SPIRIT S A I N T S T E P H E N ’ S E P I S C O PA L C H U R C H
PENTECOST
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‘This is our university!’ The object from the British Museum is light brown, about eight inches long, and almost 200 years old. It is from Vanuatu, an island country in that vast region of the South Pacific east of northern Australia. It was donated in 1831 by a surgeon who had acquired it on board a ship that had been collecting sandalwood from southern Vanuatu. At first glance, it looks like a bunch of dried flowers. By Gary D. Jones
But it is something much more profound. It is, in fact, a bundle of carefully-plaited human hair from the long process of male initiation into adulthood that is reverently observed to this day on the island of Tanna, and its story is fascinating. Just after puberty, boys in that society return regularly, over and over, to an elder who is assigned to accompany the boy into adulthood. As the boy sits before the elder, the senior man meticulously binds the boy’s hair at regular intervals with leaffiber, shaping it into something that looks a little like dreadlocks. While the elder is binding the boy’s hair, the child is learning from the elder what it means to be a man. These ritual sessions with the elder are devoted to traditional knowledge of the world and how one must live in it. The boy is learning traditional moral and spiritual truths, how to ponder his place in the natural world— the rhythms of nature, the sea, the volcanic mountains, the stars and planets— and he is learning about himself, about who he is, how he is to behave with his family, and how he is to navigate the changes and chances of this life. Over a period of years, the elder is literally binding into the boy’s head these lessons and ponderings, fastening tightly all these elements of wisdom and spiritual truth into his head. In a couple of months, the boy and the elder come together again, and the process continues, with the elder asking the boy questions, repeating lessons, and observing some significant periods of silence together. Over and over this happens, month after month. When the boy’s plaited hair reaches the bottom of his back, it is cut off, and the boy will have become a man.
At the same time, churches like the Episcopal Church that are devoted to ancient immersive rituals like those of the Vanuatu are declining. Our traditional church life is based on the kind of regular ritual of return, over and over again, for the awakening of soul and the development of wisdom that one finds in more traditional cultures. In our weekly worship, we sing songs that our great-grandparents sang, as well as newer ones. Each week, people across generations join in prayers, readings, and rituals that are thousands of years old. All of this is a primary way in which we heed the most distinctive of all of the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.” With all the ways society forms us today, with all the obligations of our busy lives, we receive this invitation. “Remember this one day each week and keep it holy—step off the treadmill of your lives on this one day. Be still with me. Let me nurture your deeper life.” Churches like the Episcopal Church, with our traditions of sacred, bodily engagement (kneeling, standing, sitting, listening, singing, eating and drinking, passing the peace), are rapidly declining in the West. We are moving away from practices of submitting ourselves over and over again to the time-tested rituals of worship that shape us in hidden ways, as we instead tend to value, more and more, ideas of independence and self-determination. An eminent professor of sociology, Linda Woodhead, is quoted in MacGregor’s book, “There’s much more room for choice, for thinking about the kind of person you want to be and the kind of gang you want to belong to. We want to choose the kind of rituals that will go along with becoming what we have individually decided to become. We are a liberal society. We want choice. We don’t want our future handed down to us.” Yet the anxiety that many parents feel about sending their children off to college is understandable. Our children might have wonderful SAT scores, they might be socially gracious and fabulous athletes, and they might be going to great universities that will open doors to financial success when they graduate. But do they have any real spiritual moorings, any deep connection to the transcendent, to God and their own souls? Sadly, we all know that there are many well-educated, wealthy people going to bed at night, under silk sheets, sobbing. Continued on page 2
In this issue
Neil MacGregor, the former director of the British Museum, recalls in his book Living with the Gods: On Beliefs and Peoples, that a few years ago, when some men from Vanuatu visited the museum and saw the bundle of plaited hair in a display case, they immediately remarked, “This is our university!” Such tactile engagement with ancient spiritual wisdom is rapidly being lost in Western societies, especially with technological advances and the increasing insistence on individual choice over deeper immersion in ancient rituals. Our “universities” are multibillion-dollar corporations with their share of student rituals, many of which involve young people initiating each other into worlds of their own, with beer, song, and dance.
A year of living faithfully Exciting new offerings for senior high youth Betsy Tyson returns to parish staff Solemn communion preparation for the very young Heidi and Monica visit, and bring a friend RE:work welcomes first members We have a new music director! Acclaimed author speaks here about ‘Elderhood’ Bible study, poetry, the Enneagram A summer scrapbook
©Trustees of the British Museum. Used by permission.
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