–
There is, indeed, a time for all things under heaven.
And for all the great rites of passage;
Weddings and funerals, graduations and retirements.
A time for anniversaries and reunions;
For sunrise and sundown, for moon and rain, for stars.
A time for the first breath—“ah”—and the last breath—“oh.”
But in the meantime, there is the infinite moment—
A time to do the dishes,
And a time to walk the dog.
CODA
January 2, 1995
A friend who is an avid spelunker—an explorer of caves—told me of running out of time for exploring underground just as he had shined his headlight into a passage beyond which he could see a fascinating and as yet unexplored chamber with even more passages leading off in many directions. How frustrating! Still, he had the satisfaction of knowing he had something to look forward to another time.
So it is with me and the subject of rituals.
Deadlines happen. Explorations end. And this writing must be sent off today to be shaped by the substantial skills of those who turn pages of words into bound books. My mood is one of affirmative frustration. Yes, this rituals book is done. But I’ve enough unexpressed thoughts and experiences to double its size.
In part, the blame for my condition may be gratefully laid at the doorstep of the more than three hundred people who have read and contributed to this manuscript in its many stages of development. Each person suggested something I had overlooked. Each person had experienced rites of passage I had not mentioned. And each had meaningful life rituals unknown to me. Instead of just providing a constructive critique of what I had written, many pointed me down paths I had not walked before, where I discovered other species of ritual. Here are just a few of the comments that could have led to another chapter in this book:
What about ritual gestures of blessing and insult?
How about the rituals of academic communities?
Why not talk about baby showers, men’s poker groups, and other gender-separation rituals?
Aren’t some rituals harmful or intended to be?
When does a ritual become a counterproductive obsession?
How about including an actual ritual of renewal for marriage?
And a housewarming ceremony and family table blessings?
How about other kinds of funeral services for unique circumstances?
How about the rituals of politics—what’s sacred about them?
I will consider this book successful if you finish it in the same spirit: wanting to tell me all you know that I clearly do not, and suggesting items to cover next time.
It’s a good thing I didn’t set out to write the definitive book on rituals and rites of passage. Nobody can possibly have the last word. What I’ve written is a guide to the landscape I know with a compilation of the judgments I have made out of my experience. How I wish I could hear or read your response.
–
This book has engendered a new ritual of my own.
From time to time, I pay my respects at my final resting place.
Visiting my own grave has become a ritual for me—a sacred habit.
Recently, I noticed the names on the nearest graves: Grimm and Pleasant.
Being buried between Grimm and Pleasant has a poetic rightness about it.
Visiting my grave has the reliable capacity to untwist the snarls in my mind and soul, especially when I get angry about small things or lose track of what’s important. On one visit, I realized that if I died that day and my wife were to put an honest epitaph on my headstone, it would say, “Here lies a jackass—too pissed off to live long.”
How I’d hate to die mad.
Once I went up to the cemetery late at night. Bringing my favorite blanket with me—a faded red wool Hudson’s Bay blanket—I lay down on it on my grave in a man-in-the-coffin position. I closed my eyes and thought about how being dead is just going to sleep and not waking up. I opened my eyes and was startled. This gravesite has an incredible view—looking straight up, I could see starshine that comes to me from millions of light-years away.
Looking up and trying to conceive of the magnitude and complexity of space, I was caught between two overwhelming thoughts: that there may be no other intelligent life out there or that the number of worlds occupied by life like us may well be infinite. Either point of view staggers my mind. Just being able to consider such questions is amazing enough.
I have never liked the phrase that says we’re just made of dust and return to dust. We are energy, which is interchangeable with light. We are fire and water and earth. We are air and atoms and quarks. Moreover, we are dreams, hopes, and fears held together by wisdom and driven apart by folly. So much more than dust. The biblical verse should say, “Miracle thou art and to Mystery returneth.”
The light I see from my grave started toward me before I came into being.
The source of the light may have died out by now.
That’s a scientific fact.
My life gives off another kind of light as it consumes its energy.
That light may shine long after the source is gone.
That’s a statement of poetry and intention.
Light is both constant and relative.
–
A friend of mine is a juggler. He’s good—really good. He doesn’t juggle spectacular objects—no flaming torches or running chain saws. Just balls. He’s intent on doing the simplest thing as well as possible. He can juggle eight balls and keeps trying for nine, which would tie the world’s record. I can juggle two balls and sometimes three, so I know just enough to know how really spectacular his achievement is.
Once I asked him this question: If I were in your class, what would I appreciate about your ability? Or in other words, what would another highly accomplished juggler know about your skills that I miss because I’m just an awed amateur?
