quotations about ritual
Repetition and familiarity work. What is repeated becomes familiar, and this becomes a part of us. Our own culture understands this, but alas, not always the church. Far too many equate ritual with spiritual dryness. True, ritual and liturgy can be dead--even using the terms can raise hackles--but only when the significance and power of those rituals are forgotten. Spiritual death is not a property of ritual itself. To the contrary, ritual has always been and will always be a means of securing for future generations the power and reality of the gospel.
PETER ENNS
Exodus
In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.
JOHN STEINBECK
Tortilla Flat
Love me
Like a ritual
Fill me with your spirit
Spread your magic dust
Love me
Like a ritual
Tell me where you're hurtin' baby
I will be your medicine man
WINGER
"Like a Ritual"
Religion is best when it points beyond itself, like Isaiah or John the Baptist. It is worst when it gives you just enough of the forms to inoculate you against the substance, when it substitutes rituals for reality, the container for the contents, the wineskins for the ecstatic wine.
RICHARD ROHR
Adam's Return
My love is selfish
And it cares not who it hurts
It will cut you out to satisfy its thirst
For the meaning of a ritual so habitual and cursed
VILLAGERS
"The Meaning of the Ritual"
The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.
C. S. LEWIS
A Preface to Paradise Lost
There's nothing more interesting than the rituals that are cobbled together over centuries to create justification for authority, rank, all the other things that we do.
BOB BERKY
"Local playwright's first play comes back to question humans' inclination toward tradition", Planet Jackson Hole, October 11, 2017
Ritual is about building connections between community members, between individuals and spirits, between humans and deity.
MELISSA HILL
"Dandelion Seeds: Ten Tips for Running a Big, Festival-Style Ritual", Patheos, February 17, 2016
Don't confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself.
NEIL GAIMAN
Stardust
The telling and hearing of stories is a bonding ritual that breaks through illusions of separateness and activates a deep sense of our collective interdependence.
ANNETTE SIMMONS
The Story Factor
Ritual may be vital to reaction, but it is also the life blood of revolution.
DAVID I. KERTZER
Ritual, Politics, and Power
And when we dance
There lies untold
Belief and rituals we behold
You can't escape the hallowed ground
The hallowed ground
IKON
"Hallowed"
Love you
Like a ritual
Let me be the stranger
While I'll watch you do your dance
So when you feel like a lonely child
Put on your blue feathered lenses
Take me back
To the beginning
All the way
All the way
Can you take me all the way
WINGER
"Like a Ritual"
When we light a candle in our ritual space, we ignite a flame within ourselves. When we pour water or burn incense as offerings, we offer ourselves as well, to soak into the earth or rise in gentle wisps of smoke towards the sky.
ALISON LEIGH LILLY
"Turning the Soil of Soul: Ritual as Celebration", Patheos, February 11, 2016
Rituals are those repeated actions done again and again in the interest of things like focus, grounding, tradition, cultural symbolism, predictable life rhythms, and feeling a part of something.
CRAIG KELLEY
"Why Family Rituals Are So Important For Living Safer", The Legal Examiner, October 28, 2017
We make ritual noise
We weave the fabric of dreams
We build cities of sound
We feel the rhythms of time
COVENANT
"Ritual Noise"
Creating a ritual is better than a spur of the moment get-together. Find an enjoyable activity you can do, preferably weekly, so you can look forward to this time together.
GINA CLOWES
"How to Resolve Marriage Tensions in a Food Allergy Family", Allergic Living, November 7, 2017
Ritual is a more effective means than law to achieve order.
JONATHAN CHAN
"Ritual, Harmony, and Peace and Order: A Confucian Conception of Ritual", Ritual and the Moral Life: Reclaiming the Tradition
Stories and rituals are used in different cultures to help individuals and communities heal from trauma. I am fascinated with how our personal, familial, and community stories shape who we are. The awareness of these stories allows us to be shapers of our own lives and identities.
OSCAR PEREZ
"Why Men Need Primitive Skills", The Good Men Project, November 8, 2017
Baby, You are my ritual
Burnin' in my soul
DAN REED NETWORK
"Ritual"