Last class we spent our time discussing Scott Kugle's reinterpretation of a sacred story in Islam and its relationship to Muslim understandings about sexual diversity.  Throughout this term we have looked at the many ways in which sacred texts, myths and stories function for religious communities.  I hope you have come to appreciate that the interpretation of texts and the retelling of stories plays a significant role in religion.  (It also plays a significant role in our lives in the globalized world.)

Today we will take a very brief look at the role of ritual in religion.  We will focus specifically on the function of symbols in a ritual context.  In a way our study of sacred texts has prepared us to better understand symbols.  Language is symbolic communication.  By that, I mean that language can be interpreted in a variety of ways - there are multiple levels of meaning and all of these meanings are potentially present in texts and stories.   Texts always hold a "surplus" of meaning.  Good stories or classic texts, such as sacred texts, last for thousands of years and are retold over and over again because human communities find wisdom in the process of finding new meaning for new times. 

Symbols are physical objects that communicate.  They are open to interpretation and evoke meanings beyond themselves as physical objects.  Some symbols are more meaningful than others depending on their context.  Many symbols are culturally specific.  In a religious context, symbols help people to communicate when words fail to capture the depth of relationship that they have with the sacred.  Specific symbols unite particular religious communities. 

While we are not a religious community, we are a community of "Justice & Globalization" of a sort.  In order to try and understand how symbols work, I asked you each to bring a personal symbol with you today.  If you forgot, please take a few minutes to write about a symbol that you would have brought had you remembered.  (Hint - you might be wearing something symbolic!)  In the context of a simple ritual, we will share with each other some of the meanings that our symbols hold for us.

We'll begin by listening to a song by ani di franco called "Shroud" from her CD Reprieve.  Music is another highly symbolic form of communication and very important in my life.  It often plays a significant role in religious rituals.

i had to leave the house of fashion
go forth naked from its doors
cuz women should be allies
not competitors
and i had to leave the house of god
cuz the cross replaced the wheel
and the goddesses were out in the garden
with the plants that nourish and heal

i had to leave the house of privilege
spend christmas homeless and feeling bad
to learn that privilege is a headache
that you don't know that you don't have
and i had to leave the house of television
to start noticing the clouds
it's amazing the stuff you see
when you finally shed that shroud

i had to leave the house of conformity
in order to make art
i had to be more or less true
to learn to tell the two apart
and i had to leave the house of fear
just about as soon as i could crawl
ignore my face on the wanted posters
stuck to the post office wall

i had to leave the house of self-importance
to doodle my first tattoo
realize a tattoo is no more permanent
than i am, and who
ever said that life is suffering
i think they had their finger on the pulse of joy
ain't the power of transcendence
the greatest one we can employ

What we will engage in this afternoon is probably an ideological ritual - it is meant to teach us something.  It could also be understood as a form of a rite of passage - we are passing from discipline seminars to the inquiry group process.  There many different types of rituals.  More and more, I am coming to understand public protest as a form of ritual as well.

Next week on Tuesday, a group of which I am a part, the Catholic Network for Women's Equality, will hold a Purple Stole Vigil in front of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Saint John.  It will take place from 5:30 - 6:30 pm just before the diocesan Chrism Mass.  If you are interested in learning more about this public ritual of resistance, I would be glad to share some information with you.  If you are interested in joining us, you are more than welcome and I can help make arrangements for transportation.