My last essay was about Community.  I wrote about how hard it is to feel truly connected these days, a little way I’ve found to better connect with my local community, and how important community engagement is to a healthy society.  I’ve had a series of interactions over the last three weeks that have inspired me to talk about a related topic:  the importance of ritual in building community.  It’s been an interesting journey.

The Friday after I last wrote, our neighbors had a little gathering to celebrate the return of their Tiki Hut.  I could write a whole essay on this Tiki Hut and the oasis they’ve built in their backyard.  It’s been a community gathering place since long before I arrived on the scene.  When we had a tornado come through last September, a falling tree took out the Tiki Hut.  We all mourned and dedicated ourselves to a rebuild.  We had something of an old-fashioned Amish barn raising earlier in the summer when we all came together to get the tin roof back up on poles.  The rechristening of the Tiki Hut happened on that recent Friday night.  Trish and I honestly weren’t planning on staying long.  The mother of a dear friend had passed earlier in the week and, while not unexpected, was still emotionally difficult.  We didn’t even bring over beer or wine for us to drink—just a bottle of water and a plan to pay our respects.  But there was something about being all together again and back in that Tiki Hut.  First, we went home and brought over a couple of beers.  Then we went out to get a pizza to add to the mix of food.  When the big speaker came out to start the sing-along, Trish left but I just needed to stay!  For the next couple of hours (and a few more beers), I sat crunched together in that little hut, shoulder to shoulder with my neighbors, singing classic rock tunes at the top of our lungs.  It just felt good to let loose, feel safe, and enjoy the company of my neighbors.  This was a ritual that these neighbors had shared regularly over the years, through the raising of children and all manner of daily life issues.  While in many ways we have similar backgrounds, we are far from a homogeneous group.  But we truly enjoy each other’s company and choose to focus on the things that make it fun and not the differences that might cause friction.  It was a dose of community that I sorely needed—even if I was singing loudly off key and probably a beat or two off.

The following week brought the funeral of our friend’s mother.  It was a Catholic Mass and, as a Jew, I found myself in the role of observer.  The wealth of ritual was overwhelming.  I felt how all that ritual was critical to establishing the connection to community upon which all places of worship depend.  The music and singing reverberated throughout the church in a way that only seems to happen in religious services.  The Catholics fell comfortably into the call-and-response of the service in the same way that I fall into the rhythms of the service in a synagogue.  It connects you to those around you.  You share in the familiarity of the process as well as the words and prayers.  I reflected upon how a funeral service, while meant to honor the person who has passed, is really for those who are still alive.  This ritual of honoring the dead, of burial and prayer, of respect for the human being who is no longer among us—it’s all about cementing community.  Juxtaposed with the solemnity of the day was, honestly, the joy of reconnection of people who hadn’t seen each other in a while.  While we all knew why we were there, we were also happy to be together.  There were hugs and smiles and whispered conversations as people caught up with each other.  As we moved through the luncheon after the burial and then the “after party”, the tone continued to lighten.  I’ve seen this many times before.  We tell funny stories about the person we lost, reminisce generally about time together, remember why we are connected, and usually promise to not let so much time pass again.  The ritual of a funeral builds and reinforces community.

I’d also happened to have read an article during the week by an author who was lamenting the loss of what he defined as Traditional Conservatism.  He quoted liberally from Edmund Burke, often described as the founder of American Conservatism, who talked about the importance of local action vs. federal action (I’m way oversimplifying).  What struck me was the theme about how the local community can better tailor “solutions” to the needs of the local population.  I don’t disagree.  Problems manifest differently in different communities and most cannot be effectively addressed with a large, national, “one size fits all” approach.  This, of course, is the basis for a State’s Rights approach to governance.  For this to work well, though, we need a strongly connected community that feels the obligation to look out for all of its members.  The difficult part, of course, is the “all its members” piece.  Ritual drives behavioral expectations in a community and I don’t think we generally have community rituals that sufficiently value outreach and inclusion to everyone. This is not meant to be a knock on Conservatism—that thinking around local action and personal accountability really resonates with me.  It’s simply my observation that our communities don’t seem to be strongly connected enough that everyone’s needs are getting reasonably addressed.  We can’t fix it all with ritual sing-alongs in Tiki Huts, but maybe the creation of new rituals that bring disparate people together is a part of the solution.

Regardless of the deep societal implications, let me just say that I really like ritual.  I find it very comforting.  Maybe this is a part of getting older, although I have never liked constant change.  I like my morning rituals.  I like our rituals as a couple.  I like the rituals we are building with friends.  Rituals do indeed change, which can be good and bad.  When we were helping our friend clear out her Mom’s house last week, we were discussing how no one wants sets of china anymore.  For most people, the rituals around family gatherings have really changed.  They used to be very formal—hence the sets of china and silver (real, tarnishing silver) and formal dining rooms.  My family used to do that for Thanksgiving and the key Jewish Holidays.  Those rituals cemented our family structure.  I miss that.  But Trish and I are building new rituals as well—time together at friends’ lake houses, Christmas morning with our step-grandkids.  There will be more, I’m sure.  Treasure those rituals in your life and the community connection they bring.  And if you don’t have any?  Create some.  We don’t get to sustain healthy communities without them.