I know how to celebrate Christmas. The tree, the carols, the mulled wine, the mistletoe: all this makes sense to me. Although I am not a Christian, I know the Christmas story and its significance in the arc of the religion’s narrative. I have sung in countless Christmas services and carol concerts, performed in nativity plays, and even attended midnight mass. My family has a wealth of Christmas traditions. Watching The Muppet Christmas Carol each year on Christmas Day is one favourite, and around the Christmas dinner table at least one person has to misquote Dickens in honour of my grandfather, who always used to say, wringing his hands with glee, “God bless us all, said Tiny Tim!” Christmas carries a strong moral message (yes, even to my atheist ears!), and I use it as a time to take stock, ethically, of my life and my decisions. All this gives Christmas weight and richness. The festival is associated with smells and sights and sounds and ideals and memories, which combine to fill the celebration with meaning.
Thanksgiving, by contrast, is an empty affair. As an Englishman I have only recently begun celebrating the holiday, and the word conjures fantastic memories of a couple of days spent with friends, but little more. In my memory Thanksgiving plays in black and white against Santa’s glorious Technicolor. I frequently forget to wish people a Happy Thanksgiving, while I would never forget a hearty “Merry Christmas!” Eating Turkeys in November feels profoundly odd. I do not yet have a coherent Thanksgiving narrative which would provide me with resources for moral contemplation. I have no Thanksgiving rituals, no Thanksgiving stories, no Thanksgiving habits and no Thanksgiving misquotations. Thanksgiving, in brief, is devoid of symbolic and narrative richness.
I know this will change over time, as I celebrate the holiday more often and build a greater reservoir of associations, and I’m thankful for the opportunities I have been offered to enter the homes of others to share their feast. I am trying to start traditions of my own: just now I joined a team from the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and donated a turkey to the Greater Boston Food Bank, and I’m trying to find something I will wear every year to commemorate the day. But investing a new celebration with significance is a long process, and cannot be forced. Thanksgiving must become a part of me as I practice it year by year – I need to learn to give thanks.
This realization has wider significance. The Humanist movement, and naturalists in general, frequently face a significant challenge in their attempts to build meaningful communities. We have few powerful traditions, few compelling narratives, few collective memories which we pass on to other Humanists. We might say that although Humanism is rich in arguments and reasons, it is lacking in stories and symbols. My personal challenge – creating a meaningful space in my life for the new ritual of Thanksgiving – is a representation in microcosm of this broader challenge that Humanism faces. Just as I need to create a personal Thanksgiving tradition, Humanists need to develop a communal tradition which illumines and conveys Humanist values and principles.
Creating a new tradition is difficult at the best of times, but the Humanist movement in the USA faces a particular set of obstacles which exacerbate these challenges. Since so many Americans come to Humanism after becoming profoundly disillusioned with their faith and its practices, and sometimes after horrific abuse at the hands their faith community, they are often sceptical of anything that even remotely resembles religion. Rituals, music, speeches, storytelling – many of the tools which religions use to cement and develop their community – are off-limits to some Humanists, who fear that Humanism will turn into “just another religion” if these symbolic resources are tapped. Kate Lovelady, leader of the Ethical Society of St. Louis, described this reluctance pithily when she told me that the two things which caused most friction in her community are “singing and candles”.
This reluctance amongst some Humanists to harness the symbolic power of some traditionally “religious” practices is, in my view, misguided. I understand the concern that new rituals, crafted with the best of intentions, might ossify into stale dogmas which oppress and misguide future generations. I recognize too the hesitation of those who might hear echoes of a painful past in forms of communal Humanist celebrations. But without these symbolic and narrative tools, I do not believe we can hope to build solid Humanist communities. It would be as if I were trying to celebrate Thanksgiving while refusing to attend Thanksgiving dinners with anyone else – I might find a way to do it, but it would be an impoverished tradition, lacking much of the essence of the occasion I had hoped to embrace.
I suggest instead that Humanists look to religious communities for what they have to teach us about community-building, narrative-shaping and symbol-crafting. I am certain there is much we could borrow from religious communities, even as we repurpose certain aspects to serve our slightly different needs. While we would need to be critical when appropriating different aspects of religious practice, we should not give up on the enterprise altogether, but rather seek to fashion something new out of the best wisdom from the past. To this end, I am about to embark on a series of visits to different churches, temples, mosques and other faith communities, and I would welcome suggestions from my fellow State of Formation scholars of places to visit.
