Ritual

By Richard Rawlinson

Ed’s note: Richard wrote this for us at a time when the market in blog posts about ritual was approaching saturation. There’s good stuff here, so we’re posting it now, timeless seasonal greeting and all. 

…that remains the question. In order to express a meaning you need to establish what the meaning is you’re seeking to express – whether by word, act or symbol. Without meaning, the practical reason for disposing of a rotting corpse is hygiene. As a fond, finite and formalised farewell to someone we love and shall miss, a funeral clearly means more.

To mark a death, we pay tribute to a life. By setting aside an official occasion to do so, emotions are aroused which accentuate the loss we’re feeling. This is deemed good as it helps give closure by preparing us for the ultimate parting – when the curtains close on the body, or it’s lowered into the ground, to be with us no more.

A religious funeral’s meaning is exactly the same as that of a secular funeral – except for the fact it offers hope that death is the beginning of a journey towards peace with God. When you take eternal salvation out of the equation, it’s the same – a fond, finite and formalised farewell to someone we love.

The most meaningful ritual of funerals must surely be the presence of the deceased. Being physically close to a beloved dead person feels extraordinary. Having already grieved the loss for several days, we may yet still be unprepared for the upsurge of emotions on seeing the coffin – let alone the face of the deceased in repose if the lid is kept open. No sooner have we grown accustomed to it, the committal shocks again with its absolute finality. He/she is going, going, gone. Forever. Per sempre. Na zawsze. Jamais. Für immer.

So a key purpose of a funeral is to instruct the living in acceptance of death. In both religious and secular funerals, the celebrant collaborates with the bereaved to give a dignified, relevant, moving and loving send-off that helps the living come to terms with their loss.

If a chief aim is to bring emotions to a crescendo to aid closure, what words, actions and symbols best inspire ‘healthy sadness’? We have the essential presence of the body, along with the ultimate tearjerker of its departure. We have eulogies that capture the essence of the deceased, along with poems and other readings. We have music, the most moving art form of all, and, even better, music accompanied by lyrics. We have contemplative moments of remembrance, and processions past the coffin for intimate farewells.

We have buildings with meaning too. Church interiors are often designed to inspire wonder; they’re dramatic backdrops for rituals that appeal to sight, sound, smell, touch, taste and even the sixth, supernatural sense. The chapels of crematoria, not being theatrical Baroque or Gothic in style, are nevertheless arranged so those present can face the drama around the coffin. There’s the inevitable comparison with a place of worship, but they can just as readily be compared to a theatre. The principle of the layout is the same in a chapel as it is in a theatre or even a classroom, a platform for participants whether priests, actors or lecturers. Just as a priest has his altar, an actor his set and a lecturer his slide show, so can a celebrant have scripts and props that give performance resonance. But which script and what props?

Some here have assumed I’m an advocate of more ritual in secular funerals. As a passive observer, I’ve listened to a couple of differing opinions but have formed no firm views. In truth, I’ve been discouraged that ideas don’t spring to mind intuitively, leaving a suspicion that struggling too hard to contrive more ritual implies the proposition itself may be unworkable.

One significant obstacle seems to be reconciling both diversity and individuality. How can a prescribed ritual or standardised wording resonate with an eclectic, perhaps multi-faith, audience and one unique person? Perhaps the answer is any secular ritual must avoid atheistic and theistic specifics to form universal statements about death and bereavement. We all love, we all die, we’re all affected when those we love die.

So without further ado, let’s throw a handful of ideas out there that are sufficiently general, and designed to move us in order to heal us – positive tearjerkers for healthy sadness. In office brainstorms, we say there’s no such thing as a bad idea. This is blatantly false but is nevertheless useful to rid us of inhibitions. By hearing both good and bad ideas, we’re then better able to compare and contrast in a process of elimination. Two half-baked ideas can merge to form something excellent.

To signify the importance of the arrival of the coffin, perhaps a bell should be rung to remind us to stand and to focus our thoughts. Individuals could then choose between a silent procession or one accompanied by music.

Perhaps the celebrant should wear something more distinctive than a somber business suit, just as a master-of-ceremonies at a formal dinner wears a uniform that sets him apart from the guests in regular black tie.

