The Rituals You Choose

The Rituals You Choose

As you may have guessed from my closing lines I had a religous upbringing and consider myself a person of faith. As such I have spent a lot of time considering what role faith, religion, theology, has in my life and what role it should have. In my life, society, the world, etc.

This is not a come to Jesus moment.

Faith is full of rituals, the thanks we give before ameal for instance, and while it’s easy to write off such things as blunt superstition or, as one of my favorite Youtubers says “peer presure from dead people” it’s important we examine the purpose of rituals. Not jussst because of their weight over the agews but because we never truly divest our selves of them.

Before I begin these blogs I silence any distractions, draw forth the thesis statement of the blog, find or create an image for it and then begin typing. It is a ritual I perform to prepare myself to craft these missives, and it is a ritual whose performance aids me in achieving the mindset I need to write these missives.

The one feeds into the other and the other feeds into the one.

My life is littered with such things from how I wake up in the morning to how I put myself to bed and I suspect yours is too.

I also suspect that if you’re anything like me you don’t inventory your rituals very often because you don’t recognize them as rituals. Worse you don’t recognize what they re-enforce. What are your rituals preparing you to do, how do they make you feel?

For example, if you have a very combative work environment and you go through a specific ritual every morning to prepare for that hostility then on the days you do not need that hostility you are still priming yourself for a fight. A fight that, perhaps, your family and friends do not deserve. Worse is when you carry on a ritual you do not need at all purely from habit. It is easy for us to drop rituals that consciously connect to something else like grace over a meal but others we pick up say the habit of faking work for a bad boss may carry with us.

Just as bad, I feel is when we drop the good rituals because we are no longer in the environment that enforced them. Like children who stop brushing their teeth when away from home. That is more a habit than a ritual but I think you can see throwing out the good with the bad can harm yourself.

In the end we choose our rituals, be it the choice of participating in a religious sacrament or watching the news while sipping coffee every morning. And like all parts of our lives it is worth examination to ensure they are serving your best interests.

I hope my moment of self reflection aids you in finding the best parts of yourself that you may magnify them. Until next time my dear readers. t

Thank you and God bless;

~S. Wallace