Ritual and American Culture: A Reflection on YDS

Write one page discussing to what extent ritual fulfills a vital social function. 

            Why do we care so much about rituals?  Sometimes, we don’t realize how much we care until ritual is taken away from us—or until we sense a need for which there is no ritual—and that only ritual can fill.  Thus, the way we care about rituals cuts two ways. Rituals serve us, and when we don’t have them, we feel their absence.  Sometimes, in our efforts to maintain a ritual for ritual’s sake, we end up serving the ritual.  Either way, ritual not only expresses, but also organizes human emotions and values in tangible—but not literal—ways.  Herein lies the social function of rituals.

            At Yale Divinity School, liturgy abounds in the multitude of chapel services that occur every week.  Being an ecumenical seminary, liturgy is as experimental as it is all-encompassing.  Interestingly, the abundance of liturgy has seemingly led to a scarcity of ritual.  What I mean by this is that there are few actual “traditions” that students can expect from year to year, and that has left the community feeling angry and frustrated.  In my role as one of the Community Life Coordinators at YDS, I have listened to students complain about not feeling like they know their role in the community—and not feeling safe enough to interact productively with administration and faculty.  The Executive Committee, on which I serve, is largely constituted by students in their third year who still have not gotten over the fact that one of their favorite rituals, “Saints and Sinners,” was banned—and not replaced by something similar or better—by the administration two years ago. 

Initially, I was shocked at how great the resentment was over such a “minor” matter. But over time, I came to see ritual as a marker of sincerity—whether actual or performed—and to understand its absence as inviting unorganized emotions.  A ritual, no matter how serious or frivolous, is something to be looked forward to, something that grounds individuals in a sense of community.  At Yale Divinity School, rituals such as Convocation, Advent Party, and Commencement still exist, but Saints and Sinners, the yearly ritual of “fun,” has gone and left a gaping hole in the heart of the community.

Even as old rituals are eliminated by those in power who may not appreciate their value in a social group, so do new rituals arise to meet new needs.  For the incoming class at YDS who know nothing of Saints and Sinners, the absence of ritual becomes an opportunity to create new traditions and a source of agency in establishing new roles and ideology in a community.  Over the last two weeks, the Divinity School was rocked by the events happening “downtown” in Yale College.  Several of our students—mostly women of color—attended the March of Resilience, Teach-In, and other related events on the main Yale campus.  Their involvement sparked intense conversation at the Divinity School, and eventually, our Dean held a “listening session” in which students of color could speak candidly about their experiences.  Among many other things, out of this very intense meeting came a recognition that the Divinity School needed to do something to minister to Yale Undergrads. Several students got together to plan a very last-minute Service of Solidarity, to which undergrads would be invited. 

The Service of Solidarity drew a larger crowd than normally attends our weekly chapel services.  I saw students, faculty, and staff who came to show their support for what this service meant.  Showing up was a marker of sincerity; whether it was real or performed (or a mixture of both) did not matter as much as the act of coming.  Ultimately, it didn’t matter whether or not many undergrads were there.  The point of it all was solidarity, and that required, first and foremost, a Divinity presence.

On a personal level, I felt compelled to help plan the Service of Solidarity, both as a woman of color and as Community Life Coordinator.  My Community Life Committee helped provide refreshments for the Service, and I took time out of my schedule to sing with the Gospel Choir for the Service.  It wasn’t enough that I emotionally and verbally supported my friends who were on the forefront of planning—I also felt that I had to physically show up and do something. 

After the Service of Solidarity, one of the main leaders of the event posted on Facebook, saying that for the first time since she arrived at Yale Divinity School, she felt a sense of purpose and that she had a place in the community.  The ritual she planned and partook in both signaled and solidified her role.  She promised that she would make a better effort to attend chapel services regularly.  Now that ritual had served to give her a sense of identity, she was making an effort to serve the ritual. 
My analysis of the Service of Solidarity would seem to suggest that, even in an overtly religious setting like Yale Divinity School, ritual fulfills a function that is first social and then spiritual.  Granted, this statement could be easily contested if one reads a false dichotomy between the social and the spiritual.  But for the purposes of this short piece, suffice it to say that the emotional component of ritual is something that calls for its existence and enactment—and might be taken for granted until it is neglected.