Let me begin by saying that I love tradition. Tradition is a way of taking something that doesn't have meaning in and of itself and giving it powerful meaning. And in doing this we often find rituals or activities that we do to become more powerful. But at the same time I believe that traditions need to have meaning. When I sit down with a couple planning a marriage I like to look at the worship order and I like to look at the things they want to include and I like to ask them which traditions have meaning to them and which don't. I then encourage them to exclude the traditions that many expect to find at a wedding but which have no meaning to them. Which brings me to today's post.
Lisa and I are having a baby in early July. It is our second and we're quite excited about it. At the beginning of the week we went in for an ultrasound. Now everybody likes to argue about whether you should find out if you're going to have a boy or girl. Some want to keep the surprise. They want to wait until birth to find out. They think it's old fashioned and traditional to wait. And at first I guess I thought this way about it. But then I began to think about it a bit more. The only reason that the "traditional" thing to do is to wait is that it has only recently become practical to find out what the sex of the baby is before birth. There is no medical reason to wait to find out. There is no psychological reason either. The only reason to do it is that it is the way it used to be done. So, waiting to find out whether you're going to have a boy or girl has become a false tradition. It has become something we do because we think there is meaning in it but really there isn't.
With our first baby, Bronte, we ended up not knowing she would be a girl. We had an early ultrasound and the tech couldn't be sure it was a girl. We thought it was probably a girl, but we weren't sure until she was born. There was no medical reason to have another ultrasound, so we waited. This time around things were a bit more sure, so we now know what we're going to have.
Some people are surprised that we know. Some people hold tight to the idea that you should wait. It seems that they're allowing tradition to rule them instead of finding meaning in tradition. We looked at the tradition of waiting and saw it as something that holds us back. Knowing what we're going to have allows us to plan better. It allows us to be better prepared. And it's fun to know as well, especially since we aren't telling everybody what we're having yet.
I guess I just want to encourage people to look at their traditions. I want to encourage people to look at the things they do and ask why. Look for meaning in the things you do, and if there is meaning then continue them and allow that meaning to have power. But if there is no meaning, maybe you don't have to hold onto them quite so tight.
Maybe someone can find meaning in waiting. We couldn't. So we didn't.
Lisa and I are having a baby in early July. It is our second and we're quite excited about it. At the beginning of the week we went in for an ultrasound. Now everybody likes to argue about whether you should find out if you're going to have a boy or girl. Some want to keep the surprise. They want to wait until birth to find out. They think it's old fashioned and traditional to wait. And at first I guess I thought this way about it. But then I began to think about it a bit more. The only reason that the "traditional" thing to do is to wait is that it has only recently become practical to find out what the sex of the baby is before birth. There is no medical reason to wait to find out. There is no psychological reason either. The only reason to do it is that it is the way it used to be done. So, waiting to find out whether you're going to have a boy or girl has become a false tradition. It has become something we do because we think there is meaning in it but really there isn't.
With our first baby, Bronte, we ended up not knowing she would be a girl. We had an early ultrasound and the tech couldn't be sure it was a girl. We thought it was probably a girl, but we weren't sure until she was born. There was no medical reason to have another ultrasound, so we waited. This time around things were a bit more sure, so we now know what we're going to have.
Some people are surprised that we know. Some people hold tight to the idea that you should wait. It seems that they're allowing tradition to rule them instead of finding meaning in tradition. We looked at the tradition of waiting and saw it as something that holds us back. Knowing what we're going to have allows us to plan better. It allows us to be better prepared. And it's fun to know as well, especially since we aren't telling everybody what we're having yet.
I guess I just want to encourage people to look at their traditions. I want to encourage people to look at the things they do and ask why. Look for meaning in the things you do, and if there is meaning then continue them and allow that meaning to have power. But if there is no meaning, maybe you don't have to hold onto them quite so tight.
Maybe someone can find meaning in waiting. We couldn't. So we didn't.
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