temple or in a church, is the feeling it evokes.
Sometimes religious folks forget, too, that they are the ones who get to decide the words, if they really want to. Check out Alicia Ostriker.
Best wishes to Barbara.
I think that the need for some kind of “belief” is the new idea; for centuries, it was enough for people to say they worshipped, they prayed, they did good deeds. I don’t think “content” is the appropriate term for belief. Ritual is its own content, a method of practice and meditation. It has lots of content without being linked to any particular belief about deity, the supernatural, or the universe. It’s a way of making yourself a better person, preparing yourself, communing with others, thinking, calming yourself,... it’s the thing itself.
Catholic nuns & monks, especially those living in ascetic communities like the Carmelites, have always understood this, I think.
The “content” of the muezzin’s call, or the prayers recited in temple or in a church, is the feeling it evokes.
Sometimes religious folks forget, too, that they are the ones who get to decide the words, if they want. Check out Alicia Ostriker.
Best wishes to Barbara.