Skip to main content

F ³: Ceremonial Silliness


 


It wasn’t all that long ago that I wrote about why we humans mark the beginnings of things by wielding a shovel or or an enormous pair of scissors. 

Ceremonial, Village Green/Town², 6/20/2024

Perhaps it was the groundbreaking for a new Lakefront bandshell or the wall-breaking for new patient facilities at the Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center that set my imagination in motion. Why do we these things that are not really the things but are ritual references of the things? I think that archeologists looking back many years hence will be having a field day with us.

Years ago I sang at a wedding where the priest accidentally turned too many pages and addressed the (startled) young couple with these words:

For those baptized in Christ, life has not ended, but changed. 

The big laugh of the day was the apology of the officiant who confessed he had turned to the funeral rite by mistake.

I share this anecdote by way of suggesting that, if we are going to cling to our well-meaning ritual behavior, then I think we ought to trying turning it on its head. 

Let’s think up our own wacky groundbreaking rituals!

Hmm, let me see…the ritual planting of the seeds, the magical baking soda and vinegar volcano*, the purposeful sticking of the Post-it notes™ of intent, the ever-optimistic setting of the alarm clock for completion, the territorial marking with googly eyes,** perhaps?

And what about grand opening rites of celebration? These could take the place of ribbon cutting and unveilings.

How about the solemn opening of the breadbox? The great unzipping? The festive removal of the price tags? I know! The great unwrapping! Or the community singing of the Muppet Show theme song - -  everyone can participate in that one. 

So I’m looking for suggestions for each category. 

1. Signalling beginnings and intent

2. Announcing the completion and/or opening of something. The sillier the better, but: they must have some connection to human behavior and the task at hand. 

It’s Free Form Friday. I know I have whimsical readers. Let’s have some fun with this. Goodness knows Old Ellicott City is having fun these days, what with DeLoreans and Dr. Who. If they can use their imaginations, so can we.


Village Green/Town² Comments



*Okay, this one makes no sense. I just like the thought of it. 

**More appropriate for Mr. Trash Wheel and friends than for us, I guess. 



Comments

  1. Julia A. McCreadyNovember 21, 2025 at 3:06 AM

    Please do not submit comments here. This function will be disabled shortly. Use the link above instead. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more