Celebrating Rituals

During the next two weeks we will find both Jews and Christians celebrating some of the most sacred rituals of their respective faith traditions.  Holy Week begins this coming Sunday for Christians and culminates with the celebration of Easter the following Sunday.  Passover begins next Friday  and continues for the following eight days. Each sacred ritual will draw on ancient traditions.  Stories will be told.  Songs will be sung.  Prayers will be offered.  Faith will be renewed.  Community bonds will be strengthened.  

Rituals are essential for ordering our lives.  They help form our identities, both individually and communally.  Rituals are how we pass on wisdom and beliefs across generations.  It is clear how this happens through religious rituals, but have you ever thought how this is true for personal and family rituals, as well?

All families have rituals that make them unique.  Family rituals are common around the sharing of meals, bedtime routines, celebrating holidays, enjoying vacations, recreating, and participating in spiritual/religious celebrations.  Family rituals embody values and core beliefs that are important to each family and help ground and form the identities of the members of the family.  What family rituals have been important in your life?  Are there family rituals that have been passed on through the generations? What do they say about your values and those of your family?

For many years, when our children were young, I would make pancakes every Saturday morning.  Blueberry pancakes were a favorite, as were pancakes shaped in the form of each child’s initials.  The family time around the breakfast table was every bit as important as the meal we shared as it provided a chance to hear about each others’ week and to talk about plans for the upcoming weekend.  This simple ritual, among many others, helped ground and bond our family together.

The important ingredient in participating in rituals, whether family or religious, is how we choose to participate.  How we show up makes all the difference.  Choosing to be mindful and fully present means that we will both receive the most from and give the most to the experience.  If, however, we are distracted, simply going through the motions of a ritual, we will likely receive little and give little to the experience and to those who are participating with us.

As many of us prepare to celebrate the sacred rituals of our particular faiths, may it be a time for us to also remember the importance of the sacred rituals of our daily lives spent with family and friends.   And whether we find ourselves making blueberry pancakes for our family, telling a favorite bedtime story, or attending religious services may we do so joyfully and mindfully, choosing to bring our full selves to these most important and defining experiences.

I Love To Watch You Play

In my work as a family therapist, one question comes up often is that of determining the best way for parents to respond to their child's involvement in competitive sports. This issue also comes up in regard to other competitions as well, for example in the worlds of music, dance, voice, drama, debate, art, and mock trial. Any time a child participates in a competition, adults have several possible ways they can show interest and give feedback. Parents usually know when they have said the wrong thing to a child after a competition, as when they have expressed disappointment in their child's performance, or when they have offered unsolicited advice or criticism. It is fairly clear what kinds of things parents can say to hurt their child in such situations. What is less clear is what parents should say after they have watched their child compete that will be both honest and at the same time will build connection with their child.

Several years ago I read an article by Bob E. Brown and Rob Miller of Proactive Coaching, LLC. These two men speak to athletes and their parents at all levels of competitive youth sports, from grade school through college. Based on their years of experience with student athletes and having asked the athletes themselves what they most liked hearing from their parents after a competition, the athletes came up with a simple response. The six-word response they liked hearing most from their parents was, "I love to watch you play."

"I love to watch you play" is so powerful, both in its simplicity and in its positive effect on a child. It is the role of coaches to give critique and feedback when needed, and it is the role of parents to be their child's number one cheerleader. The beauty of "I love to watch you play" is that it celebrates the courage of a child who puts him or herself out there and takes the risk to compete, rather than merely focusing on whether the child played well or struck out, sang beautifully or were off key, remembered their lines or froze in the spotlight, won or lost. In our very competitive, win-at-all-cost culture, the child does not need more attention focused on the whether he or she won or lost. Instead, our children need our admiration, encouragement and unconditional love.

