Faith and Ritual

Faith is pure belief. Ritual is how we dress that faith...and sometimes, ritual is what we substitute for faith. For example, I can firmly believe in vampires. But if I festoon my home with garlic bulbs and holy water to ward off vampire depredations, then that is ritual, with perhaps a side-order of secondary belief in the efficacy of garlic and holy water.

Religion is not faith. It's organized ritual. And not all religion takes place in a church. The military could qualify as a religion. It has a core belief, organized rituals, and a ranked power system. What separates one military from the next is the differences in core beliefs and loyalties. The fact that we assume the military is there for our protection is part of our belief system that may or may not have any validity in truth.

I have met folks who protest they take no part in rituals. However, most of us have a certain routine in our lives that borders on ritual. We get up, we shower/dress, we have our coffee, we check our e-mail--and when our routine is interrupted, it creates havoc with our entire day because it is in fact now ritual.

If we get together with others of like mind and then decided our day would be better is we say...lit candles and drank coffee together, then we're bordering on religion. Maybe we'll decide to light candles in the early dawn, watch the sunrise, and then drink our coffee before we start our day. And so it goes.

Faith on the other hand requires no accoutrements. It just is. We believe. Or we don't. Going to church, dancing naked in the woods, marching with our fellow man, none of those creates faith. I do think one single thing can aid and abet in the faith process and that is mindful awareness. That's hard to do unless we take time for it.

Some folks call it prayer, others call it meditation, and still others call it thinking time. But without it, we might find our faith wavering a bit. No ritual required. Just time.