As the New Year began here with several hours of crashes and bangs, despite the illegalization of home fireworks, it is a telling sign that something is happening or that something has happened. The loud crashing of fireworks brings in the New Year and enlivens the senses, and perhaps this is really what ritual is all about.
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| Fireworks in a local park on New Year's Eve |
In baptismal waters, with Water and the Word, we mark the beginning of something new. We celebrate in grand style as we are reborn as children of God, inheritors of eternal life and the ritual and symbol are tactile, memorable. It is a celebration that continues all throughout our lives!
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| The "hora loca" or crazy hour at Emaus, celebrating the New Year with a fiesta on Jan. 1, 2012 |
Over holidays two weeks ago, we had a similar experience to that of celebrating, being re-born, re-experiencing God's grace in creation as we traveled to Cusco, the Sacred Valley and I climbed Machu Picchu once again, only this time in the pouring rain!
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| Machu Picchu |
It was more or less consistent throughout our day. The consistent precipitation is what makes the mountains, fauna, grasses, trees, etc so incredibly green. It is the consistent precipitation of the rain forest that makes it so lush and so delicious to the senses of sight and smell. And it was this consistent precipitation that made the rocky steps slippery and dangerous, and which soaked my jeans! Yet, the consistent precipitation is also what enlivened my heart and senses to the entire experience. It rained on and off, fog would roll in and in second disappear. And it happened time and again, like a reminder: something is happening here. The steep edges and drop-offs had this effect for me to because of my fear of heights. I had to breathe deeper, ask others to walk in front of me, and I even had to close the curtain of the bus on the hair-pin drive up the mountain. But this also heightened all of my senses to the entire experience: something unique is happening here, something unexpected, something new, something that you will always remember.
And it is true, like the ritual of Water and Word, like the ritual midnight fireworks throughout the city of Lima, this was a ritual of senses, sight, sound, and touch culminating together like a ritual of beginning and remembering.
We need these rituals, we need the senses to be awakened and enlivened to remind us of God's love and grace breaking into the world every day. Sometimes we are tired and weary, sometimes we are stressed, sometimes we are complacent and the routines of life take something of the spark of faith away from us. We need these rituals to remind us of God's continuing love and grace: we need these rituals to break us out of our complacency; we need these rituals to be reminded that we are God's beloved children, freed, loved, graced and transformed TO transform our world. We often forget and this is why the ritual is so incredibly important..the ritual of worship for example, so we can be brought to these amazing experiences of the senses: water and word, of bread and wine. In this ritual, we are reminded whose we are and what we are called and claimed to be and do in this world: to risk, love, be on the edge, embody the Gospel....
Be the blessing God has called to you, be enlivened into the richness God has planted in you, be God's grace in the world...
With love & gratitude,
Pastora Fran
