The daily almsgiving occupies a special place in the heart of this northern Laos town, where about 1,000 monks occupy nearly three dozen temples, and villagers rise each morning to participate in the ritual of giving them food. In the past several years, though, it has become a must-see item on visitors’ checklists. Now, hundreds of foreigners photograph, and sometimes even join in, the ceremony in ways that can degrade its sanctity, such as dressing immodestly, and standing in the way of the monks.

Hello! It’s called Ash Wednesday! Hello! Joe’s a Roman Catholic. Pretty good chance he’s gonna get some ashes.

But here’s where there may be some excuse: Since they were in the UK they may have been dealing with the time zone difference. Yes? Maybe? Or just clueless?

It gets “worse”. Fully story here.

Oy.

I don’t mention this to bash Oprah. I only mention it because if Oprah doesn’t have a basic conceptual grasp of the life of Christian religious, i.e., the life of Christian nuns and monks, sisters and brothers, one can barely expect more “ordinary” lay persons to have half a clue.  Why?

Oprah has access to practically anything she wants 24/7. This includes people, books, experts, the works. For someone so publicly aligned with the spiritual life writ large, for someone who has made millions sharing (some would say “peddling”, but I wouldn’t) “spirituality” it seems out of character for her to engage in the kind of televised gawking that went on today.

Of course, many will see nothing unusual here: Oprah isn’t orthodox. That is, she has never to my knowledge cast as “Christian” her personal spiritual awakening or the platform she’s given to the authors of numerous spiritual books she’s had on her show. It’s “spirit” or “spiritual”, but not denominational. I think she’d admit that her orientation is Christian in many respects. But it was, in retrospect, foolish of me to think that Oprah as spiritual big sister to the world would have known about the lives of American women religious. The order happened to be Roman Catholic. So? Well I suspect many Catholics themselves are clueless about what it means to be a nun or are ignorant of the basic spiritual aspects of the nuns’ religious life.

But here’s where Oprah doesn’t get a pass. The “normal” person in the pew may be blissfully ignorant of the traditions of the religious life. But why is this aspect of American life so foreign to Oprah? I suppose the feeling I have now is reminiscent of an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street.

Baltimore Detectives Pembleton and Bayliss (I think) pick up a young black wannabe gangster they’ve tried to get information from. I believe they handcuff the kid, throw him (sort of gently) in the back of the car, and start driving. The kid freaks out believing that they’re going to rough him up or worse. As his anxiety increases Pembleton and Bayliss appear serene and self-assured.

Finally, they pull off near a body of water. The kid now is terrified. They uncuff him and just stand there with him. The kid has no idea where he is. It’s the Atlantic Ocean. Just 10 or so minutes from his home and he’d never been there. The streets — literally and figuratively — were all this kid knew. Oprah had never sought out that which surrounded her least during her mega-star years: all the books about the religious life, all the people who did know about the religious life, all these examples of nuns and monks in the US.

As I said, my intent is not to bash Oprah. Rather, I take it as an opportunity to look into my self: What am I likewise blissfully ignorant about but have no excuse to be? What group or religion am I woefully ignorant about?

The old man with the Santa Claus beard pulled a black yarmulke from the trunk of his Cadillac and limped across the street.

Hundreds of people had gathered outside an old synagogue in Boyle Heights for a program that looked back at the days when the neighborhood — now overwhelmingly Latino and Catholic — was the center of Jewish life in Los Angeles.

sacred fire dances performed in New Guinea, where in order to commune with their ancestors men enter a trance state wearing masks decorated with blood drawn agonisingly from their own tongues.

By contrast, the most extreme ritual a Christian is likely to engage in is being dunked during baptism. Why do some religions have rituals that are so much more traumatic than others?

The finding that’s highlighted is that religions tend to fall into two categories: those that centered on strict teachings (e.g., Christianity and Islam) and those that focus on ritual or are cults of some kind. Sacramental believers will find fault with the division: engaging in some form of ritual before praying hardly means that you’re in a cult. And there are plenty of cults that engage more in strict teaching than in rituals.  I found the analysis of what successfully links ritual with religion quite interesting: meaning, motivation, and memory. Of course, those three could be linked to other things as well. Settling down to do some work at the computer might entail some ritual, or preparing food or preparing to eat. I’ve always been intrigued by the sanctification or sacramentalization of the ordinary, the everyday, the commonplace. Ritual plays a key role in achieving this end. I guess my point is that while it needn’t be used, its addition helps the process along.

It is not clear whether willingness to indulge in ritual is an inherited trait. Whitehouse suspects it is, and is planning studies with children to find out. Clearly, though, ritual is not the exclusive preserve of religion. Obsessive hand-washing, drinking tea in a certain way and crossing oneself with holy water all have one thing in common: “Rituals are by their very nature puzzling activities that invite interpretation,” says Whitehouse. Rituals also have an emotional aspect – ranging from a comforting feeling of security or togetherness to extreme terror. And rituals can be repetitive – although the frequency of repetition varies enormously. These three traits are what make religion and ritual such good bedfellows. They provide the all-important elements that allow a religion to flourish: meaning, motivation and memory.