Everyone Leads a Life of Rituals

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

 In early March pairs of geese noisily arrive and patiently wait for the ice on our pond to melt so they can nest.  Hundreds of miles to the east, our collegiate granddaughter leaps up and down and shakes her shoulders and legs as she and everyone else at the starting line nervously prepares to compete.  Meanwhile, my wife spreads ingredients across our kitchen island as she reads directions for a dinner casserole from her old Fanny Farmer cookbook.

You might think these activities have little to do with each other. However, they share a common thread called rituals.  These are not really the same as habits, compulsions, or traditions.  A habit may define what we do almost automatically without thinking. Compulsion drives us to do something despite ourselves. Tradition is a repeated practice we embrace because it bonds us together for sharing at particular times. 

Rituals are like these but different in intriguing ways. They define who we are and infuse our lives with purpose and emotion.  For instance, geese instinctively mate and reproduce, but they do it in ways that bind them together for life.  With their new goslings, they parade across the water and fields.  One adult leads the group, the other follows, and often an apparent uncle serves as a sentry.  They become angry and trumpet their displeasure when their ritual is disrupted.

Our granddaughter’s starting line rituals may loosen muscles or reduce anxiety, but they also affirm training routines, competitive desires, and preparation that is universal among all track athletes. 

 

My spouse’s culinary rituals are rooted in the pleasure she takes from commitment, skill, and a delicious result that defines just who she is.  I am the beneficiary of her rituals, but so is everyone in our extended family who enthusiastically repeats the same rituals.

A rewarding investment of effort is crucial for ritual-building. In his insightful analysis of the “Ritual Effect,” Harvard business professor Michael Norton describes why the Betty Crocker baking company experienced a big sales slump after World War II.  

Young women initially enjoyed the simple convenience of the company’s fully premixed cake batter.  But within a few years a decline in sales prompted the company to ask the women why.  It turns out that they felt guilty about doing too little and wanted to add or adapt their own ingredients to make the batters their own. By switching the recipe from dried eggs in the package to real eggs that could be added, the company regenerated sales.

Something called the IKEA effect, generally known as DIY, has become spectacularly successful for the same reasons.  People value a product or activity more if they have put something of themselves into it.  Scholars call this an endowment effect.  Chefs would readily agree, as would most do-it-yourselfers. 

Professor Norton has spent a decade exploring rituals. His work explains why religious ceremonies and major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas produce an enduring impact on our lives.  Yet legacy rituals like these do not fully describe the impact of our own personal daily ritual signatures.

Rituals may involve a rite of passage or lifestyle dividing points.  They can build or destroy relationships.  Sometimes they create experiences we savor and love, but at other times they generate anxiety or stress.  Marriages, the birth of a child, or moving to a new job can produce either positive or negative rituals.

In any event, personal rituals are pervasive.  When one disappears, another may replace it.  Professor Norton coins the term “emodiversity” to describe the unique richness and changeability of rituals in our lives.

Symbols are linked to rituals. Often those symbols, whether they are objects or acts, provoke powerful memories. For example, our basement is a repository of ritual memories: books I refuse to dispose of, ties I have collected, and workout equipment I try to use every day.

The phenomenon of hoarding may be rooted in memories of bygone rituals.  Considering my own hoarding tendencies, my wife’s sometimes compulsive pursuit of a clean and organized house (she calls it being “house proud”) is a much-needed compensatory ritual. 

Rituals need not be a big deal. One of the memorable and distinctive examples in my life occurred in my third grade at the end of each day. As we filed out of the classroom, our teacher, Miss Magnusson, would make sure no ill feelings would linger. She required us to line up and shake her hand as we said goodbye. I never forgot her gesture.

Professor Norton’s research confirms that “rituals are everywhere, imbuing our ordinary actions with extraordinary power.” Their essence lies not in what we do, but in the meaning and emotion we give to just how we do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gondor the Beast

 

The Story of Gondor the Beast

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

A strange creature  inhabits our backyard. He is a 350-pound concrete beast with fangs,  wings, and eyes that seem to glow in the twilight. After eight years, he has become an old friend who reminds us why we love to scare ourselves.

His name is “Gondor,” which is the term J.R. Tolkien used to describe the Middle Kingdom in his famous trilogy.  This moniker won first place in our own facebook contest, but our creature’s  formal name is a gargoyle or chimera.  The former term sounds like gurgle or gargle for good reason.   Gargoyles are the grotesque offspring of Gothic church architecture in the Middle Ages.  They are fantastical creatures who perch on steeples and steep rooftops.  Their mouths are spouts to drain rainwater off the roof and sides of a building.  

 On the other hand, chimeras seldom have spouts, but they are nonetheless nasty looking Greek mythological beings composed of animal parts – lions, goats, dragons (wings) with a snake-headed tail.  Gondor is one of those snarling hybrids, crouching on his haunches, resting on huge claws, and baring fangs.

 The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris is a favorite haunt for chimeras that were sculpted in the 1800s.  Hundreds of years earlier, so the story goes, a dragon-like beast would rise from the Seine River and eat terrified residents with grisly abandon.  Helped by a Catholic saint, enraged citizens trapped and burned the dragon.  However, his head and shoulders resisted flames, so instead his hide was nailed to the church to ward off evil.

Today the biggest numbers of chimeras and gargoyles can be found on Catholic churches. across France.  They also sit on city rooftops in places like New York City, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.  American horror novelist Stephen King insists that they are quite alive and always watching us from above.  

Our own story of Gondor began eight years ago when we visited our daughter in Albany.  She suggested antiquing at a downtown salvage yard.  There we discovered a demonic statue who looked like he might have flown in from the rooftop of a nearby Albany church or office building.  Fatefully, I remarked, “Wow what a birthday present he would be sitting in our yard back home!”

My wife and daughter mischievously hatched a plan to ship the creature 300 miles across the state to our rural home.  My son-in-law Bill arranged to have the beast hoisted and lashed onto the bed of his truck.  Out on the thruway gawkers would pull even, wave and laugh at his fierce cargo. I thought the chimera’s arrival was the best possible birthday.  Several husky friends wrestled my unusual gift onto a convenient concrete pad.  Today, years later, he stares balefully at anyone who passes by. 

In recent decades grotesques have become amazingly popular. Their shock value has diminished, but their entertainment value has skyrocketed.  They show up as Disney cartoon characters or beings that invade from other planets.  My favorite classic horror show is the 1984 “Ghostbusters”, starring actor Bill Murrey and friends. Two mythical figures, the keymaster and the gatekeeper, combine evil forces to occupy a city rooftop and unlock the gates of hell.  Like many other chimeras, the keymaster’s “terror dogs” break out of their shells and raise havoc.  Ultimately, they are exploded by the laser guns of the ghostbusters who rescue the city.  After four iterations, ghostbuster movies have become a cultural phenomenon.

From Gondor to Ghostbusters, the popularity of grotesques begs the question, why has it become such a thrill to scare us out of our wits? Monstrous characters have almost become our heroes and friends.  The spiritual message of repenting in the face of horror has worn off.   Words like enticing, mesmerizing, and addictive come to mind.   We have gotten used to real and fictional grotesque happenings all around us.  Still, we take comfort in knowing that Gondor is alive and watching for evil invaders.