Ritual. Funny that John Green begins this video by remembering a specific behavior that he used to do as part of his daily ministerial duties, an action that he eventually gave superstitious power to in the hopes that doing this behavior would stave off the uncomfortable parts of his job as a hospital chaplain. Then he observed the similarities between ritual and superstition. Raised Roman Catholic I thought everything the church did was “ritual” and then later in life I noted that my independent Protestant community church friends would shun anything that looked like it was a “ritual” because they wanted to emphasize the “heart” part of their actions and avoid the appearance that anyone would do anything by rote without fully focusing on why we were doing what we were doing. The question, I guess, is whether one thinks that it’s the behavior that has power or the thought behind the behavior that has the power? Traditional religionists might say that it begins with action that promotes a state of mind. Anti-traditionalists might say that it’s pointless without beginning with ones state of mind. 

I guess it comes down to whether one is thinking that the behavior is part of changing something external to the one doing the behavior (in other words, something one does to get the attention or favor from a spirit or god), or whether the behavior is meant to change the mindset or environment of the person doing the behavior (like meditation or some forms of yoga). Or maybe it’s both, depending on what the person doing the activity needs. 

We used to say the same prayer over our evening meals when I was growing up and then when I got a little older, being the oldest boy, it was my job to say the prayer over the evening meals. But then when I became a “Jesus person” in high school I disavowed saying the same prayer over every meal, because I learned that prayer needs to come from the heart. So, I changed the words, with the intention of never saying the same words every night. Yeah, that got old right away… I mean, there’s only so many ways to say, “Thanks God for the grub.” I couldn’t escape the usefulness of ritual. Damn. 

Thus, I learned that it was silly to try to avoid “ritual” behaviors and that doing things the same way every time, may actually help one put more energy into trying to be in a useful mindset or attitude. It’s kind’a what humans do because there are only so many ways to do some things, as long as we recognize that it’s not the activity itself, but the intention, even when repeated over and over again. Humans are so funny that way. Enjoy. 

Sources:

Tags: Crash Course Religions, In Bad Faith, meditation, ritual, video Wednesdays 

Creative Commons License

JosephBruceBustillos.com (website) by Joseph Bruce Bustillos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License