ritual

In a survey of 1,000 adults, it was found that 30% of people were eating dinner on the couch, and 17% of people were eating it in their bedrooms—two places where there is likely a screen and likely no conversation or interpersonal gathering. Remember that rooms have rules, and when we change the room, we create a vacuum of norms.

I’ve noticed that the people who lament that we “have no rituals left” in our society are often the same people who are anti-marriage, or just go to the courthouse. Who don’t walk at their graduation ceremonies. Who don’t wear black lace to funerals. Who don’t own a suit. Who don’t send Christmas cards or take off shoes at the door or take into

sometimes the most destabilizing chaos isn’t on the world stage. Nor is it a public outrage or even a shared experience.

It’s found instead in the quiet chaos of our everyday lives: making a home, raising a family, putting a meal on the table. These mundane corners of the human experience are also where we find the loosest pockets of culture today:

We still instinctively long for this kind of belonging, as our sacrifices to sports teams, fraternities, or churches demonstrate.

"We need regular rituals that compel us to turn & face the difficulties, the failures, the woe, the underside of things; spaces where we're obliged to confront & work through what we might otherwise avoid. Our lives and health would improve vastly if we did such things." — James Davies