The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices

by Casper ter Kuile

That’s what this book is all about—taking things we do every day and layering meaning and ritual onto them, even experiences as ordinary as reading or eating—by thinking of them as spiritual practices.

In this time of rapid religious and relational change, a new landscape of meaning-making and community is emerging—and the traditional structures of spirituality are struggling to keep up with what our lives look like.

In the midst of a crisis of isolation, where loneliness leads to deaths of despair, being truly connected isn’t a luxury. It’s a lifesaver.

While our culture often lifts up the importance of self-care, we’re desperately in need of community care.

Said otherwise, we’re less likely to affiliate with an institution than we are to affiliate with another individual. We see religious institutions as being driven by hypocrisy and greed, judgmentalism and sexual abuse, anti-scientific ignorance and homophobia. People also leave religious communities behind because worship experiences are simply boring or formulaic.

Each of us has our own gifts, our own walkways through life and its mysteries, so be gentle with yourself as you discover what captures your attention and opens your heart.

Sometimes we need the temporary isolation of enforced unplugging to bring into our awareness parts of ourselves that have been lying low.

It suggests that reading is not just something we can do to escape the world, but rather that it can help us live more deeply in it, that we can read our favorite books not just as novels, but as instructive and inspirational texts that can teach us about ourselves and how we live.

This is the power of reading books as a sacred practice: they can help us know who we are and decide who we might want to become.

Reading makes us see ourselves in other characters, become nostalgic for parts of our past, and challenge our worldview. It’s also often credited with helping people create empathy.

We can read for amusement and escapism, which is all well and good (sometimes necessary), but we can also go deeper.

I often say to myself that the work is not done, and yet it is still time to stop.

Filmmaker Nora Ephron, who directed my beloved You’ve Got Mail, famously wrote, “A family is a group of people who eat the same thing for dinner.”

Though we long for connection and love from others, we also fear it the most. It means taking the risk to be vulnerable and open.

Surrounded by nature is where we remember what really matters. Our peak experiences give us an overwhelming sense of awe and a momentary taste of the meaning of life. Often it is in nature where we feel a profoundly moving sense that we are connected to everything around us.

The same goes for whatever kind of secular small group you create: a book group, for instance, that talks about the book but really talks about life’s difficult questions. As you share your shortcomings in a safe way, you’ll find that these people will love you and hold you responsible for your actions. They don’t need to believe in the same things you do, nor use the same language to describe their spiritual practices. Nor do they even need to be your closest friends. But they will start to matter enormously.

The unexpected joy of a small group of love and accountability is that we learn that others have problems just as we do and that the list of issues where we feel like failures is often not that different from everyone else.

Prayer is like a workshop for the soul. In it, we get to work out all the kinks and knots of life. It can soften resentment and make space for forgiveness.

The idea is that we can create a living rhythm that holds us through our days.

And frankly, I think that’s how most people actually live their lives—religious or not. Most of us are made of a mix of cultural assumptions, childhood traditions, peak experiences, deep worries and shames, secret hopes and desires, unexplained intuitions, and radically wonderful ideas. We can think one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon.