I have touched on the idea of “tradition” before, but I am back at it again because a great willing is being heard, and my ears cannot unhear. Tradition is the way. It is the ritual. It is what we do because we have always done it. Some people question it and turn away from it, only to find that there was method to the madness after all, and they come home like the prodigal son. Some question and turn away and stay away, and then they are lost forever. Still others never question at all because it feels right and it works. Those are the lucky ones.
There are things that are done in certain ways, and if you pay attention, you can learn those ways for yourself. Perhaps a loving relative will teach them, and you will learn them without knowing you are learning. Perhaps you will have to observe others and find out what works. These ways become habits, and these habits become rituals, and these rituals become instincts. But they all start with someone finding the best way through trial error and then sticking with that way come hell or high water.
The squirrels find their food in the way they always have, and they make secret caches as they always have. In the winter they dig up the food and survive as they always have. And the deer make their paths in the forest along the ley lines as they always have, finding their food and especially precious winter water as they always have. The birds build their nests the same way as always, singing the same songs, flying south in the same formations. Because it works.
That’s the big thing, isn’t it? Who we were. Who we are. We know these things by what we do, and we do them in a certain way because that way brings comfort, stability, and a sense of belonging. It brings guidance and inheritance and tribe.
“We have always done this.” How those words echo in our ears during the hard times of life, and we all have our hard times, those times that try our very souls. Sometimes things can get so bad that we feel we have nothing left. We are broken, empty, dead. But then, just as we think we might draw our last breath—just as we hope we will draw our last breath in order to end the sorrow—the voice says, “We have always done this.” And so we get up, we pick ourselves up, we drag ourselves across the floor. And we do what we have always done. Because it works.
Sometimes it feels empty for a while, like we are just “going through the motions,” but if we stick with it, we find that somehow we survive. And then we thrive. What got us through it all? Our traditions. Our sense of self. That home that was there somewhere at some time. That tribe we belonged to. Those things we did, those foods we ate, those songs we sang. The comfort of doing things automatically by rote gave us the rest we needed to tap into the moral inheritance, into the hidden strength of our people. They gave us a lifeline when we needed it most.
Be on the lookout! There are those who would attempt to take your traditions away, to make them null and void. They use many tactics: Name-calling, humiliation, guilt, rage, haughtiness, bullying, etc. They do this because they know how powerful your traditions are. They know how your traditions tie you to the past and to those ancestors who went before you. They know of the strength, the lifeline, the comfort and stability, the inheritance. And they want to take it away from you. Drop you into a field of snow five feet deep with no one around to help. No road, no light, no secret cache of food. No secret joy within your heart.
Cut off from everything that you are and were and might be, they offer a meager pittance. Take it or leave it. Take it, and it is the end of living and the beginning of survival. Leave it, and it is death. Oh, the choices they offer. Empty prisons of ice.
Turn away from them. Do not look at them. Do not listen to them. Do not allow them into your home, into your sphere. Do not argue with them. Do not discuss the virtues of your way. Do not engage in their intellectual folly and word games that have no winners. You do not owe them an explanation for your way of life. Do instead what works. What has always worked. You do not have to give them a reason. You do not even have to completely understand it yourself. Just trust what you know to be true.
Because we really did go over the river and through the woods to my grandmother’s house. And there was turkey and stuffing and gravy and potatoes. There was squash and sweet potatoes and her own canned cranberry sauce. There was apple pie and pumpkin pie and games in the woods. Off in a faraway city, there was Macy’s parade and the kick off of the Christmas season. There was singing and dancing and laughter. And the adults always had a “cup of cheer,” usually more than one.