Perhaps the entire ceremony could be structured more formally. It could begin with a formally scripted greeting to fit all ceremonies: beautifully crafted words that remind us of the gift of life, and the significance and inevitability of death. The middle section could blend prescribed words with open parts for eulogy and poignant songs, readings or prayers. The set words could perhaps introduce the unique parts to enhance their poignancy and keep them on message. The climactic ending could return to prescribed words, reflecting universal feelings when saying goodbye.

Perhaps it should be encouraged as integral to the ceremony that the audience files past the coffin, laying down flowers as a physical symbol of respect. Perhaps candles could be lit on the way out as a final sign that the deceased lives on in memory. 

Nothing radical there. No suggestion we start to don death masks, or introduce communal wailing and beating of breasts. Too churchy? Well, the Church does ritual well on the whole, and the hope of eternal salvation has been conscientiously avoided. Too traditional? Those who equate progress with ever increasing informality will no doubt find it so.  

Happy New Year!

“A couple of parting thoughts on the development of new ritual for secular funerals before I switch off the computer for Christmas,” wrote our religious correspondent, Richard Rawlinson some days before the onset of festivities. Yikes, sorry, Richard; we lost that post in the tinsel. 

We’re not letting it go, though; your thoughts about ritual are always welcome, and they have not been rendered obsolete by the passage of time. By happy coincidence, Gloria Mundi has a piece on ritual waiting to go out tomorrow. So this’ll work just fine side by side with his.  

In a thread on a recent blog, Gloria Mundi has said: ‘I don’t think we’ll get far in the development of new rituals for secular funerals until we stop arguing about belief and concentrate on shape and meaning… Let’s move forwards, shall we?’

I’ve said previously that it’s up to secularists to take up the mantle to create any new ritual, but the future is best formed by looking at the past.

As an exercise aiming to be helpful, I read a funeral mass, deleting the inapplicable (references that require belief) and attempted to adapt a few lines to secular taste. The exercise failed abysmally as most content ended up on the cutting room floor as it’s nearly all God-centred. Shape and meaning were lost due to the need for belief.

I pondered a few other exercises involving looking at political, legal and educational institutions, sports, festivals, and life cycle ceremonies. Much that I like an intuitive quick fix, I concluded this subject requires a more laborious, academic approach, where ritual itself is more thoroughly defined.

Ritual is paradoxical. It’s a social construct yet it defines a portion of reality. It’s intrinsically conventional – repetitive, formal, precise, stylised – yet requires collective imagination.

Too much analysis of a fictional drama pierces the illusion of reality that allows it to take on dangerous matters. The enemy of ritual is the spoilsport who is unwilling to voluntarily suspend belief, incapable of allowing the symbols of a man-made production to take on authentic meaning.

When blatantly designed by masters-of-ceremony and lacking the history and sanctity of traditional religious symbolism, rituals can seem too self-conscious, shallow and abstract to arouse deep emotion and profound conviction.

However, ritual can certainly be either sacred or secular. The key is placing the right symbolic acts within the framework of secular funerals. This might involve formalising the entire framework of the ceremony. The Mass is split into the Introductory Rites (greeting, blessing); Penitential Rite; Liturgy of the Word; Liturgy of the Eucharist (the big one); and the concluding blessing. By sequencing and scripting events, you eliminate potential disruption, unpredictability, confusion and accident.

Nor does sequencing deny individuality. Secular ceremony already alternates between highly specific acts – toasts, salutes, pledges, oaths – with open spaces for improvisation and particularisation – speeches, songs, and so forth.

Some of these structured, predictable – even unchanging – segments provide opportunities for participants to establish their individual emotions, identities, motives and needs. Others allow the ritual masters of ceremony to convey the specific, idiosyncratic messages which are unique to the occasion in hand.

Open sections can be short or protracted, can involve several people or one, can be conventional or new, but must be coordinated to ensure they’re a scene in the same play. If they fail as accurate and authentic metaphors, emotional momentum will flag.

A blessed new year to you all. 

Here is a long extract from the Sunday Times article by Jenni Russell about the necessity for, and power of, ritual. 

