This week's "My turn" column is by Emily VanLaeys, a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant, who owns Custom Ceremonies.
Most of us welcome any excuse to celebrate. We celebrate the arrival of a baby, birthdays, graduations, engagements, weddings and major accomplishments.
Usually we celebrate with a party: food, drink, music, gifts and fellowship. Parties are fun, but they don't quite touch on the deeper meaning of the event that's taking place. Sometimes we need a ceremony to help us understand just what it is that we're celebrating.
People have participated in ceremonies to celebrate life's milestones since long before Christianity introduced baptisms for babies and church weddings for marriage.
Rites of passage were conducted to observe the transition from adolescence to adulthood; from single life to betrothal; from maidenhood to motherhood; and from life to death.
Women used to celebrate their passage through menopause with a ceremony. Ritual and ceremony have helped people to connect to the deeper meaning of their lives throughout history, but, in modern times, the opportunities for ceremony have become fewer: the symbolism watered down, the meaning lost.
Life-Cycle Celebrants have re-introduced the concept of meaningful ceremonies for life's milestones since the Celebrant Foundation and Institute was founded in New Jersey 10 years ago.
Graduates of the Institute fill a deep need in a society that has been drifting away from the religious institutions traditionally responsible for life's ceremonies.
In 2001, the American Religious Identification Survey done by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York recorded that 22 percent of all households (about 28.4 million couples) had a mixture of religious identifications; 14 percent of men and women were not affiliated with any particular religious belief; and 40 percent of Christians and 47 percent of Jews did not belong to a church or synagogue.
Clearly, the number of people who will find meaning in religious ceremony is declining. Celebrants have the training and expertise to create interfaith or civil ceremonies that reflect the background, beliefs and personality of their clients.
Some of the ceremonies that celebrants create and perform are weddings and vow renewals, blessingways for mothers-to-be, baby namings, wise-woman ceremonies, divorce healings, transition to a new career, grand openings, retirement, end-of-life tributes and funerals.
Rituals are powerful tools that promote and sustain healthy changes as we traverse life's passages. Experiencing transitions by ourselves can make us feel isolated. Sharing a ceremony with family and friends gives them the opportunity to celebrate our joys with us, and support us when we need healing.
Baby naming is a newly created ceremony that is particularly meaningful for families that can't make the baptism promise that they will raise their child in a church family.
Some would still like their child to be officially welcomed into their own community of family and friends. A life-cycle celebrant can help them create a beautiful and memorable event. Here is a sample structure for a baby naming or welcoming ceremony:
"¢ Music and the lighting of candles, or placement of flowers to honor the new family member
"¢ Recognition of the baby's grandparents and older relatives who are the family's roots and memory keepers
"¢ A reading of a poem or short prose piece about the gift of children
"¢ Presentation of the baby's godparents or guideparents
"¢ A brief family history _ when ancestors came to this country, where they have lived, and what sets them apart from other families. Include both sides of the baby's ancestry
"¢ An explanation of the meaning of and reason for choosing the baby's name
"¢ Include the guests in a ritual, such as writing their wishes for the baby in a book, or making a wish as they hold a bead that will later be strung onto a necklace
"¢ End with a presentation of the child
The most popular celebrant ceremony is the personalized wedding, usually created for couples who plan to marry at a non-religious venue such as a home, banquet hall, outdoor site on a lake, in a park or any place that they feel reflects who they are.
The celebrant learns about the couple, the history of their relationship and their feelings about each other, and incorporates this personal story into the ceremony that also includes rituals, readings and music that is meaningful to the couple.
The couple's story often involves some humor, and the ceremony is nothing like the staid, rote event we see too often. The result is a wedding that participants and guests will remark on afterward: "What a beautiful and unique ceremony." or "That was a memorable wedding."
For more information, visit www.
customceremonies-in-the-heartland.com. VanLaeys can be reached at 432-4625.
To write for "My turn," contact Daily Star Publisher Tanya Shalor at tshalor@thedailystar.com or 432-1000, ext. 214.
