The Acacia Community

A great illustration from Peter Rollins on how spiritual practice can become empty ritual.  made me laugh and then think deep about how I practice faith too!

There was once a wise teacher who would go to the temple every evening to pray with his disciples.  By the temple there was a stray cat who would wander in every evening and disturb these prayers and disturb the peace.  So, each evening before prayers the teacher would tie the cat to a tree outside before entering.  The teacher was old and passed away a few years later.  His disciples continued to tie the cat to the tree each evening before prayers.

Eventually the cat died and so some of the disciples purchased a new cat so that they could continue the ritual.  After a hundred years the tree died and a new one was quickly planted so that the cat (by now the 18th generation cat!) could be tied to it.  Over the centuries learned scholars began to write books on the symbolic meaning of the act.

from How (Not) to Speak of God