Ethical rituals

Continuing with my study of Felix Adler's Founding Address, I am struck by the sparseness of what he proposes:

The exercises of our meetings are to be simple and devoid of all ceremony and formalism.

And later:

We propose to entirely exclude prayer and every form of ritual. 

No prayer.  No pledge to a flag.  No . . . but wait.  As I look at the Ethical Society of Austin, there are indeed rituals.  Simple they are indeed, but ritual they also are indeed--at least in the sense that they are repetitive, somewhat symbolic, carrying a minimal element of meaning for those present.

I've referred before to the limited rituals as I observed and participated in them.  Seeing now Adler's notion that there should be no "ceremony or formalism," I must consider them anew.

Adler had two purposes in avoiding ritual-prayer-ceremony.  First, he was seeking to avoid even the appearance of "interfering" with those to whom such things were an important part of their religious expression.  His effort was to eschew imitation or implied alternatives in order to avoid conflict with those already and firmly committed to a set of religious beliefs.  Second, he was also hoping to avoid offending those already more or less offended by religious rituals and, perhaps, supernaturalism.  His concern was, he said, reconciliation.

It is my dearest object to exalt the present movement above the strife of contending sects and parties, and at once to occupy that common ground where we may all meet, believers and unbelievers, for purposes themselves lofty and unquestioned by any.

Still, there it is.  I see ritual.  Where did it come from?  How widespread is it?  How necessary is it?  And what does it mean that the founder says "no ritual" but the practitioners have opened the door to these teensy tiny rituals?

Well, one thing I see is that Adler was an influence, but not the final word.  Ethical Culture is nearly 140 years old, and it has evolved in form and, I expect, in content as well.  It is not so much that in 140 years we added a chime, a lantern, and a burning bowl as it is that we added so little.  It's also, as I have noted before, a factor that the process is informal.  "Oops, I forgot the chime."  "Oops, the candle went out."  "Oops, my paper didn't fly up to burn."   These are rituals that have no power beyond the moment or our willingness to grant them personal meaning.  They provide structure for our function, focus for our higher purpose of considering the meaning and direction of our lives in promoting a more ethical world.  Somehow, I don't think Adler would mind.

Why Sunday?

I wondered, when I first found the Ethical Society of Austin, about the Sunday meeting.  I found it just a tad ironic, Sunday being claimed as the Sabbath by Christians.  Of course, Saturday is claimed by Jews as the Shabbat, and Muslims mark Friday noon with Jumu'ah, although whether a day of rest follows Friday prayer may vary by local/national custom.  Was it necessary to have a special day for the purposive meetings of the Ethical Society?  Did it need to be the same for each Society, or could it vary by the desires of the local group?  Why set aside a particular and regular day?

A day of rest for prayer and meditation is found in many religious belief systems, not only the religions of the desert.  These days may be timed to natural cycles as well as to the human constructs of the week/month/year.  After a more or less long work week, anyone would need a break to clear the mind and rest the body regardless of religious belief.  Personally after being around people (whether that is social, working, or otherwise) for three days in a row, I start longing for a period of quiet, stemming from the very simple reason that, being stimulated by events and people, I need time to process new information, slow my mind and body to rest, yes, but also to think about what I have been experiencing.  It's too easy to make commitments in the rush of meetings and gatherings and then to forget them as we rush on to the next encounter.  If you are like me, a week will fill your hands with handouts, receipts, instructions, prescriptions, lists, mail, every sort of thing that can be scribbled or printed and that must be filed for future need, shredded for security, and otherwise acted on--if you can keep track of them long enough to find the time to deal with them.  Or just add them to the growing pile of things you need to do.

Felix Adler's Founding Address very specifically refers to Sunday as the special meeting day for Ethical Societies.  He gave the very practical reason for meeting on Sunday because in 1876, as now, and in the United States, Sunday is generally, although not in all cases these days, a day on which workers are free of obligation to their employers.  If an Ethical Society were meeting in Saudi Arabia, no doubt the group would choose Friday as the day for its weekly meeting.  It was not the day of the week that mattered in Adler's thinking but the meeting--the need to gather in a community of like-minded people for an hour spent in "serious contemplation" which would "give a higher tone to all our occupations, and lend a newer and fresher zest even to those enjoyments, which we need and seek."

"Why Sunday?" is the wrong question, then.  Adler clearly indicated that he neither cared what others did on that day nor what they might think of Ethical Societies choosing that day for meetings.  The choice of day was, it seems, a distraction that he wished to dispense with so that he could get on to addressing his proposed solution to the great ills that he had identified earlier in his Founding Address:  A weekly meeting that would fill the void of morals, inspiration, goals, values, learning, purpose, vision, emotion that he found around him at that time.  A void that we still see today, I think.

Sunday--nowadays--is an inconvenient day because there is so much else that needs to be done on that day, little enough of which involves rest.  It's, just as Adler recognized, a time--a limited time--in which to visit with family who have work obligations during the rest of the week.  Anything which takes one away from that family time should be evaluated carefully to determine whether its merit equals or outweighs the time spent with loved ones.  (More on Family later, I think.)  Adler's notion is that we need still more than mere rest, more than the very important time with family--we need to elevate ourselves, our lives, our community, our world with a clearer understanding of their value, their potential, their relationships to each other and our relationships to them.  OK, Adler didn't say all of that.  Those are my words.  But I think that his intention aims toward that goal or something very like it.  It's not enough just to exist, to survive the day.  Living demands thought as well as action toward the goal of making ourselves and our world--better.  To do that, we need to stop our ordinary daily activities--no matter how worthy and important they are--to take stock, to evaluate, to consider them in the broader context of our lives and our community.  We can do this on our own, but we can often do it better together.

