Themeattics

The human soul can always use a new tradition. Sometimes we require them.

Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline

I love tradition. As a proponent of discipline in general, I guess that comes as no real surprise. Traditions are inexorably linked to discipline, after all – without the conscious effort to repeat something and stick to its purpose, that thing would never become a tradition in the first place. Tradition seems to have pulled a bad rap over recent years, though, and I wanted to take a bit to talk it up, even if I can do that mostly from personal anecdotes.

Before I delve in here, a quick note. No, to those of you that read Purgatory, this won’t have anything to do with Sacred Tradition I expect. Only dealing with lowercase-t tradition this time around.

We humans are creatures of habit by nature. Routines are comforting, even if they entail things we dislike. In fact, a way to get around difficulties with tasks is to make them routine. I think it’s safe to say most people don’t really like losing the time out of their day to go work out at first, but as they keep at it and turn it into something of a routine, it moves from something they might actively dislike through the “this is just what I do” phase, all the way, possibly, to looking forward to the exercise.

That’s all well and good, I hear you say, but routines and traditions are different things. And yes, dear Dweller, that’s absolutely correct. Some people tend to keep these things very separate, but I posit they’re really only split by the thing we’re doing. Routines are done on the regular, perhaps personally, perhaps between a few people, and are meant to get things done. We have routines for exercise, for when we do meal prep, for when the kids do their homework. Things like that. Tradition, on the other hand, is when we take the underlying meaning of those things and build it into something that can stand the test of time.

It’s a bit nebulous, but having dinner with the family at the table is an excellent example of each occupying the same role. We can have that routine – everybody gets together at the table at a set time and on set days – and it serves to have some family bonding. It gets a thing done. But, what we’re hoping that fosters is a tighter bond between the lot of us, and that they’ll take that same means to their families when they have them. That they’ll turn that routine into a tradition that helps them generally in the long run.

And, in the end, isn’t that really how traditions come to be? How they survive? There’s a spirit underlying them, one that promises a benefit in the long run. Those that stand the test of time have proven to deliver.

I’ve started one of my own recently. In addition to being a big fan of tradition, I’m also a big fan of games. That aspect of my nerdiness has passed on to the kids and, me being the kind of father I am, I’ve decided it’s long past due to play more with them. So, once a week at minimum, we’re playing something. I put together a list of every board game I have, set up a randomizer, and we’re pulling a random one from the set every time until we run through them all. If we stick to one a week, that’ll take more than a year and a half to finish up. And you know what? That’s great. Too short, in fact. I love when that day arrives, and even though they might not always want to be pulled from their time elsewhere, the kiddos have come to really look forward to it as well. The buildup to the day itself, the helping with setup, the rituals around firing off the random number generator and processing out the current game for the next one – it’s all in service of that most important thing. Keeping us close. Because, in the end, that’s the point. The cause for each of these traditions. Building communities and keeping them strong. Binding our humanity together.

Part of this love of games comes from my family. We used to do something like this, and I grew up with a slew of aunts and uncles that were big time card players. Every family gathering was filled with trash talk and laughter. Sibling love at its finest. I want that for these kids, desperately. It’s important they know we’re there for one another through anything. It’s a crazy world out there.

Each and every one of you reading this are encouraged to make some of your own. Maybe it’s a game night like this. Maybe it’s movie night, or reading night, or bike night, or Rosary night, or family dinner. What it is matters less than that it is. Get out there and get bonding. The more connected this world gets, the less we seem to be connected to the people that matter most. Let’s turn that around.