Readiness for Ritual (III): on Intimacy

"In a theological frame of reference, the symbolic orientation of God-imagery at this stage produces a 'God who is the abundance of human intimacy.' God is felt to be the invisible 'third', the radiance going beyond the sum of gifts of those who love. In moments when two human beings come together in a fated intimacy, there is an overflowing sense of fullness to the joy and hopes which these persons share. The strategic point for pastoral ministry here is the conviction, generated by good preaching and good theology, that God is not put off by our delights but gratified in gracing us with the amplitude of joy. The old saw of Irenaeus that 'the glory of God is man fully alive' finds non chauvinist expression in the recognition that 'man' fully alive is 'man and woman' mutually enlivening one another's joy. To use Erikson's terminology, the abundance of delight which is the fruit of such mutual sharing in intimacy becomes the motivation for a generativity that concerns itself with not only the children of one's family, but the children of the whole human family."

Readiness for Ritual (I)

From Alternative Futures for Worship, by Cowan, Philibert, and Kilmartin:

"It is the work of poets and artists to inhabit the middle world between tacit hungers and articulate categories. But that is what the world of symbolism is all about. At the tacit dimension meaning feels like a hunger in the gut--for love, for significance, for meaning. We too easily domesticate the questing and yearning for the deep experiences of faith by naming the components with static categories. Often poets have been better at celebrating the shadow world between hunger and healing than have an older cast of theologians."

Readiness for Ritual (II): on Symbols

This chapter has much to say about symbols within liturgy. And about the need for imagination in keeping it alive. Some examples:

"We meet God through symbols"

"Symbols have the power to transport us out of the here and now into an originating past as well as into a fulfilling future."

"Ritual symbols characteristically respond to deep imaginative needs and intentions which are not easily transformed directly into common language."

"The word symbol seems to have been used in ancient times for an object much like today's passport. When a messenger bearing important information was sent to an authority or official, he was given a piece of a broken tablet which would identify himself as authorized when that piece was placed together with another matching piece in the possession of the official. Originally a Greek word, symbol (sum-ballein) meant to pull together aspects which have either been broken apart, sundered, or which have yet to find a synthetic fullness in being united."

"Another obstacle is the adults failure to utilize the full scope of memory and imaging in theological thinking and ritual expression."

"For the fully alive adult is someone who, thought a lesser degree than children, scans the environment, taking in more stimulation than can be dealt with immediately. Even adults seek fuller meanings. As we will argue later, adults who do not know the playful nature of ritual and ritualization--the exploratory range of deep, questing interactions within the formal structure of repeated rites--will become dead to the enlivening potential of their cosmic surroundings as well as thoroughly bored with the ritual dynamics of their community. For these reasons it will be important to keep in mind how fluid a notion play is for Erikson and how integrally it functions in the elaboration of his theory of the "ontogeny of ritualization."