The book is available online. On the whole, it’s a useful book for people who are thinking of leaving their religion, and aren’t sure how they can find meaning without a religious community. But the chapter on ritual stands out as an excellent introductory text on what ritual is, why you should care about it, and how you can create it for yourself.

The chapter on ritual is here, and if I tried to summarize the important bits I’d probably end up quoting the whole thing. But several points form important building blocks, that I’ll be discussing further on this blog.

What is a Ritual?

Is brushing your teeth a ritual? Is your morning cup of coffee, or your weekly workout with your gym buddy? The answer is “maybe.”

There’s a hazy boundary between the words “ritual,” “habit,” and “custom.” I think the difference between a ritual act and a habitual one lies inawareness and assent . An act becomes a ritual for you when you perform it with conscious awareness of its symbolic and emotional meaning, and with willing assent to those meanings. Unless you act with both awareness and assent, your act is merely a habit (if it is unique to you) or a custom (if you share it with others).

Awareness and intention are personal qualities that can exist only in your own mind. They cannot be coerced. Nobody can force you to pay attention to the symbolic meaning of an act. And in particular, nobody can force your assent to the meaning of a ritual. As I well know, because I can remember myself as an adolescent, being required to attend my parents’ church in which I no longer believed. My body was present at the rituals; my willing assent was most definitely and defiantly not.

He later goes on to note:

Any act you want can become a personal ritual. Take that regular Tuesday noon jogging date with your friend Alex. If it’s just a run and a pleasant chat, it’s a habit and no more. However, occasions like these can become rituals if you make the conscious decision to be mindful of their implications: what they stand for, what they imply, how they represent your status and condition of life. Suppose that while you are lacing your running shoes, you think: “At this time I am going to connect with the outdoor air, with the weather and the season. I’m going to be aware of my body, its strength and limits, how it feels to get tired and to recover. And I’m going to attend to Alex, who is a friend.” And you would consciously try to bring awareness of these points into the front of your mind several times during the run.

Why is Ritual Useful?

Secular Wholeness describes four major uses of ritual:

• They give time-structure to our lives on the daily, weekly, and annual levels.
• They assist and encourage the formation of trust and community between people.
• They give shape to public expressions of powerful emotions: expressions of grief, as at funerals; and of joy, as at weddings, graduations, birthdays and anniversaries.
• They help to reorient and stabilize our own feelings when we need to comprehend and cope with crucial life passages.

The book primarily focuses on creating “personal” rituals – events and activities tailored for you, your family and your particular community.

I think the principles there are important building blocks. What I’d like to see is how to apply them to create a broader culture, so that individual families and small to medium communities can feel connecting to something large and profound.