In the opening song of the Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye (the Pappa), explains the importance of tradition for keeping their community and faith strong. Tradition brought order and reassurance in a changing world around them.
I think part of what made us so resistant to breaking our traditions in this COVID 2020 world, is how much we subconsciously (or even consciously) rely on traditions to make us feel safe. As long as we have our traditions, we have some sense of control and normalcy in our lives. Traditions often hold our values, so I get the fight to hold tightly to our traditions, especially when we perceive someone or some institution is trying to take them away.
I craved tradition growing up because I believed we never held any in the Davis household. All the “normal” families I knew had strong traditions around holidays, church, birthdays and summer vacations. For us though, tradition was illusive. My parents are two of the most spontaneous people I know, even to this day. Tradition doesn’t always fit into a life of spontaneity. We never knew when, or even if, we would get a Christmas tree that year much less what Christmas Day would look like. I was never confident my birthday would even be remembered much less be celebrated in a traditional way. So on…..
My heart desired tradition more than I even realized. When I got married in 2012, one of the things that brought me most joy was joining a family that held traditions that I would now get to be a part of. This became one of the most devastating losses when I went through the divorce. I was not only grieving the loss of one whom I believed to be “my person”, I also found myself grieving all of the traditions we created together and the traditions I inherited when I joined his family.
The importance of tradition cannot be denied. Tradition can give us a sense of predictability in an uncertain world. It’s something we all needed more than anything in 2020. When this year called for so many of us to forgo or modify our long held traditions, reactions of deep sadness, anger, and resistance were warranted. But I’ve learned tradition is so much more than the predictable actions we perform to celebrate something. Traditions can evolve without sacrificing the values that are actually at the core of these traditions. When we allow our traditions to evolve and we remain flexible, we are less disappointed and less stressed!
As I look back at my childhood, I can truly say, that although our traditions didn’t look like the Jones’, my parents had a solid grasp on what really mattered. Jesus stayed the reason for the season, not the Christmas tree or the presents underneath. We Davis kids were celebrated and encouraged everyday, not just on our birthday. And not knowing when our next vacation would be, just made us really appreciate any surprising opportunity we had to travel.
I’m reminded of a conversation Christ had with the religious leaders concerning tradition:
Mark 7: 5-9
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.”
6 Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,
‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’
8 For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”
9 Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. 10 For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ 11 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ 12 In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. 13 And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”
A family friend invited the Davis kids over to carve pumpkins one year. This was never something we would have done at home. We didn’t celebrate Halloween- from what I understood, because costumes were too expensive and my mother didn’t want us collecting all that unhealthy candy.
Left to Right: Joseph, Hannah, Tarah, Abby, Rebekah
