Greek Speak: Ritual is Value

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    “Are we living our ritual? If we lived what we say that we believe how would the world be?” There are questions that all Greeks should be asking themselves about their rituals that they participate in. All fraternities and sororities participate rituals that each of their founders believed in when starting each different chapter. These values are by which Greeks should live by in every day life.

  One thing to evaluate how ritual is in your chapter is to reflect how it is apparent in the members’ everyday activity. Does your ritual have an impact on our members’ behavior? It is the job of brothers and sisters to hold each other accountable to the standards of their beliefs.

   If members of the Greek community do not understand or have knowledge of their rituals and beliefs, then how can they be held accountable? The first step in making your ritual a large part of members’ lives is to educate the new members and the chapter about your beliefs. Discuss the meaning of the ritual and encourage members to study ritual ceremonies.

   These values provide us with direction in the lives of our members and the need for members to live by these values is critical for the success of each sorority or fraternity.

   If we let the meaning of our ritual die, then our heritage that our founders meant for us to have has also died. These documents are the living values of our founders and what kind of men and women that they aspired us to be. Greeks use these ritual ceremonies to carry on the traditional expectations of their members throughout time, for those that have gone before them and those that will come after them.

   Each ritual is different from each organization to another.

   Mari Ann Callais, Theta Phi Alpha Fraternity National President, said, “Although each organization was similar by the mere fact that members were women only, their founders wanted to distinguish themselves from the other groups."

   For more information about ritual activities in your chapter, visit http://www.marianncallais.com/ by Callais.

   The challenge is set before you now to look at how your ritual is reflected in your everyday life. In closing with a poem with the author is unknown.

   The Greek that’s Written There
It makes little difference the size of your badge, whether it’s large or small.
And if it is plain or brilliant with jewels is of no concern at all,
But the vows that you took along with your badge,
Have you worn them constantly, quietly, deep in the heart of you there no one looks in to see?
Have you touched the stars you reached for once in your own small piece of sky?
Have you striven for the honorable, the beautiful, the high?
What difference, then the shape of the badge, be it diamond or heart or square.
The important thing is how much do you love the badge that you chose to wear?

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