Big R, Little r

So I heard about the activity you all got to do last Friday, and it sounded like it was a lot of fun! I would have been curious to see what everyone said to you all!

So what really is Ritual? It is funny because after I became a member of Kappa Delta the meaning of Ritual for me changed. At first, I remmeber thinking that Ritual is suppose to be a secret that only Kappa Delta know about, but after having some real converstations about Ritual at UIFI, Ritual took on a different meaning. I realized that many of us share many similar aspects in our Rituals. Yes, the ceremonies are likely different, but the meaning behind Ritual is similar. To me, I see Ritual as an expression of what a sorority/fraternity believes in--sister/brotherhood, growth, development, and becoming better people. Why would we want to keep that hidden? We should want to share that with individuals outside of the community, and we should be acting out our Ritual daily hence the word "Ritual."

According to Webster, Ritual means "of or relation to rites or a ritual: ceremonial ; done in accordance with social custom or nomral protocol; AN ACT OR SERIES OF ACTS REGULARLY REPEATED in a set precise manner.

Yes, true, Rituals are ceremonies, but the part that I focused on in the defintion was AN ACT OR SERIES OF ACTS REGULARLY REPEATED. I think this is significant b/c I beleive that is how we should treat our Ritual. Kinda going off on a tangent with this, but I think it is important to realize that their are two types of Ritual Big "R" Ritual and Little "r" ritual. Little "r" rituals are the things that we do everyday--brush our teeth, get dressed, go to class, etc. More importantly though is Big "R" that maybe we just perceive as a ceremony but isn't more? I think it is; I think that Big "R" Ritual represents the values of our community-friendship, service, leadership, academics, personal development, reaching one's potential.

Big "R" Ritual should be treated like Little "r" ritual; it should be practiced in our daily lives. Each day, we should strive to Live our Ritual as then not only will we become better people we will be able to show others what Greek Life is really about.