Redford, my four-year old Golden Retriever recently taught me a lesson about the importance of ritual in our lives. As I sat there watching another game of football on a Saturday afternoon, he came up, tennis ball in his mouth, and stood there staring at me.

Since he was a puppy, he has loved to chase tennis balls. If you are willing to throw the ball, he is willing to chase it down and bring it back to you. Throw the ball, retrieve the ball…throw the ball, retrieve the ball…again and again and again. His energy is endless. His passion is pure. Chasing tennis balls is an everyday ritual that in many ways defines who he his. He is a retriever. He loves to retrieve. He is happiest and healthiest when he is retrieving.

Summer in south Louisiana is especially hard on him. The heat and humidity make the ritual of chasing tennis balls a far less regular part of Redford’s life than he would like. He doesn’t understand why we can’t play with tennis balls during the summer as often as we can during the rest of the year. Temperatures in mid-June make chasing tennis balls risky. The picture of him standing there with a tennis ball in his mouth and a sad look in his eye is almost too much to bear. By mid-July each year, he gives up asking and just lays down on the floor, tennis ball close by. He is not the same dog when the ritual of chasing tennis balls is not a regular part of his life.

But when Fall arrives with its cooler temperatures, the ritual of retrieving returns in full force. Throw the ball, retrieve the ball…throw the ball, retrieve the ball…over and over again. His energy and passion return after their heat induced summer sabbatical. He is once again happy, healthy and whole. All because of the presence of a simple, but essential ritual in his life. And I guess seasonal ritual is better than no ritual at all.

Watching him thrive on his canine ritual reminds me how we as human beings thrive on ritual as well. Our lives are filled with activities and events. There are appointments to keep, places to go and people to see and, of course, football games to watch. The question for us to answer is not will we have ritual in our lives, but rather, what rituals will make up the fabric of our lives. It is so easy to become bogged down in rituals that rob us of our energy and passion, that keep us from being truly happy, healthy and whole.

I have to confess that I am a seasonal monastic. I live in a community that is home to St. Joseph Abbey, a Benedictine monastery and seminary college. Every day at the appointed times, the monks process into the church, fill the choir and sing the liturgy of the hours – lauds, sext, vespers, compline – morning, noon, night. Prayer and praise. In between, they work. For them, work is prayer and prayer is work.
For many, this daily ritual seems out of date and tradition-bound, out of touch with today’s world – a consumer driven world where anything but that latest and greatest, the newest and best, is deemed unacceptable. But there is something contagious about their daily schedule. There is something about this out of touch, tradition-bound ritual that feeds my soul each time I am there in the midst of it, even more when I give myself to its rhythm and flow.

Life is filled with activities and events. There are appointments to keep, places to go and people to see. How easy it is to chase things that can never bring fulfillment or meaning. The question is not will we have ritual in our lives, but rather, what rituals will make up the fabric of our lives? I have come to believe that the journey of faith is about discovering what rituals truly give life and what rituals should be allowed to guide life. If only dogs could talk….

The following essay was written in response to concerns expressed over the purchase and use of the new (at least for First Church Covington) United Methodist hymn supplement, The Faith We Sing.

Recently, I came across an article written by John Buchanan, Senior Minister at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and editor/publisher of The Christian Century, a journal that I highly recommend reading. I found it to be both insightful and relevant for our life together here in Covington. His editorial in the July 25 issue was entitled “All Together Now.” It addressed the often divisive, but potentially unifying issue of “acceptable” music for worship and the subsequent “worship wars” that often plague so many congregations.

He writes,

“Church music says something about our ecclesiology and our Christology, not to mention our anthropology and aesthetics. When we argue over whether to sing Bach or praise choruses, we are also arguing about the nature of the church and the authenticity of its witness.”

Music is a powerful force in our lives. Music can restore and renew. It can comfort and console. Music can move us like nothing else can. Dostoevsky once said that, “when his faith faltered and he found himself doubting, “the music of the church and the singing of the congregation held him up.” For many, music is the essence of worship. Saint Augustine went so far as to say “the one who sings prays twice.”

It is also important to note that the church is one of the last remaining places where people still sing together. The music moves the liturgy and determines the flow of worship. And while “many of the battles over music are battles over different musical idioms,” there are various styles and types of music that fit very well into the movement and flow of the liturgy of worship. Churches that are open to different styles, yet faithful to their own unique liturgical and theological traditions can expand both the depth and scope of their witness.

Over the past several months, we have been attempting to expand the depth and scope of our witness here. We have been including some different styles of music and different approaches to worship, but all the while remaining liturgically and theologically faithful to our United Methodist tradition. (I received both positive and negative comments, as expected, but most were open to new approaches in worship, and for that, I was thankful.) Including the new does not mean abandoning the old. Old and new, tradition and innovation, past and present can survive together, and can even thrive together.

Buchanan illustrates this point with the following story:

Having been invited to preach at the pastoral installation of a friend, Buchanan recounted his surprise when, upon arriving at the church and securing a bulletin, he discovered that the response to the benediction was going to be “Take the A Train,” a Duke Ellington classic. After the benediction, “the pastor invited everyone to be seated and then explained that when he moved to New York City to attend seminary, his mother warned him not to get on the wrong train. But he had learned that the nature of ministry is traveling to new places, meeting new people and being open to God’s surprises. With that, a trumpet player and a pianist launched into one of the most spirited versions of “Take the A Train” I’ve ever heard. The mostly older congregation loved it. Heads began to nod, feet tapped, smiles broke out. It was a new song, at least in that context, and it was great.”

“O sing to the Lord a new song,” urges the Psalmist.

“There’s nothing wrong with the old song,” some might say.

But if singing a new song (or new songs) allows us to reach new people with the good news of Jesus Christ, then all of us might do well to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. And none of us, even the staunchest traditionalist in the bunch, should be surprised if our head begins to nod, our feet begin to tap, our face begins to smile and our spirits begins to be uplifted.

God has a way of doing new things, often in spite of us.

“Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill brought down; rugged places shall be made smooth and mountain ranges become a plain. Thus shall the glory of the Lord be revealed, and all humankind together shall see it; for the Lord himself has spoken.” Isaiah 40:4-5