Irony-free Circle

"In Defense of Seriousness":

I think it's that religious experience for me is ABOUT connecting with the serious and solemn. it's about the both literal and figurative gravity of the world on which we live; it's about grappling with things that are so much bigger (and so much smaller) then I am. I invoke religious awe as a tool for experiencing the parts of my life that are beyond my direct experience - it's how I step outside myself and see that, far from being the center of the universe, I am a fragment of happenstance. For me it's a tool to center and ground myself in a society that is perfectly happy to allow each of us to become as vapid and narcissistic as we please.

Winter Mute - Atheopaganism Facebook group

This is an excerpt from a lovely bit of writing about how and why a certain kind of ritual - solemn as opposed to ecstatic or fanciful - works for the writer. I appreciate the sentiment; I get discouraged when a serious ritual is disrupted by laughter. Sometimes I see ritual as a delicate soap bubble that is gradually inflated by each component of the ritual and can be popped by anything going wrong. Most rituals are a little heartier than that, though, thank goodness, and can withstand some stumbles and fumbles.

I love serious rituals. I also love ecstatic rituals, fanciful rituals, silly rituals, and experimental rituals. In ritual, I am seeking connection, defined broadly. If I connect to the great power of the universe, to a tiny plant, to a concept, or to the other people in the Circle, it has worked for me. But there is one thing that can pop the bubble of any ritual for me: irony.

Irony here is not the literary device - which probably also doesn't belong in ritual either - but the attitude:

One reason that irony is so confusing is that the word also refers to a certain perspective or style: one that is detached, aloof and seemingly world-weary. This affectation is often referred to as the "ironic attitude" and has come to be associated with adolescents or young adults.

Roger J Kreuz - What makes something ironic?

There's no space in any of my Circles for any of that. In fact, I think ritual demands a deliberate turning away from irony and a reaching for attachment, intimacy, and awe. For a good ritual, it isn't enough to simply not be cynical; all the participants must put effort into being trusting... suddenly the phrase "in perfect love and perfect trust" rings more true to me. Perhaps it isn't about loving and trusting everyone in the Circle perfectly, but about approaching the ritual with the kind of effort required to sustain love and trust.

I was a teenager in the 90s. I am tucked between the slackers who couldn't be bothered to care about anything and the hipsters who only care ironically. At the all-ages dance events, I would dance until I was overheated and exhausted. I was often asked if I was on drugs.

Life in postindustrial democracies came to seem listless and without flavor; loneliness and a kind of bland sadness were all one could expect of the new world order. At the end of history, irony transformed from an instrument of revolution to a symptom of the impossibility of revolution.

Lee Konstantinou - We had to get beyond irony

Maybe we need some cynicism in the world. "OK Boomer" is a response to real problems; maybe irony is becoming revolutionary again. I just want to leave it outside of my rituals. And I want its trappings gone too: I want people's voices to reflect that they care, not sound like they are going through the motions. I want people's motions to be expressive and their participation to be full, not self-conscious.

I want to invite participants to practice faith like it is exercise: practice being trusting and open. We can support each other in that work, and together we can practice being loving and connected. We don't always have to be solemn, but we do have to be sincere.