Decades ago I read the book "Shogun," which was made into a TV miniseries around 1980. Its main plot revolved around the manipulation of warlords and a 17th century Englishman shipwrecked and caught in the endless and futile whirlwind of violent people vying for power - much like Medieval Europe. In it we find unbelievable cruelty (again, much like Medieval Europe) and odd customs and beliefs. One in particular stood out for me: the Tea Ceremony. In the novel, a young married woman is having an affair with the Englishman. She has to abort her pregnancies for fear that the racial mix will be discovered, but she and her shogun husband are clearly, in the Japanese way, not meshing. The shogun wishes, against hope, to bring back the marriage and thus proposes the Tea Ceremony for he and his wife.
The detail was well described in the book, and I can recall being both fascinated with it and perplexed - what was it all about? It took place in near silence, the two playing their roles as husband and wife, candles lit, the proper dress warn and so on. But it was the near silence, every slight noise calibrated, that made the difference. I believe I now understand it, as a moment - a moment in time sacrilized, so that all time might be sacrilized.
It is the purpose of ritual to make the ordinary sacred, to draw together more than one to share the experience of meditation. All religions have it, as far as I know. Among the Hoti Indians of Venezuela with whom I lived, they had the Awato Fest, an all-night ritual that brought humans and animals and stars and gods together in the sacred space of increase, of fertility. At a revivalist meeting, I saw people cry and fall down as the Holy Spirit took hold of them in dramatic fashion. But still, it is in quiet contemplation where I believe ritual has the greatest affect.
In the Catholic Church, I take all but the readings from the Bible (especially the Gospels) with great boredom. It is not until the blessing of the Eucharist - the sacramental turning of the bread and wine into the body and blood - that things settle down into a sacramental stillness that has lasting affects. My son is simply bored throughout, but I believe most sincere adults would get the sense of spirituality in that space even if they were not Christian - just as I now understand the Tea Ceremony. Both are the realization that we, within us, can experience the Holy. This can also be done in the silence of the woods or the ocean, but most know what I mean.
This is the sacred-filling thought and action that Richard Rohr encourages us to seek in "Immortal Diamond," to find the holy that is within us and that is all about us. Using Biblical quotations throughout, he shows how this was exhorted again and again, without common understanding. It is this, this pointing too, that was not only lost to readers of the Bible in literalism, but to our society at large. Until the 8th century, he claims, the world was a magical place, but literalism, combined with the quest for power, took control - much as practices such as the Tea Ceremony became an afterthought to the Buddhist warlords of Japan.
Rorh is of the Tielhard de Chardin school, which claims that the Resurrection of Christ was our turning point, or at least symbolic of our times; that what we seek is a transformation, not continuity, like the resurrection, making us an evolving world. And so we are met with the division of the Perennial Tradition again: we see that the world lost its wonder, by and large, over a thousand years ago; for the optimistic, Christ signals a positive turning point amid a falling appreciation of the sacred; for those who simply follow history, the trajectory seems downward.
I will push that aside for now, for the spirit, as Rohr says, is always within us. It can come into our lives when we open ourselves to it, in ritual or in magical places in nature or man-made structures. The point is, that even in the religions that teach us original sin, either through Adam or through Karma, we can reclaim the sacred any time we want. It is always within us. FK
The detail was well described in the book, and I can recall being both fascinated with it and perplexed - what was it all about? It took place in near silence, the two playing their roles as husband and wife, candles lit, the proper dress warn and so on. But it was the near silence, every slight noise calibrated, that made the difference. I believe I now understand it, as a moment - a moment in time sacrilized, so that all time might be sacrilized.
It is the purpose of ritual to make the ordinary sacred, to draw together more than one to share the experience of meditation. All religions have it, as far as I know. Among the Hoti Indians of Venezuela with whom I lived, they had the Awato Fest, an all-night ritual that brought humans and animals and stars and gods together in the sacred space of increase, of fertility. At a revivalist meeting, I saw people cry and fall down as the Holy Spirit took hold of them in dramatic fashion. But still, it is in quiet contemplation where I believe ritual has the greatest affect.
In the Catholic Church, I take all but the readings from the Bible (especially the Gospels) with great boredom. It is not until the blessing of the Eucharist - the sacramental turning of the bread and wine into the body and blood - that things settle down into a sacramental stillness that has lasting affects. My son is simply bored throughout, but I believe most sincere adults would get the sense of spirituality in that space even if they were not Christian - just as I now understand the Tea Ceremony. Both are the realization that we, within us, can experience the Holy. This can also be done in the silence of the woods or the ocean, but most know what I mean.
This is the sacred-filling thought and action that Richard Rohr encourages us to seek in "Immortal Diamond," to find the holy that is within us and that is all about us. Using Biblical quotations throughout, he shows how this was exhorted again and again, without common understanding. It is this, this pointing too, that was not only lost to readers of the Bible in literalism, but to our society at large. Until the 8th century, he claims, the world was a magical place, but literalism, combined with the quest for power, took control - much as practices such as the Tea Ceremony became an afterthought to the Buddhist warlords of Japan.
Rorh is of the Tielhard de Chardin school, which claims that the Resurrection of Christ was our turning point, or at least symbolic of our times; that what we seek is a transformation, not continuity, like the resurrection, making us an evolving world. And so we are met with the division of the Perennial Tradition again: we see that the world lost its wonder, by and large, over a thousand years ago; for the optimistic, Christ signals a positive turning point amid a falling appreciation of the sacred; for those who simply follow history, the trajectory seems downward.
I will push that aside for now, for the spirit, as Rohr says, is always within us. It can come into our lives when we open ourselves to it, in ritual or in magical places in nature or man-made structures. The point is, that even in the religions that teach us original sin, either through Adam or through Karma, we can reclaim the sacred any time we want. It is always within us. FK
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