ritual and vocation

My whole motivation in starting to BLOG at all was rooted in this idea that I’ve been developing for the last year. My good friend Clifford suggested that we start blogging about our common interest in rites of passage – only our blog – Bytes of Passage hasn’t really started blossoming yet. Cliff has just transitioned to telecommuting and freelancing to make room in his life for the imminent arrival of his new son. I’m (as always) trying to dabble in too many lives simultaneously (teaching, family-man, filmmaker, hack songwriter). And Cliff and I are together trying to write a brilliant mainstream, Hollywood-bound, commercially viable version of a screenplay we crafted together a couple of years back (in that incarnation – an “indy, tonal, character-driven piece, refusing (some of) the conventions of narrative structure – it’s funny what a poseur you turn into in retrospect…a really good argument against blogging).

So all that to explain what this back burner topic is that’s practically at a roiling boil on that burner because its been back there so long (or maybe the length of time just means that all the liquid is going to evaporate…?).

Having grown up in a faith tradition openly hostile to tradition and ritual – I’ve found the depth and resonance of ritual an immensely refreshing resource in my own journey of faith. I’ve also (of course) recognized the pervasiveness of ritual within any and all cultural milieu – even the fundamentalism of my youth.

My current embrace of ritual – and my ongoing interest in Rites of Passage – was even more focused and directed through some conversations with my good friend Lauren. In the Learning Community that I taught in for the last three years with her – she has been very focused on developing a “Lifespan Development Perspective” in her students. Her talk has really influenced me.

I wrote my M.A. project on “Coming of Age Voices” in “genX” (whatever that is/was) films. Only I was very locked into this idea of Coming of Age that was rooted in the adolescent phase of life. Lauren really opened my eyes to see how age-ist that assumption was / is. Coming of Age is something that happens to us all the time. Throughout our entire lives we’re becoming. We’re reframing. We’re transitioning. We’re making sense out of the past in terms that will fit the immediate future.

But the kicker is that in the post-industrial / post-Fordist / postmodern world – I’m becoming convinced that we lack the institutions and networks to adequately transition people throughout their lives. Globalization for the last hundred (or more) years has continued to erode the natural / given connection between geography and family, between neighborhood and church, between education and locale. (Obviously I’m lumping vast numbers of political, economic and technological changes into the sort of nebulous category of “globalization.”) What Edward Hall called “Low Context” cultures seem to both 1.) have lost their rootedness in tradition, institutions, and formal ritual *&* 2.) be more and more influential in spreading the syncretistic (and colonizing) gospel of faith-in-progressivism.

I’m not railing against the causes – and I’m also not *simply* critical of the processes I outline (eg. I participate in them too). I am convinced though that the current state of the world invites opportunity by the church.

Shouldn’t / Couldn’t / Why-wouldn’t the church be the ideal institution to measure out the grace and hope that rites of passage & rituals afford to their participants? Perhaps what I mean (since the evolution of such rituals is – at some level inevitable) is – couldn’t the church be more intentional about developing such rituals.

I’ve got ever so much more. Program Planner / Max Fisher that I am, I’ve developed an entire curriculum / package / ideal…but that will have to wait till another back burner.

I mentioned my newfound “friend”, Jonny Baker and have just two nights ago finished reading his MA Thesis -- and really loved the framework of what he’s talking about as well as the application of ritual theory to alt.worship. I found the whole experience of reading deeply redemptive and inspiring. Inspired me – in fact to devote this “Back Burner” blog to this long stewing passion.

I’m off to the family cottage in Northern Michigan) in two days, so I may not get any more of this hashed out til I return (end of June-ish…), but I wanted to at least get it started.

Being trained and (for better or worse) rooted in academic tradition – I’d like to close with a shout out to all the great minds that made so many of the ideas above so much more clear to me….Kenneth Burke, Van Gennep & Victor Turner for their writings on ritual, symbol & performance, Marcia & Lauren for their work with the Learning Cluster, Cote & Allahar for their helpful thoughts on coming of age during “Generation X,” Richard Linklater – who continues to raise and respond to these same kinds of “becoming” questions with his great films, David Harvey, F. Lyotard, F. Jamieson & so may others on all the “post”s. Hall & Geertz & my Ph.D. advisor, Al Gonzales for their ideas and conversations about culture. Geez, I feel like I’m giving an oscar thank you speech only the telecast SO already went to commercial. Sorry about that – just wanted to be sure that everyone understood that those ideas were not necessarily mine – I just happen to be a particular discursive formation hy-bred out of them…

~peace.