And I suppose you could say it never was. The handy little website etymonline.com tells me that it was originally a Greek concept centered on the idea of public service:
from L.L. liturgia "public service, public worship," from Gk. leitourgia, from leitourgos "one who performs a public ceremony or service, public servant," from leito- "public" + -ergos "that works,"
Only during the middle ages was it co-opted to refer specifically to Christian religious ritual. So since we have thought of it in those terms for 500+ years, it's needful to distinguish between religious and secular liturgy. And with today being voting day in America... what better day to talk about the social (public) use of liturgy?
Social liturgies come in many forms in this country. They can be as customized and intimate as birthday rituals (lighting & blowing out candles, having a red plate at dinner, being sung to), or as uniform and distant as saying the pledge of allegiance, or rising & facing the flag for the national anthem. They can be community-based, like the annual block party or the parish festival. They can be national in scope, and many are.
Some common, widely shared ones that come to mind are: 4th of July parades and fireworks, Memorial Day & Labor Day cookouts and events, blowing horns and sharing kisses at midnight on NYE, eating Thanksgiving dinner with family & friends. These are (mostly) secular versions of the kind of rituals performed on religious holidays like Yom Kippur, Christmas Eve, Ramadan, etc. We do roughly the same things as everyone else does (with some local variation), and do them at pretty much the same time, all over the country.
That is what Election Day is. It's a Mass for the body politic, a social liturgy. On this day we exercise our sacred (in a public sense) duty to cast our vote, freely and without coercion, in the privacy of an enclosed but portable booth, in a public location that all our neighbors share, aided by temple ministers & acolytes (poll workers). It's independent and communal, it's public and private, it's personal and national, all at once. And we all do it. On the same day.
Or... we should.
One of the things that concerns me about the relatively new practice of early voting is that it detracts from the communal nature of our shared voting liturgy. When you vote early, it's like you're receiving the Eucharist in private, or going bowling alone, or sticking a candle in a cupcake and singing Happy Birthday to yourself. What you're missing is not the ritual, but… everyone else!
Sure you participate, but - on your own time and in your own way, apart from the community norms. You're going to church on the internet. You're eating turkey, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie by yourself at Boston Market. You're wishing yourself Happy New Year, and kissing the mirror at midnight… it's just not the same.
So I've chosen to pass by the "early voting" table at the library the past few weeks. Today, I join my neighbors and fellow citizens of precinct 2 at City Hall just down the street from the HyVee grocery to exercise our civic duty together. We won't hold hands and sing Kumbayah, but I might say hi to someone, and smile - even as they cancel out my vote with their own. ;)
(although it might be pretty hard for them to do that, since I'm likely not opting for major party candidates this year - bunch 'a scoundrels!)
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