I love to watch college basketball and so this time of year is basketball heaven for me. The NCAA men's basketball tournament, going on right now, consists of sixty-eight teams that made it into the tournament--quite an accomplishment in and of itself. Sixty-seven of those teams will go home having lost the last game they played. If those players and their teams only measure success or value when it comes to competition as winning, then only one out of sixty-eight teams will consider themselves completely successful.

The measure of success and value that is being lifted up in the statement "I love to watch you play" transcends the value of merely winning the game. "I love to watch you play" celebrates the passion, discipline, commitment, dedication, and courage of anyone who is willing to put him or herself out there to compete in any way. It celebrates the long hours of practicing, memorizing, learning, listening, making new friends, and the joy of the chosen activity.

So as I watch college basketball games over the next few weeks, will I be hoping my favorite teams win? Sure I will. But whether they win or lose, I will still enjoy every minute of the games. Why? Because, "I love to watch them play!"

Spring Cleaning

My wife and I cleaned the top of my desk in my home office this week as part of our spring house cleaning. I must confess that the whole idea for this project came from my wife and yet I am delighted with how it all turned out. We share our home office space and for some strange reason she had become tired of looking at the clutter that was stacked on top of my desk. What she referred to as clutter was simply the twenty or so new books that I had purchased over the last year, as well as an assortment of papers and notebooks I had piled there. The reason the books were stacked on top of my desk was because my overstuffed bookshelf. I knew that before I could move the new books from the top of my desk to the bookshelf I was going to have to create space for them by getting rid of a number of books in my bookshelf. And getting rid of books is never easy for me. But with the assistance and insistence of my life partner I did it and I feel this great sense relief now that it is done. I have heard from several people recently that have taken on a decluttering practice as a way of observing the forty days of Lent. There is even an official "40 Bags in 40 Days De-cluttering Challenge for Lent" program that one can join. One of the benefits of joining this program is receiving daily inspirational emails with lists of specific areas of one's home and one's life that can benefit from decluttering. I visited the website for this challenge and found a list of 79 areas of one's home that they suggest decluttering. I'm not sure whether I find that inspiring or overwhelming, but I am delighted to have conquered one of the 79 areas for now.

I know others who are observing Lent by practicing a different kind of decluttering. This decluttering is not related to material stuff, but to time. To declutter one's life in terms of time is to become intentional about slowing down and even stopping for a period of sabbath time each day. This sabbath time can be used to simply rest, or it can be used for prayer, writing, or anything that is a small break from everyday life and that renews you.

The word clutter is closely related to the word clot, and it is easy to see why. A clot blocks the flow of something that is supposed to flow freely. And so it is with clutter. I am pleased to be sitting at my clean desk right now writing this column. Just yesterday, before our spring cleaning began, it would have been hard for me to find room at my desk for my laptop. After avoiding sitting at my desk for some time, I now find myself delighted to have rediscovered the joy of this workspace. Similarly, clearing a portion of our day to make room for sabbath time creates an opening for spiritual energy and vitality to flow more freely, a metaphorical spring cleaning.

Sometimes it takes someone else in our lives to notice that our clutter is becoming out of control as I learned from my recent desk cleaning. In the case of my desk, it took the help of my wife to point out what I already knew but had been pretending not to know. When our material, emotional, or spiritual clutter builds up to the point that others are being affected by it, it is clearly time to address it. When we do, not only will we feel so much better, but those closest to us will as well.

No One Youer Than You

In honor of the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, this past week, many people were sharing some of his best quotes. As I was reading them there was one that particularly caught my attention. It was one that I had not heard for a long time. "Today you are you. That is truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you."

In our Living Compass wellness programs and classes we talk a great deal about vocation and this quote from Dr. Seuss speaks to the essence of what we mean when we talk about vocation. Vocation is not simply the work (paid or otherwise) that we do, but is more deeply rooted in finding and expressing our unique voice in the world. The word vocation comes from the Latin vocare, which is the root for voice. To live out our vocation in the world is to find and express our unique voice.

