Jackie Gringrich Cushman
ROME -- Birthdays have always been a big
deal in my family. When I was growing up,
the birthday girl (or man, in the case of my
father) would be regaled with a rendition of
"Happy Birthday" during breakfast. The
special attention continued throughout the
day and included letting the honoree choose
the dinner menu and being the center of
family conversation. Birthdays were not
about presents, but about being the center of
attention.
Celebrating birthdays is one of the many
traditions that our family shares. We also join
together on Thanksgivings, Christmas Eves
and mornings, and we have celebrated New
Year's with my sister and her husband for
decades. While some might view traditions in
general as stuffy and old fashioned, I think of
them as the glue of shared experiences that
hold us together. They represent the shared
memories of being together at special times
in our lives that we can all remember and
reflect upon.
Many traditions are serious, but there are
also fun ones. Our son and his aunt and uncle
have a tradition before eating of taking their
knives and forks in hand and banging the
ends down on the table twice to signify that
they are about to begin eating. My husband
and I both check in on our children before
they fall asleep, just to say good night, make
sure they are all right and say we love them.
Texts between family members end with LU,
meaning "Love You." They are only two extra
letters, but on some days, it means a lot to get
them from someone you love, to be reminded
that you are not alone, and you too are loved.
This sense of tradition and ceremony is one
of the reasons that I was drawn to the
Episcopal faith. The liturgy and prayers
repeated weekly provide a framework for the
faith and are the scaffolding of my faith. The
process of sitting, standing and kneeling at
various times helps to focus my mind on God
rather than on myself.
The process of ceremony itself transfers us
from the mundane tasks of our everyday lives
to a different holy place. This allows us to
travel to a different dimension -- mentally
and spiritually -- without leaving our seats.
So is true of ceremonies not only in church,
but also in our everyday lives. Blessings
before meals allow us to be thankful to God
and to others. The simple act of making tea
can become a ceremony when done slowly
and deliberately. Everything, when slowed
and focused upon, becomes something to
savor rather than something to push aside in
the usual rush to get through one's day.
This week, I had the opportunity to attend the
papal audience at St. Peter's Square in Rome.
We arrived hours early, as most of the
audience does, and waited for the pope to
arrive. The Swiss Guards, wearing red-
feathered helmets and blue, red and orange
uniforms, were scattered throughout the
square. They represented a reminder of an
earlier time and the importance of tradition
in the Catholic Church.
The pope took his time with the crowd, and
with those who were near the dais, as if to
say to those around him, "I am not in a
hurry; I have all the time in the world. You
are not alone; I am with you."
This week, we celebrated my father's
birthday in Rome as a family. Yes, we sang
"Happy Birthday" to him, and yes, he had the
opportunity to pick the menu for his dinner,
which included calamari, steak and pasta. In
that way, we certainly followed tradition.
Our gift was also homemade and was the
greatest gift of all -- the gift of time. It is the
one gift that cannot be bought and cannot be
picked out by someone else. It's a way of
saying, "I am not in a hurry. I have all the
time in the world. You are not alone; I am
with you. You are loved."
Our family was blessed to be able to be
together this week to celebrate his birthday. I
am sure that we will long savor the time that
we met in Rome and broke bread together
celebrating his birthday.
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