Jenny Parker: Image and Pilgrimage In Christian Culture II

In class yesterday Dr. Redick was talking about how after high school he wanted to become a man. He decided he would go to the marines for this transformation (ritual). However, he was telling us that when he was in the marines they still watched cartoons and he was a bit confused by this. He thought the marines would be watching news on the television, not cartoons. Dr. Redick related this to how pilgrims can be on the trail and have a new experience; however, when they come home people will still treat them the same. This is confusion about when transition takes place. In the book Image and Pilgrimage In Christian Culture it is said "liminality is not only transition but also potentiality, not only "going to be" but also "what may be," a formulable domain in which all that is not manifest in the normal day-to-day operation of social structures can be studied objectively, despite the often bizarre and metaphorical character of its content" (Turner, p. 3). This relates to what Dr. Redick was also talking about when he said that he and his family had traveled across the country for seven days when he was fourteen. He was talking about how he was so excited because now he could be whoever he wanted to be, undergo a ritual. I remember thinking this same exact thing when I moved to Virginia my freshman year of high school; nobody was going to know who I was so I could do a transformation and become somebody new/different. Well, that did not happen. Undergoing a ritual is a lot harder to do within yourself; it is easy to go back to old ways. A ritual is a long process and commitment to endure. "Liminality is now seen to apply to all phases of decisive cultural change, in which previous orderings of thought and behavior are subject to revision and criticism" (Turner, p. 2).