Adler's Founding Address

Ethical culture, as an organized religion and cultural movement, is coming up on its 140th anniversary.  I am still learning about ethical culture, still growing as a person, so I spend a little time now and then looking for more resources to add to my own sparse knowledge about it.  One fine resource that I have found is the website of the American Ethical Union (AEU), the national organization to which the Ethical Society of Austin (ESOA) is allied, ESOA's parent organization, if you will.  AEU has been digitizing and posting various addresses and writings of Felix Adler, founder of ethical culture, on its website.  One such address is Adler's "Founding Address" given on May 15, 1876.

I am still reading and digesting Adler's words, am still, indeed, in the beginning of the address where he is laying out the conditions of the world which cry out to him of the need for this new religious organization.  Without yet considering what he seeks to establish, it is worthwhile to pause to consider what and why he seeks to establish something new.  And, given my already proud admission of being a lover of words, the language, dear ones, the language!

The broader context for Adler's address is interesting in itself.  He only alludes to strife, corruption, and the general disarray of society and its institutions.  With very little detailed knowledge of history we already know that, in 1876, the United States was still undergoing the social upheaval of the Civil War which "ended" just 11 years before.  Adler also alluded to "this festal epoch of [the Nation's] marriage to Liberty," 1876 being the nation's first centennial.  One can imagine this to be an anniversary of great moment in the minds of a people who had just shed so much blood to maintain its unity, giving them even more pause to think about the principles on which the nation had been founded.  Lincoln was assassinated, his vice-president and successor impeached, his Commanding General elected president and presiding over an administration widely criticized for its corruption.  Rutherford B. Hayes, president at the time of Adler's address, was proposing reforms to which Adler refers directly:

But the renovation of our Civil Service, the reform of our Primaries, and whatever other measures may be devised, they all depend in the last instance upon the fidelity of those to whom their execution must be entrusted. They will all fail unless the root of the evil be attacked, unless the conscience of men be aroused, the confusion of right and wrong checked, and the loftier purposes of our being again brought powerfully home to the hearts of the people.

Adler cites a reduction in moral presence from already established religious institutions ("Morality, long accustomed to the watchful tutelage of faith, finds this connection loosened or severed. . . ").  He spends even more time addressing "a fierce craving desire for gain [that] has taken possession of the commercial world . . ."  He calls for a "powerful check and counterpoise, lest the pursuit of gain be enhanced to an importance never rightfully its own, lest, in proportion as we enhance our comfort and well-being, comfort and well-being become the main objects of existence, and life's grander motives and meanings be forgotten."

In the latter statement, Adler parallels my own thinking--that we are not merely animals who live by consuming, excreting, and making whoopee--that we have minds and consciousness of our own being and the world around us and so can and should contemplate the nature of ourselves and our world, preferably to act to make of them both the best that they can be.  Adler says it so much more elegantly, of course, the language of his day being more specifically shaped for rhetorical effect and circumlocution, while the language of our day is more truncated, direct, and coarsened.

The Founding Address has echoes in the present in the greed of commerce, the ubiquitous pursuit of happiness at the expense of higher values, the concerns of public policy and the corruption of policy makers, the need to provide real moral direction to our children.  I will continue studying this address for its content but also for its perspective.  I'm sure I will find more in this address that speaks to me/us today.

Nice to see you!

Well, no doubt you already have met Meetup, the online portal for setting up specialized groups on a more or less ad hoc basis.  Ethical Society of Austin has its own Meetup group with 170 participants.  This is new technology for me, so I was initially rather slow to participate.  Eventually, I realized that ESOA uses Meetup to get an initial heads up on the number of participants to expect for a meeting and figured I needed to get with the program.

After signing up, I began to receive weekly reminders that meetings were planned--and did I plan to attend?  The setup made it very easy to respond yes or no and even to change my reply when plans changed.  I'm all for easy.

And then I saw that the meetings would show up on my online calendar with a reminder on my cellphone.  Not long ago, this would have annoyed me and perhaps alarmed me.  Too invasive--or some such.  Having seen how the system is working to support participation, when our lives and schedules are so packed with distractions, I'm all for all the support I can get.

One thing that did surprise me about Meetup--a technological method for supporting social interaction by means very different from how we did this "in the olden days"--is the very homey "Good to see you" button that pops up after a meeting has passed.  I have been a very enthusiastic clicker of that button as I have gotten to know more people in ESOA.  Meetup has moved, in my mental ordering of my world, from a somewhat cold and practical way to connect to something much, well, warmer, more conducive to reaching out to others with that simple, yet meaningful, greeting.  I'm all for reaching out.

This past week was so busy that I didn't have a chance to respond to the query about attendance, so I wasn't on the list of people who were planning to attend.  That also meant that I didn't get a list of people who did attend with a nice-to-see-you button.  How sad!  I really miss that chance to affirm how positive this week's meeting was for me and how--really!--glad I was to see folks there.

So this is my solution:  Nice to see you all there today!

And this is my resolution:  Gotta be sure to RSVP for the next meeting.  I certainly can't complain that I won't get the chance.