HOW RITUALS MAKE MEANING

THE ART OF COMMUNITY

Navigating the Practiced Life: How Rituals Make Meaning

Rituals are used to mark transitions, new identities, and to remember moments in one's life or the passage of time. They can create belonging, mark the boundaries of community, assist in identity formation, and provide a way to tell the stories of both who and whose we are.

Join Rev. Kevin W. Jagoe as we explore how rituals help us navigate our lives and connect our individual threads to those all around us.

MEET KEVIN JAGOE

Kevin Jagoe is the Education Director at the American Humanist Association. In this role, he oversees the Kochhar Humanist Education Center, which provides educational opportunities serving Humanist and secular communities.

Kevin holds a Master of Divinity from Meadville Lombard Theological School, a Master of Arts in Nonprofit Management from Hamline University School of Business, and a Certificate in Humanist Studies & Leadership from what is now known at the Humanist Studies Program at the AHA.

He completed a BA in anthropology, criminal justice, and forensic sciences with minors in psychology and biology from Hamline University, and is currently completing his Doctorate of Ministry at United Lutheran Seminary.

Coming soon… Watch the gathering here

READING - Nancy Shaffer, (Adapted)

This making of a whole self takes

such a very long time:  pieces are not

sequential nor our supplies.

We work here, then there,

hold up tattered fabric to the light.

sew past dark, intent. 

Use all our thread.

Sleeves may come before length;

buttons, before a rounded neck.

We sew at what most needs us,

and as it asks, sew again.

The self is not one thing, once made,

unaltered.  Not midnight task alone,

not after other work.

It’s everything we come upon, make ours:

all this fitting of what-once-was and has-become.