Humanists should not be afraid of singing, or of candles. Humankind has always forged bonds through song, and candles can light our way to a brighter future.
Very thoughtful.
Ritual provides the structure and words when either events overwhelm us or when we seek to have continuity in our lives. For example, ritual tells us what should be the proper protocol for weddings and funerals – and free us from trying to have to figure it all out at times of great stress. It establishes the normative course of behavior.
Christianity wisely uses the ritual of a meal as the basis of its regular celebration. For me personally, this is one of the key elements in my approach to my religious beliefs. I take the stories of Jesus following the resurrection when he meets the disciples on the road to Emmaus and the scene when he meets Peter, Andrew and the others back in Galilee and invites them to share a bit of fish. These stories are more powerful for me than many of the other incidents in the Gospels because they speak to a basic human hunger for connection and community centered around the focus of a meal. The larger metaphysical tenets of Chritianity for me take second place to this elemental experience.
The Thanksgiving ritual embodies the familial traditions found in other cultures wherein the ancestors are revered and remembered. Thanksgiving lowers a calm over the normal and bizarre tensions present in any family and underscores the connectedness of the celebrants [take a look at this week’s New Yorker cover for an apt depiction of the myth and reality of families]. It is a day when we consciously appeal to our better angels to bring harmony. This idyllic imperative explains the frenetic need for families to gather – for the near horror if people do not have some sort of connectedness and celebration on this day. Scores of humanitarian efforts are made so that the neglected and the destitute and the solitary can find some way to fit into a communal celebration.
These elements of community – with their rituals – ought not be shunned by humanists. My view is that there are very basic essential needs addressed by such ritual. Thankfully there are no Thanksgiving caroles or gift-giving or fake religiosity associated with Thanksgiving. Let it be a celebration of the “commonweal” which links us all.
Thank you for this thought-provoking comment! I strongly agree that “These elements of community – with their rituals – ought not be shunned by humanists. My view is that there are very basic essential needs addressed by such ritual.”
Rituals do indeed serve some purpose in society. The ritual of weekly street-cleaning keeps down pests and prevents clogged drainage systems. The ritual of a memorial service or a commitment ceremony provides a structure for socialization and support.
The danger of ritual is its substitution for personal practice and social responsibility. Rituals of some traditions, like Buddhism, are geared to educating the participants in a way or method, upon which to anchor a personal practice. Rituals like Roman Catholic confession, enable irresponsibility and bad behavior by offering an unrealistic ‘wipe’ of the effects of those behaviors.
The power of a group, harnessed or directed by ritual, is indeed greater than the power of the individual. This power can be used to enhance and inspire the power of the individual. However, historically, ritual in religion has been used to subjugate and exploit the power of the individual’s work for the greater good in order to foster the material good of the religion and its clergy.
As a humanist, the basis of my practice is my relationship to human beings and the Universe, starting with my relationship with myself. The only ritual which would enhance my practice would be a ritual based in total cooperation and human equality of all participants in an atmosphere free of elitism or politics. I see little in religion as a model for this. The Quaker and Buddhist traditions seem closest to this in my experience. The corruption of and by the ordained in other religions usually leads to the abuse of ritual to suit their purposes.
The Thanksgiving potluck dinner among friends and family is perhaps a good place to start as a ritual for humanists. However, I am skeptical of any humanist ritual routinely directed by a single, ordained director.
James- I think the celebration of Thanksgiving is about micronarrative,rather than metanarrative: my mom cried on the phone to me yesterday in loneliness, since she moved to Arizona and is not here in Minnesota with her kids and grandchild for Thanksgiving. And, she just a minute ago sent me a photograph from a Thanksgiving 29 years ago. This year, Thanksgiving is grieving; 29 years ago it was a kind of joy. But this is just a snippet of my family story of Thanksgiving.
The larger issue of giving thanks–of being grateful– it seems to me, is lost to most Americans. In part, Gratitude is composed of an understanding of the word ‘enough.’ Who understands this word in America today? Not very many.
