"Rituals/Essays"

In a time of turbulence, both weather-wise and politically, this essay is meant to amuse and distract. Its most redeeming features are that it is less than 1000 words (one should never underestimate the value of brevity in an essay) and I had fun writing it.

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

 

Essay from Essex

“Rituals/Habits”

February 19, 2021

 

“Rituals keep us from forgetting what must not be forgotten and

keep us rooted in a past from which we must not be disconnected.”

                                                                                                                                Tony Campolo (1935-)

                                                                                                                                American pastor, author and

                                                                                                                               spiritual advisor to President Clinton

 

“The chains of habits are too weak to be felt and too strong to be broken.”

                                                                                                                                Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

 

While a thesaurus considers ritual and habit to be synonymous, there are differences. Rituals have roots in the past, ties that bind one to history, tradition, family and community. Habits are learned or are of one’s own creation, often adopted subconsciously, like starting each day with a cup of coffee. 

 

The word ritual stems from the Latin ritus, a noun meaning a religious observance or ceremony. Webster’s defines the word as “an established procedure for a religious or other rite;” but it also includes as a definition, “any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.” Habit stems from the Latin habito, meaning to dwell, to live. However, it is defined today: “An acquired pattern of behavior that has become almost involuntary as a result of frequent repetition.” Rituals are performed with deliberate intent: going to church every Sunday or pledging allegiance. Habits, on the other hand, are taught, like being kind to strangers and saying please and thank you. Rituals we accept as part of our culture. We are criticized for bad habits and praised for good ones. Despite Samuel Johnson’s admonition, in the rubric above, habits can be controlled (with effort), whereas rituals exist whether we partake or not. 

 

“Habits are automated behaviors that we repeat over and over,” wrote Marco Badwal, cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Amsterdam. Good habits must be taught and performed subconsciously, like manners and taking prescription medicines. They provide social mobility, better health and allow us to focus on the complexities of life. Rituals are the perpetuation of obligations, like daily exercise or Sunday dinner with family – duties we should perform and activities we enjoy. P.G. Wodehouse once wrote: “Poetry is good, but tea is better.”  He was referencing the English ritual of afternoon tea with scones and clotted cream. But an Englishman’s ritual may be no more than a rare and pleasant interlude for a tourist. Rituals, in some cultures, can be horrific, like honor killings, a ritual still practiced in Pakistan, or genital mutilation, a ritual experienced by Ayaan Hirsi Ali when a young girl in Somalia. 

 

Nevertheless, most rituals are good, at least in the U.S., for they allow a continuum in a discordant age – from the baptism of a grandchild to the inauguration of a new President, from singing the National Anthem at ball games to saluting soldiers on Memorial Day. Warren Buffett sets aside a certain amount of time every day just to read and think, a ritual he claims helps him avoid impulsive decisions. A ritual I have is to read only for pleasure after 7:00PM. While I have not been a regular communicant for several years, church service is a ritual I miss, as it provides quiet moments to pray for those we knew and loved and, to use a modern maxim, because it offers time to “think outside the box,” regarding problems and current events. Whether my absence is laziness, or due to ministers trying to be relevant to “woke” congregations, is not pertinent to this essay. I did, however, find illuminating a line in Joseph Johnston’s recent book, The Decline of Nations: “Religion is more than the private worship of a deity; it is the strongest support for morality and the spiritual bond of a society.” Attendance at religious services lie on the positive side of the ledger when judging rituals.

 

Habits, on the other hand, get us through the tedious parts of living, allowing us time to be creative and take risks. Most habits are good, but others less so, like biting one’s nails, picking one’s nose or changing lanes on the highway without signaling. And we must be wary that they do not become so ubiquitous that they interfere with free choice, something the satirist Ambrose Bierce warned against in his definition of the word in The Devil’s Dictionary: “Habit, n. A shackle for the free.”

 

But to get back on track and describe the difference between habit and ritual through my own routine: Most mornings, my habit is to rise before 6:30, listen to the news as I brush my teeth and shave. A ritual is to exercise five days a week before showering and dressing. A post-pandemic habit has been to take my temperature every morning. A second daily ritual is to drive to the corner drug store to buy my newspapers before returning home to perform my third ritual – fixing and eating breakfast. On Thursdays and Sundays, I do laundry, a chore my wife assigned me when I retired. It is certainly not a ritual, but neither is it a habit…at least not yet. One habit from childhood returns every winter. In putting on my jacket, I hold the cuff of my sweater in my hand, so it won’t bunch up in the sleeve of the jacket – a lesson from my first-grade teacher. 

 

Rituals keep us linked to positive (mostly) aspects of our common culture; their link to the past helps us live in the present and prepare for the future. Habits allow us to live civilly and free our minds to inspiration. Wearing a mask is not ritual (unless one is robbing a bank), but neither, in my case, is it a habit. It is not ritual that I write essays, but it has become a habit. Can rituals become habits? I leave that to superior minds. I have gone on long enough.