Quotes About Ceremonies

The first time I thought about attempting a body suspension was after watching a documentary on rites-of-passage ceremonies from other cultures. I was completely intrigued by what these people put their bodies through.

Alas! can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures, and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs'! it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business. That is the chiefest part of reformation, that doth most good, and tendeth most to the salvation of the people.

Scholars say that ceremonies normally confirm and celebrate the status quo and deny the shadow side of things (think of a Fourth of July parade), whereas true ritual offers an alternative universe, where the shadow is named (think of a true Eucharist). In the church, I am afraid we mostly have ceremonies.

She knew how to behave at ceremonies: move slowly, smile at everyone, do what you're told, and if no one tells you what to do, stand still.

In Wicca, rituals are ceremonies which celebrate and strengthen our relationships with the Goddess, the God and the Earth.

Another example may be the robust revival today of traditional or pre-revolutionary beliefs, rituals, customs, ceremonies, and even superstitions, most of which were once strenuously denounced and suppressed during the nation's drive for a cosmopolitan modernity.

I wish to declare with all earnestness that I do not want any religious ceremonies performed for me after my death. I do not believe in such ceremonies, and to submit to them, even as a matter of form, would be hypocrisy and an attempt to delude ourselves and others.

This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down.

Religious ceremonies are of paramount importance in Bali ( an island, don't forget, with seven unpredictable volcanoes on it-you would pray, too).

This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping.

These struggles to change the world: I've seen them end either in a miserable dictatorship bloated with simplistic ideology applied with no less primitive rhetoric, or in a profitable business for a handful of cynics who always pretend to be disinterested, decent people committed to the welfare of the country and its inhabitants. In either case, the dead, the orphans and widows, become pretexts for parades and ceremonies as sickening as they are hypocritical. The great lie built on grief.

We have birthdays and bar mitzvahs and funerals and weddings. And these ceremonies and rituals, I believe, really help us transition from one point to another.

Before 'Insecure,' I was a wedding emcee - a host for weddings. That's a world that a lot of people are not familiar with.

I think weddings are ridiculous.

And I wish whoever chooses the spots for these ceremonies could quit the Bela Lugosi bullshit. It's always a crypt. It's always a cemetery or a spooky old mansion where a family was murdered by a serial killer or angry Girl Scouts when they didn't buy enough cookies.

For example, the Cha Cha—that's straight out of Haitian and Cuban voodooism, chacha being the name of a rattle used in voodoo ceremonies. Or mambo—the voodoo word for a priestess of the supernatural religion.

Yo descargo a mis ministros de muchos de esos aburridos trabajos de colocar primeras piedras y asistir a los desfiles, ya sabe.

Primitives (so-called) know these facts and surround all the points of imprint vulnerability with rituals, "ordeals," "rites of passage," etc. well designed to imprint the desired traits of a well-integrated member of that tribe at that time. Relics of these imprint ceremonies survive in Baptism, Confirmation, Bar Mitzvahs, Marriage Ceremonies, the Masonic "raising," etc.

Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.

In our loss and fear we craved the acts of religion, the ceremonies that allow us to admit our helplessness, our dependence on the great forces we do not understand.

secular world judges people on the basis of their behavior rather than their favorite clothes and ceremonies.

The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life.

Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.

I remember after the Games I was lifting weights with propane tanks on them, and getting to experience opening ceremonies again was something I dreamed of every day.