He said that the average spectator was impressed that he could catch so many things and throw them up again. The truth is that the hardest parts are holding the balls just right, throwing them one at a time in rhythm, and not altering your breathing or inner adrenaline level as the number of balls increases. Also, an expert would notice he had developed and learned to trust a reliable pattern of movements—a pattern that includes missing a ball sometimes. When you miss, you don’t get upset or quit—it’s then that the champion juggler does not blow his cool or change his inner state.
The secret of juggling is inner harmony and knowing how to let go.
There’s a philosophy of life in that statement.
As I learn to juggle the parts of my life, I have come to understand that meaningful rituals have a lot to do with gaining that inner harmony and making letting go as much a part of life as holding on.
–
Rituals anchor us to a center while freeing us to move on and confront the everlasting unpredictability of life. The paradox of ritual patterns and sacred habits is that they simultaneously serve as solid footing and springboard, providing a stable dynamic in our lives.
Rituals of hello and good-bye are basic to all relationships between people.
“Hello. How are you? Well, hello. Fine, how’re you? Just fine, thank you.”
“So long. Take care. Keep in touch. Let’s get together. See you soon.”
These entrance and exit lines are a part of our daily onstage life.
I like hellos. I’m a hello enthusiast.
When I travel and have time on my hands at airports, I sometimes stand in the middle of the arrival lounge, where people are awaiting passengers from an incoming plane. It’s exciting being around people carrying welcoming signs and flowers. Romantic to see the spruced-up lover come to meet the lovee. And heartwarming to be near family reunions.
The joyous cries of hellos are infectious. “Here she comes!”—“Daddy, Daddy”—“It’s him!”—“Bill! Mary! Over here!”—“Grandma, Grandma!”�
��“Welcome back! Welcome home! It’s so good to see you!”
I like all the laughing and hugging and kissing and excitement. More than once I’ve caught myself just before I hugged a perfect stranger. It’s a little weird being really glad to see someone you’ve never met. The rituals of reunion are contagious.
Exits and farewells are not so easy. I don’t hang around the departure lounges at airports. I hate good-byes. I am not good at them.
So it is with the end of a book. I’ve spent time thinking about you, and you’ve spent time thinking about me, but not in the same place and time. It’s even harder saying farewell to someone I’ve met only in my imagination. I’ve missed you.
If you’ve come this far in this book, I thank you for the company we’ve kept and hope that I see you in person sometime—perhaps in the arrival lounge at an airport—and that you feel like saying hello. After the ritual of meeting, we can pick up where we began: “From beginning to end, the rituals of our lives …”
REFERENCES
AND
RESOURCES
This section combines the purposes of appendix, bibliography, footnotes, and index, while avoiding their formal mechanical constraints.
Above all, my intention is to be useful in a practical and personal way.
Each entry must have passed these tests:
I have personally read and made use of the material.
I would personally recommend the material to you.
The material is readily available.
The resource material is organized by chapter but applies almost entirely to the sections on weddings, funerals, and birth celebrations.
All references are annotated.
Finding that some of my best illustrative anecdotes have already appeared in previous books, I have taken the liberty of referring to those stories as a way of jogging your memory if you have read them or else suggesting you will find a chapter in this book expanded by adding this material.
REFERENCES
References to stories previously appearing in books by Robert Fulghum, all published by Villard/Random House in hardback and Ballantine/Ivy in paperback:
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1988 and 1990)
It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It (1989 and 1991)
Uh-Oh (1991 and 1993)
Maybe (Maybe Not) (1993 and 1994)
(Page numbers vary slightly between hardcover and paperback editions.)
–
Beginning
For the opposite way of beginning a day, see the story of the man with the briefcase in Uh-Oh on pp. 153 ff. (pp. 155 ff. in paperback).
Propositions
For an expansion of the notion of the secret life, see pp. 7 ff. in Maybe (Maybe Not), and the piece about confessions in the same book, p. 13.
A Cemetery View
For a description of the bench in this cemetery, see the story beginning on p. 209 in It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It.
Once
See p. 75 in Uh-Oh about learning to play with fire.
Reunion
The Thanksgiving story beginning on p. 131 in the Fire book applies. And see the story about hide-and-seek in the Kindergarten book, p. 56.
Union
My all-time favorite wedding story about the Mother of the Bride begins on p. 9 in the Fire book, and my second-favorite wedding story begins on p. 135—about a mixed marriage. And my third-favorite wedding story is also in the same book—p. 145—about a second marriage in later years.
Born
See p. 39 in Maybe (Maybe Not) for a story about conception, which connects to the adoption story in this book about rituals.
Dead
P. 173 in Uh-Oh for the funniest funeral story I know, and p. 147 in the same book for a story about the funeral of a dog.
Revival
In Uh-Oh, on p. 115, there is an expanded view of the idea of a new year, and a story about coming back from suicide begins on p. 99 in Maybe.
