Sally, over at RevGals writes: It is the first of May, or as I have been concentrating on dialogue with folk interested in the new spirituality movement this last week, it is Beltane, a time to celebrate the beginning of summer. The BBC web-site tells us that:
Beltane is a Celtic word which means 'fires of Bel' (Bel was a Celtic deity). It is a fire festival that celebrates of the coming of summer and the fertility of the coming year.
Celtic festivals often tied in with the needs of the community. In spring time, at the beginning of the farming calendar, everybody would be hoping for a fruitful year for their families and fields.
Beltane rituals would often include courting: for example, young men and women collecting blossoms in the woods and lighting fires in the evening. These rituals would often lead to matches and marriages, either immediately in the coming summer or autumn.
Another advert for a TV programme that has caught my eye on the UK's Channel 4 this weekend is called Love, Life and leaving; and is a look at the importance of celebrating the seasons of life through ritual and in the public eye, hence marriages, baptisms and funerals.
I believe that we live in a ritually impoverished culture, where we have few reasons for real celebration, and marking the passages of life;
So
1. Are ritual markings of birth marriage and death important to you? Yes. In my home we make a big deal out of birthdays. At the parish we send out birthday cards to every parishioner and offer, as a community, a public birthday blessing for every person who chooses to come forward. We do the same for wedding anniversaries.
In our family we have only marked a few deaths, all with some kind of service that honors the person's life.
2. Share a favourite liturgy/ practice. I'm not sure I have one...when my husband and I were married the minister (UCC) had us kneel while she laid hands on our heads and said a blessing. It was a very powerful moment for me. I didn't realize it then, but she was performing a practice from her Episcopal upbringing...that blessing is in our Book of Common Prayer. I think of her blessing us every time I bless a couple. I take my marriage vows very seriously....maybe that is one reason.
After I was ordained one of the first things I did was fill the baptismal font with water (a weekly practice at the church I served) and blessed it for those who wanted to anoint themselves with blessed water. It was a very profound experience, saying those prayers of blessing over the water. Baptism remains one of my most defining personal experiences (I was 9), and one of my "favorite" liturgies. I am especially fond of the Great Vigil when we bless the new waters of baptism. The entire service is about life and death, of water and the new life that comes from baptismal waters, and of resurrection - life that is a gift from God.
3. If you could invent (or have invented) a ritual what is it for? The first church I worked for as an ordained person had an elaborate ritual on Christmas Eve of lighting votive candles around the creche and then blessing the creche. But we did not light the Paschal Candle and I wondered why? I know that technically it is the sign of the resurrection, of the Paschal Mystery, used during the Easter season and through out the year at baptisms, weddings, and funerals. BUT - it is also the sign of the light of Christ coming into the world. I called my liturgy professor and asked her why we didn't light it. She gave said what I have just said....so, I replied, I think I'll move the Paschal Candle from the entrance of the church to the creche. Let it stand next to the creche and let it be lit with all the other candle. Now I have also added a dramatic reading about the light of Christ coming into the world anew each year, which is read in darkness at the beginning of the Christmas Eve service, with only the Paschal Candle lit. Following the reading we light the votives, the altar candles, the pew candles, causing a movement of light from the Paschal Candle through the church. Once all the candles are lit the church lights come on. It replicates the Great Vigil but with different prayers and in a different order. People have found it very moving.
4. What do you think of making connections with neo-pagan / ancient festivals? Have you done this and how? I do it every time we light candles, burn incense, celebrate the Christmas and Easter - much of our liturgy was born out of either Jewish tradition of prayer and blessing, or pagan rites of Rome. Christianity has always been a religion influenced by the culture it is in. I'm OK with that, I think it helps us stay relevant.
5. Celebrating is important, what and where would your ideal celebration be? I think rituals are important. I think we need a ritual to honor divorce as well as marriage...something to honor the "de-coupling"....we need a ritual to honor aging. We need a ritual to honor adulthood in a deeper way than getting one's drivers license or graduating from High School or College - something that connects us to both the cultural events that mark life but also to how those moments are sacred.
