Traditions - Julie Miller, Director of Religious Education

Before I came to First Church, I heard a joke:
Q: What’s a Unitarian? A: An atheist with children!

A grain of truth here? I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one who arrived at a Unitarian Universalist church after never belonging to any church my entire adult life. When my son was quite young, I went church shopping. I wanted to raise him in a religious tradition, but the one I had attended didn’t make much sense to me.

The good news about being a UU is also the bad news. We have enormous freedom in how we practice our beliefs. None of us would have it any other way, right? Confession: I’m a bit shaky with this freedom.
So how does this affect my position as Religious Education Director for our youngest members? RE Assistant Lissa Lander and I often discuss how to incorporate our Seven Principles into daily, weekly and family traditions. I find myself thinking about those traditions most intently at this time of year, with the holidays just around the corner.

The reality is, times have changed dramatically since I was a kid. How do we create simple but fun, practical and lasting traditions for our families? Here’s where I’m coming from: rituals are not just for special occasions. They’re for every day. Just about anything families deliberately do together—as long as those “things” are juiced up and elevated beyond “routine”—could be called a family ritual.
Years ago, my son & I went out for ice cream every Friday afternoon after school. It was our way of celebrating, “Welcome to the Weekend Party .”

Comfort and security are two of the most important benefits of ritual, especially with young children. Next to your typical celebrations (birthdays, holidays, sports events), rituals help kids with transitions. Take bedtime, for example, when rituals are all about helping children switch from active to relaxed before falling off to sleep.

Rituals can strengthen the family structure. Like making dinner, for example. Everyone gets to pitch in. Simple tasks for younger children, larger tasks for the older kids. With seven guiding principles and seven days in the week, you could tie one principle to each day. Suppose you say grace before a meal. Focus on just one principle at the start of the meal with a phrase influenced by the lighting of the chalice: “Dear God, please give us open minds, loving hearts and helping hands this week.”

There are rituals for life’s milestones, for remembrances, for new beginnings. A ritual doesn’t have to be a fancy event. It emerges from the concept of purpose. First you figure out your purpose, then you imagine creative ways to introduce a ritual to suit your unique family.

Afraid my granddaughter would eat vast amounts of Halloween candy, I asked her to share with kids too poor to trick or treat. I assured her the candy would be replaced with a special book of her choosing. I also told her the tooth fairy wouldn’t pay for teeth riddled with cavities!

I read about a family that started a generational tablecloth ritual at Thanksgiving. Everyone at the dinner table signed his/her name on the cloth. Their grandmother embroidered over the signatures in a different color for each passing year.

A refugee family I knew prepared sweet potatoes for every special meal during the year because it was all they had to eat for one war-torn year. The sweet potatoes reminded them how thankful they were to be living in a safe land with bountiful food.

So, to sum up...every time you create a tradition with your children, you are giving them a template for enduring rituals that are the foundation for celebrations both large and small.