I went to an astounding funeral last month. Philip Gould, the pollster who helped to create new Labour, died in November. He knew he was dying and he knew just how he wanted to orchestrate the ceremony.

I have been to many London funerals that are forced by the timetables of crematoriums into being perfunctory affairs. The mourners often have only 40 minutes in which to file into an unprepossessing room, evoke the personality of the person whose life they are grieving for, cry, sing or pray together and move hastily out again before the end of their scheduled slot.

These are often uneasy, dismal events. The readings, the music and the orations are chosen with love and thought. People attend out of great affection or respect. But nothing about the bland settings or the context lends itself to the expression of deep emotion.

Frequently, there is an anxiety about time and a diffidence about the ceremony itself. Speakers can feel shy about what they have been asked to do, partly because there is no form for them to follow. I have been to funerals where the person conducting the event has accidentally missed out whole chunks of it, leaving expectant participants with no role, and others where the music system has broken, leaving an awkward silence.

Everyone wants their own individually constructed service to be meaningful, but as funeral planners most of us are amateurs, and it is surprisingly difficult to make a random collection of readings and recollections feel satisfying to those who have assembled to acknowledge a life.

Philip’s funeral was utterly different. It was held in the Anglican church of All Saints in central London, which had confirmed him months before. The imminence of death had given him an intense interest in faith and ceremony, and his first conversation with the vicar there had been a request for him to conduct Philip’s final service.

This traditional high church service was an unashamedly compelling and dramatic event. It had a magnificent setting, a choir with achingly beautiful voices, incense hanging thickly over the congregation and a vicar who could carry an audience. It was unembarrassed about taking up the mourners’ time. It deployed all the knowledge that the Christian church has developed over two millennia, from ritual chants to mass singing, sermons and prayer, to evoke solemnity, sadness, laughter, empathy, admiration and, ultimately, hope and relief. The speeches, readings and music selected by Philip and his family made it a unique experience, but that variety was contained and transformed by being in an established dramatic form.

The mourners left the church having lived through something extraordinary. Everyone I talked to felt both uplifted and dazed. Several people confided their intention to convert to high church Anglicanism the minute they felt death to be close. This was not on the whole a statement about their desire for faith, but for ritual. Whether they were lapsed Christians or non-believers such as me, what struck us all was that this ceremony met a deep need to have our emotions evoked and expressed. Believing in God was not the point. We just wanted the response to our own lives and to those of our friends to be as serious and as purposeful as this.

This isn’t an argument for Christian ritual in particular. Whether we are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or anything else, it is about benefiting from the understanding of the people who lived before us in our struggle to give our lives structure and meaning. The rituals of celebration, marriage, birth, sexual maturity and death developed only because people found that these were effective ways to bond with others and heighten experiences that might otherwise be lonely or mundane.

Many of my generation spent much of their lives rejecting formal rituals — abandoning religion, avoiding marriages or christenings, writing their own ceremonies. Living in a society whose highest value is individualism, we both want to fit in and to demonstrate proudly just how different we are. Lots of us grew up, as I did, with humanist parents, so there was no long tradition to tap into. Those born into long traditions have often left them behind because they had begun to seem too smug, too processed. They had lost the element of transcendentalism that made them matter in the first place.

In walking away we have lost much that matters. Some people have the knack of creating emotion and significance. A friend who buried her mother in a wicker casket on a Welsh hillside feels nothing could have been more satisfying. For many of us, though, the dismissal of ritual for personalised events would be like turning our backs on Shakespeare because we have faith in our capacity as amateur playwrights. We try, but we cannot create the same effect.

Perhaps the answer is to accept that there is pleasure and reassurance to be found in following forms and rules. I have been struck in recent years by the number of Jewish friends who have embraced the practices of suppers and Sabbaths although they ridiculed them in their youth. In the same way, I now see that Christian ceremonies can still be full of meaning for those without faith. In our desire to be brought together with others and to be uplifted, we don’t necessarily need to demand practices that perfectly reflect every element of our own views.

Perhaps we could just accept, a little more humbly, that the rituals on offer to us have sprung out of centuries of thinking about human need. 

Whole article here (paywalled).