Our seventeen month old grandson doesn't seem to have any trouble fully living expressing his unique voice in the world. He has recently begun picking out his own outfits to wear and there is truly no one else alive with his exact sense of style! It is easy for me to look at our grandson and think there is truly "no one youer than you!" He does not look to others to see if they approve of his style. Instead, he knows what he likes and what makes him feel good and is proud to show it to the world.

Something happens to all of us though as we grow older. We want to fit in and be like others. We want to be accepted and we want the approval of others and so it becomes more difficult to trust and express our unique voice. That voice is still in there but we need to be more intentional to listen to that inner voice and to express it as we get older.

I see this struggle to want to be like others when I watch clips from some of this season's television shows that feature singing competitions. It is not uncommon for a contestant to attempt to sound like someone else, and so a young woman might try to sound just like Katy Perry, or a young man works hard to exactly mimic the sound of John Legend. This never plays well with the judges. One of the strongest critiques a judge can give a copycat contestant is, "you sang that like you were just trying to imitate the original version of that song. There was no originality to your performance; it was totally karaoke". The consistent feedback that judges give to the singers is that they need to make the song their own--they have to bring their own unique voice, talent, and passion to the song in order to make it memorable. I think this is a lesson for all of us.

In honor of the Dr. Seuss's birthday, and in honor of my grandson's unique sense of putting together outfits, I'm going to recommit myself to do as the singing contestant judges advise and use my unique voice, talents, and passions to make more beautiful music in the world. I invite you to join me because, as the good doctor says, there really is "no one alive that is youer than you!"

Being and Doing

Last week in this column I wrote about a spiritual practice I refer to as "Receive, Release" and shared how I use it in my own life on a daily basis. I invited others to share their own spiritual practices with me and I was delighted to receive so many responses. As I reflected on the responses, I realized they fell into two categories. The first group of responses focused primarily on private and personal spiritual practices, while the second group focused primarily on action-oriented or "other- directed" practices. This week I would like to reflect a little on each of these types of spiritual practices. Private, personal spiritual practices are perhaps the first thing we think of when we think about spiritual practices. These practices are undertaken to strengthen one's soul and one's spirituality, similar to exercises one might do on a regular basis to strengthen one's physical wellness. The "Receive, Release" practice I described last week is one example of a private, personal practice, as are all forms of prayer and meditation. Many of the responses I received last week were examples of this kind of spiritual practice, and included practices such as keeping a gratitude journal by listing what one is thankful for each day, participating in a form of centering prayer or meditation using a repetitive phrase, going on a retreat, worshipping, singing, painting, writing, and doing spiritual reading.

The second type of spiritual practices that readers shared with me this past week were practices that focus more on actions, on things that people do for others. A few readers said that they think of spiritual practices as how they practice and express their spirituality in their everyday lives and in the wider world. Some of the actions that people shared from this category included, "treating others with respect and kindness," "being patient with my children," "serving meals at a local feeding program," "serving at my church," "caring for my aging parents," and "working on a Habitat for Humanity house". For these people, the living out of one's spirituality in one's life is what is most important and is a spiritual practice unto itself.

Clearly when it comes to spiritual practices it is not an "either/or," but rather a "both/and" situation. Spirituality is relational, by definition. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were, his answer defined three essential relationships. "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself." Tending to and strengthening these three relationships--your relationship with the Divine, your relationship with your neighbor, and your relationship with yourself--defines the essence of all spiritual practices.

A spiritual practice can be both private/personal and action-oriented, and something that strengthens the three relationships I just discussed of God, neighbor, and self. For example, if I do the "Receive, Release" practice and focus on receiving patience from God, I am first strengthening my relationship with God as I ask God's help in being more patient. This is good in and of itself, but becomes an even deeper spiritual practice when I then practice through specific actions extending that patience to both myself and others. In this way working to develop patience can be approached through both types of spiritual practices.

I am grateful for all of you who responded to my reflection on "Receive, Release." Your responses have helped me to expand my thinking to a more integrated expression of spiritual practice that brings together both being and doing.