MY SeCrEt thoughts on RiTuAl! OR MY thoughts on SeCrEt RiTuAl!

What are my secret thoughts on ritual, u ask? Well....duh...it’s a secret! LOL, no JK JK!

But honestly I believe I have to think of this question with a different approach...

Do I take this personally? Concerning my own sorority rituals, and my thoughts on them? If so, I can not answer this question to its entirety. Simply because my sorority rituals are sacred, they are something that my sorors and I hold true and dear to our heart. Our rituals have meaning, and they are significant to what we do and who we are. But what I can answer is...what are my thoughts on secret rituals?

Wikipedia explains a ritual to be a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community.

For many people, the main component they would get from this definition or from their own personal opinions would be that ritual is always directly correlated to religion or some type of worshiping. And this is where confusion begins when comparing religious beliefs to the concepts of being a member of a sorority or fraternity.

I believe this "philosophy" is totally incorrect. My involvement in my sorority and performance of rituals has no interruptions in my personal religious values. Those who are opposed to greek life for these reasons can only understand the "real life" of greeks if they experienced it. Consequently, ritual is nothing without the brotherhood/sisterhood, values, and principles. In the development of our organizations, our founders didn't make rituals first, but saw the need of change in their community with a list of goals, values, and a purpose in which the organization stood for, and then came up with a traditional ritual to bind all of these aspects together.

Again I do agree with rituals being secret and I respect those who keep their rituals a secret while living through those devoted ritual and values. Not many will agree and probably don't see the big deal of secrecy, in which I understand that train of thought. Thus, during membership intake and learning about your organization, those questions should all be answered (depending on your true dedication). There are a lot of sororities/fraternities and there are still many in the making. With that said, each and every org. has a different ritual(s) and that in itself is significant. I believe if more people stayed true to their sacred rituals, a lot of the adversities and obstacles we (greeks) come across could be eliminated. So, I charge you, KEEP YOUR RITUALS SECRET!