Rituals

Growing up, cleaning our house was a ritual that our family did every Friday afternoon. We would clean the house in preparation for the Sabbath. My brother would always vacuum the entire house, I would scrub the bathrooms, my mom would clean the kitchen & cook dinner, my dad would clean his study, and we would all clean our own rooms. Although starting the cleaning process was always a drag (it took forever for me and my brother to get off our beds and start cleaning) but once we actually started, we would all do our best to clean and make the house look presentable for Sabbath and anybody who might come over. Being the pastor's family, we often had visitors come over to talk to my parents, so imagine how embarrassing it would be to have them come into a messy house. To make sure that it would never happen, my parents always stressed that we pick up after ourselves and if we didn't, to at least clean every Friday afternoon. After the whole cleaning process, it was a great feeling because everything felt so clean and fresh.

Although this particular ritual probably will not help me overcome the influences of the world, other rituals can. The status quo in this world changes often and rituals could help us in not falling into manipulation because the rituals that we do become habitual. We may end up overcoming these status quo without even realizing it because we sometimes don't even realize our habits that are different to the status quo. I don't really know if this is a good thing or a bad thing...