Tradition as Renewal

My close friend, Chuck's, blog - konanymous.blogspot.com - recently discussed the meaning of festivals in relation to a migratory instinct with human beings - a need to return to the past in order to find a future.

I have wondered before now, whether that isn't precisely the case. There is an eternal accusation - often by the younger generation to the older - that those who cling to tradition are afraid of and irrationally resistant to change. This is especially an issue in religious circles. But I have begun to realize that ritual, tradition, liturgy, is a vital part of us all - whether we admit it or not - and deserves a more careful look.

For me, an intense tradition is Christmas. It's a season to, essentially, relive the year before (which, of course, was a reliving itself of the previous year and so on) as nearly as possible with the obvious change in a few variables like what gifts are given, what the weather is like and other things beyond my control. My family is in on it, too. We try to watch the same movies on the same schedule, surround ourselves with the same decorations, listen to the same music, bake the same things, go to the same shopping centers: essentially conjure all our powers to bring to our senses things which will remind them of years gone by. It's a fascinating obsession. And for me, though I think of myself as very nearly addicted to change, it is a vitally important one.

Someone might say that Christmas is no different than habits like washing yourself exactly the same way every time you shower, of following a prescribed route through the supermarket or of eating meals at the same time every day. But my suspicion is that such routines are far more mindless and automatic than the intentional re-creation we engage in during festivals, holidays, services, reunions, weekly/monthly/yearly events - it is the difference between the robotic operations we perform because it is easier and speedier to do what we have learned well than to learn something new - and the difficult struggle for some kind of renewal.

Dictionary.com gives this definition of recreation - "activity that refreshes and recreates; activity that renews your health and spirits by enjoyment and relaxation". It occurs to me that our need for tradition is, in many ways, a sort of pure form of recreation - it is, as I said, re-creation. We return to the past in order to have a place from which to launch our future. Just as you might walk back to a starting point when you become hopelessly lost, we return - sometimes alone, often en-masse - to a historical point (recent or quite ancient - usually a combination of the two) we readily recognize in order to regain our bearings and renew our sense of meaning and excitement about life.

Ultimately, it is the sort of migratory instinct, on a more complex level, that drives trout to swim upstream - to concentrate their powers against nature and, in a sense, reverse time so that they can begin anew at the beginning, and so that their beginning may be the same as that of their offspring.

With us, parents pass on their traditions to their children until a society has established "re-creation points" from which its members can restart, knowing that is was not only they that had some beginning at that point but that their ancestors - whose accomplishments and end they know - did as well.

Tradition then, is not intrinsically a thing of stagnation, but a thing of refreshment. We only stand to lose by such repetitions of the past when we treat them, not as a way of renewing our sense of direction, but as an actual escape into history - when our lives become a series of re-creations and never a seizing of the fresh perspective they give us about the present and the future. Simply because we cannot actually go back and because an endless series of new faces will constantly appear to help us in the effort of re-creation, all ritual will inevitably evolve. If we accept this sign that what we do is only an enactment - an exercise of regeneration and not reversal - we will find tradition a healthy, helpful instinct - cml.