Thanksgiving has never been a ‘religious’ holiday for me, though the evolution of my own sense of gratitude is to thank the cosmos (and God) for the gift of my highly improbable life as a part of this planet. Anyway, I hope you can build the community you are looking for, and together construct the story, ritual and symbolic richness that will make your community a source of your gratitude.
Philosopher Ronald Aronson’s book, “Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided,” is particularly strong in exploring the issue of how Humanists can develop a secular sense of gratitude. That is, how to feel and convey gratitude for our human existence without envisaging a divine personality who is responsible for it and who can bestow meaning on our lives. To this end, Araonson endorses Robert Solomon’s proposal to abandon (in this very broad context) what might be described as the interpersonal model of gratitude and, instead, render our thanks to impersonal forces. One benefit of this approach, in Aronson’s opinion, is that it prompts us to experience vividly our sense of dependence not only on other individuals but also on human society at large and on Nature.
Aronson shows that Charles Darwin emphasized the importance, in the evolution of biological organisms (including ourselves), of interdependence as well as of competition. (The 19th-century reception of Darwin’s work emphasized competition while downplaying interdependence and cooperation. This bias fitted in with an ideological imperative of the day by rationalizing laissez-faire capitalism.) Aronson points out that our interdependence encompasses not only our relationships with the natural world but also with human society and human history. Each of us is a product of society and history. But this seemingly obvious fact often gets obscured by what Aronson (following Martha Albertson Fineman) calls “the autonomy myth.” Radical individualism obscures the reality of our dependence upon each other as well as upon Nature. The acceptance of the autonomy myth promotes a “moral hardness” that makes it easy for us to blame victims and to become indifferent to or even approve of gross social and economic inequalities.
Certainly the celebration of a holiday like Thanksgiving can help us to build the sense of community and the sense of gratitude towards towards the community, human society at large, and the natural world, which we are all a part of.
Thanks for your comment, Jim! I will certainly seek out Aronson’s book. I have been interested recently in investigating the importance of interdependence, particularly as I have become more immersed in classical liberal philosophy. Your suggestions and ideas are much appreciated.
James, this is another compelling contribution! Thank you for sharing. It raises, for me at least, some interesting questions about the ontology of ritual-meaning and the challenges of constructing meaning. It is particularly interesting to me right now. Since my daughter is two, she will probably not vividly remember this Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I know that we are beginning to shape the meaning of these rituals for her, which I hope will become increasingly meaningful for her, as they are for her mom and me.
Two thoughts sprung to mind – one is that you might find Mircea Eliade’s work helpful, particularly his Myth of the Eternal Return (http://bit.ly/dTylcS ). The other – perhaps too philosophical, perhaps not – is Paul Griffiths’ work on ritual. He gave a compelling lecture at Harvard on the topic in 2009: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/events_online/james_2009.html (though the lecture is a bit long). I disagree with Griffith’s more than I agree – but he, at least, raises some very interesting questions and arguments.
I commend you for visiting various religious communities in your quest. As part of this, I hope you will include a sample from the Hindu tradition. I’d recommend the Ramakrishna Vedānta Society of Boston (http://www.vedantasociety.net/index.asp ). Swami Tyagananda is a chaplain at Harvard – perhaps you even know him already. He would, I feel sure, be willing to meet with you at the math. Interestingly, I notice that they are having a Christmas eve service with carols and readings from the Bible – what an interesting blog post that could yield were you to attend!
Brad,
Glad that you mentioned Eliade. His work is very dear to me!
Cheers,
Ian
Thank you Brad – these are fantastic suggestions! I’ll certainly follow up on each and every one of them!
Brad – I just watched Paul Griffiths’ lecture that you kindly linked. To the extent that I understood it, I think he described exactly just what it is that Humanists are afraid of when they approach ritual. We are concerned precisely that it will lead to the attenuation of our experience, and the “writing upon the body” certain in a sense “unthinking” responses.
We tend to desire the opposite: the development and investigation of experience, not its attenuation. As such, although I profoundly disagree with the idea that Griffiths’ pursuit is desirable, the talk was extremely helpful in articulating the challenge Humanists like me face!