Lent Day 23: Rituals

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the people of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month, and lasting seven days, there shall be the festival of booths to the Lord.  
~Leviticus 26:33-34

We all have our rituals. Whether they involve the order in which we put out the lights before climbing the stairs to go to bed, or the procedure for creating a beloved dish "just like mom made it," our rituals offer us comfort, predictability, maybe even a sense of safety. 

We have rituals around our work (what time we arrive, what we prioritize as we begin the day, whether we approach tasks in order of difficulty-- hardest first? or get the easy ones out of the way so you can attack the hard ones with a clean plate?). We have rituals around our play (The snacks! Setting up the table for mahjong!)! And, of course, many of us engage in sacred rituals.

In my branch of Christianity most of our rituals are communal: Sunday worship and the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the cornerstones of life together in community as a people who serve the God of Jesus Christ. But they also offer us the comfort of predictability woven together with the novelty of the prayers and texts and sermonizing of the day. But there are rituals for home, as well--morning prayers, grace before a meal, "Now I lay me down to sleep..." 

The best rituals--by which I mean, the rituals that feel most essential, weighty in a good way--are those that appeal to our different senses. My morning prayer ritual includes the right location (where I am comfortable but also upright, with good natural light or at least a good lamp), music (some I listen to, and some I make), and a candle. Not just any candle, mind you, but a candle specially created for clergywomen by the Rev. Ruth Hetland (the genius behind the @consecratebox). The candle is called "God, Evil, and Suffering." Here's the thing, though: it doesn't smell like God, evil, and suffering, but, rather, like the gentlest whiff of the pipe tobacco of a beloved seminary professor who happened to teach a class by that name. I received one by subscription to Ruth's monthly treasure trove of items clergywomen need, and promptly ordered a dozen more. I don't know what I'll do when I run out. 

My point is: this ritual is especially meaningful to me. The involvement of my senses, my location, my prayerbook... all these things combine to give my prayer time the weight I think such a time deserves. It is the time I open my heart to God, and it is important.

There are other kinds of rituals, of course, beside the ones that root us to our daily lives, or even our weekly communal worship. The United States has highly ritualized the anniversary of September 11, 2001, for example. 

I have been wondering today whether we will ever create rituals to mark this season of pandemic, of which we have entered year 3. This morning's passage from Leviticus set me thinking about this. The Festival of Booths described in chapter 26 is a ritual commemorating the forty years God's covenant people spend on their wilderness sojourn between enslavement in Egypt and their entry into the Land of Promise. The festival lives on in the contemporary Jewish practice of Sukkoth (Hebrew for "booths") in which individuals and families create an outdoor dwelling place for a week that might resemble a tent or a booth, extravagantly decorated with specific kinds of fruits, flowers and greenery. 

An important facet of the booth is that it must be at least partially open to the elements--the reality of the vulnerability of the people to the elements of nature cannot be forgotten. But the festive nature of the observance--it is particularly beloved by children, it includes beautiful adornments--is part of its celebratory nature. "We got through it," Sukkoth reminds those who celebrate. "Look at our strength. Look at our resilience."

What rituals do you observe? The ritual of the morning coffee? (Oh, I do that one.) Saturday date night? I'm curious to know what you do, and how you do it. Rituals help to make life richer, to remind us of what we treasure. I hope yours give you joy.

Ready for Morning Prayer.

Lent Days 21-22: Sabbath

Today's reading from the Hebrew Scriptures is from Leviticus. Leviticus has a bad rep among progressives, because it is a book that has been badly misused by Christians who want to condemn and exclude LGBTQIA+ folks from the blessed community. So now, the very name of the book 'Leviticus" elicits a "NOPE" response in many of us, and that is too bad.

Much (most?) of Leviticus is about worship, about special days of holy rest, and about Sabbath.

The passage appointed for this morning, Leviticus 23:26-41 (you can find it here) concerns the establishment of two major Jewish observances/ celebrations, the Day of Atonement (think: at-one-ment!) and the Festival of Booths, or Sukkoth.

But the parts of the passage that spoke to me were about the Sabbath-keeping involved in those days and weeks. Over and over in the passage I read,

"... and you shall do no work that day" (verses 28, 31);

"It shall be a sabbath of complete rest..." (Verse 32);

"you shall not work at your occupations" (verses 35, 36);

"a complete rest on the first day [of Sukkoth]; a complete rest on the eighth day" (verse 39).

Jews are better at Sabbath than Christians. They work at it, they make it a priority, they weave it concretely into both faith and practice, and, as a result, they shine as an example that I really think we should more closely emulate.

The theology underlying Sabbath is one Christians share with Jews; we take Sabbath to remind us that God is God, and we are not; to remind us that even our holiest stories say that God took Sabbath after the work of creation; and also to remind us that we are not slaves who belong to other humans, but people wholly owned by God. (Of course, the legacy of slavery is very real and devastating, both for Jews and for African Americans.  In no way do I seek to minimize that.)

I had been pretty bad at taking a Sabbath until my partner, Sherry, decided she would start taking a day off (in addition to Sunday) from her work as a small-business-owner. This is a little tricky for her, a little more expensive than just working herself on that day (and not paying one of her terrific co-workers). But she came to the conclusion she needed it, and so she took the day I've always said was my sabbath, Friday.

Sabbath acquisition.

As a result, I started taking Friday more seriously as a day off, too.

Now Fridays are days when we rise a little later, when we cook most of our meals (but certainly also enjoy an evening out, too). Fridays are days when we might run errands or we might decide to watch every episode of a compelling Netflix series. They are days when we practice self-care-- haircuts, a monthly massage. Walks at the park or around the neighborhood.

We don't always do everything together on Fridays-- last week I had lunch and a movie with my friend L., and it was fabulous! But the rhythm of Sabbath is something we have developed together, which has made it easier to stick to.

Every so often, Sher has to work on Friday. After about a fifteen months of taking Sabbath seriously, those are hard days for me. My instinct is to work, too-- finish the sermon, get a head start on the bulletin for next week. My Sabbath is tied to her Sabbath. But my hope is to get better at taking it consistently, even when Sher is not available to share the day with me.

For a long time I've had MaryAnn McKibben Dana's book, "Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family's Experiment With Holy Time," on my to-read list. Dana conducted a year-long immersion in practicing Sabbath with her husband and three children, and wrote about it. She was spurred on to doing this by a life that was crazy busy, as in, “Life felt like a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle with 600 pieces.” They found a way. I want to deepen my own Sabbath-keeping by seeking a way to practice it, even when I do not have my partner to share it with me.

How about you? How are you at taking Sabbath seriously? Maybe we (who have not already done so) should read MaryAnn's book together?