Coda
See p. 215 in Fire for thoughts on the end of a book and a day and a life.
RESOURCES
Once—The First Time
1. The First Time, by Karen Bouris, published in 1993 by Conari Press.
Subtitled, Women Speak Out About “Losing Their Virginity,” and therefore meaningful in its own right for women, this is a book every man should read. It covers a subject on which I was almost completely ignorant, and it left me informed and enlightened and empathetic. As far as I know, this is the most forthright treatment of the sexual initiation of women in our society. Bouris, by the way, is the co-author of another groundbreaking book I admire: Random Acts of Kindness.
2. The Ordinary Is Extraordinary, by Amy Laura Dombro and Leah Wallach, published in 1988 by Simon and Schuster.
The best description I’ve found on how ordinary daily routines become sacred rituals for children under the age of three. Practical and spiritual at the same time. I would give this book to children when they have children of their own.
–
Union—Weddings
There is more material available regarding weddings than any other rite of passage. Every bookstore has a section devoted to the occasion, with a substantial number of books from which to choose. Many have merit, depending on your particular style and need. I find five worthy of special mention:
1. There’s No Such Thing as a Perfect Wedding by Margaret Bigger, published in 1991 by Down Home Press, P.O. Box 4126, Asheboro, N.C. 27204, now in its seventh printing and available in most bookstores.
Wedding celebrations need laughter. This book is a collection of true wedding tales illustrating all the crazy, stupid, funny, and disastrous dimensions of getting married. Hilarious. Great material for the rehearsal-dinner speeches.
2. Into the Garden, a Wedding Anthology, edited by Robert Hass and Stephen Mitchell, published in 1993 by HarperCollins.
The best collection of poetry and prose on love and marriage I’ve seen. Broad and wide and deep in the quality of selections. Inspirational reading in and for itself, and very useful as a resource for wedding-service materials.
3. Weddings / A Complete Guide to All Religious and Interfaith Marriage Services, by Abraham Klausner, published in 1986 by Signet Books.
I use this book each time I perform a mixed marriage. Informative, accurate, and useful, the writer combines knowledge and wisdom in a nonjudgmental view of both the specifics and universals in marriage ceremonies. I especially like his Service of Renewal found at the end of the book.
4. The Groom’s Survival Manual, by Michael Perry, published in 1991 by Pocket Books, and A Groom of Ones Own, by Mimi Pond, published in 1993 by Penguin Books.
These are the only two books I can recommend that are written for the groom—everything else is written primarily with the bride in mind. These two books are both written with an irreverent sense of humor, as well as with a realistic view of the place of the groom in a wedding. Laughter is a life raft when the raging sea of matrimonial planning seems about to swamp the ship.
–
Born—Celebrations of Family and Community
1. New Traditions, by Su Abel Lieberman, published in 1991 by HarperCollins.
Among many, many books describing ways to create or revive rituals of celebration in a family setting, this is the only one that has a ring of practicality about it, speaking as it does out of examples of what people have actually done, as opposed to a position that suggests an ideal of what you should do. I have purchased and given away a couple dozen of these books in response to the request to “give me some good examples of contemporary family rituals that work.” This book makes a fine gift to new parents.
–
Dead—Funerals, Memorial Services, Getting Affairs in Order
There is more material here than on any other chapter in this book, because the resource materials are not readily accessible in any one place in a bookstore, and are not reviewed for quality or usefulness in any source I’ve seen.
1. Affairs in Order, by Patricia Anderson, published in 1991 by Collier/Macmillan—1993 in paperback edition.
The single most useful and complete resource guide to all matters pertaining to death and dying. If what you need to know is not in this book, it tells you where and how to find it. This is one of the best reference books I’ve ever seen on any subject. It has a permanent place on my shelf of important books and is a gift I give to personal friends. I not only recommend you buy it and read it, I urge you to do so.
2. The Last Dance, by Lynne Ann Despelder and Albert Lee Strickland, third edition, published in 1992 by Mayfield Publishing Company.
Designed as a text for a college-level course on death and dying, it is a paradigm of a superb teaching tool as well as the best available text on the subject. Approaches death and dying from the perspective of history, ethics, religion, cultural anthropology, the law, physiology, politics, and literature. Nobody should consider his or her education complete without the information in this book. You can take the course by reading the text.
3. The Hospice Handbook by Larry Beresford, published in 1993 by Little, Brown and Company—in paperback.
The best single source for information about hospice care during terminal illness—the where, how, why, and when are all spelled out clearly. Excellent references and resources section at the end of the book.
4. How to Embalm Your Mother-in-Law, by Robert T. Hatch—a Citadel Press Book published by Carol Publishing Group in 1993—paperback.
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