Introduction

All religions have the dimension of rituals or religious practices that define them. Some rituals, like the repetition of the rosary or a yoga mantra, are primarily spoken. Others, like meditation, or the practice of t'ai chi, may be mostly nonverbal. Some rituals, such as infant circumcision, are performed only once in a lifetime; others, such as the Muslim five-times-daily prayers, are performed numerous times per day, every day. Over the course of a long life, the number of times a ritual is performed and experienced can become an unbroken thread that ties together the cycles of days, weeks and years. The ritual dimension of religious experience was a profound part of the thinking of the classical sociologists, but fell out of favour by the latter part of the twentieth century, when the word ritual took on the meaning of being rote, unconscious, meaningless or empty. More recently, there has been a new burst of scholarship in cognitive science and religious studies on religious ritual and practice, although none of it has made the (obvious) connection with ageing and the life course. In this chapter I will attempt to show the connections between the new research and existing literature on religion, ageing and health. I will illustrate some of these issues with examples from the long life of my father, a Presbyterian clergyman, who died in August 2011.

My Father's Story

My father died at the age of eighty-three. He was a Presbyterian minister and for most of his career he pastored several small and medium-sized congregations in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. When he did not have a church of his own (while in academic administration at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and even well into his official retirement) he was a ‘supply’ or ‘interim’ preacher, who travelled to churches that needed someone to fill the pulpit. As a little girl, I would visit his office with its walls of books and the black robe hanging on the back of the door. On one of the shelves was a small brown box that became an object of intense fascination for me. I thought of it as Daddy's little tea set. The box opened with a snap. Inside, it was lined with purple velvet.