Mark's Web Site: A quiet place with just a bit of pretension.

I've had to do some shopping in Singapore.  I am always taken by the graciousness of those who will take my money.  The ritual begins by squaring oneself with the customer so that you are standing face to face.  Then, the bill is presented with two hands and a slight bow of the head.  Money is received with two hands and accepted with another bow of the head.  Finally, change is returned, again with two hands a bow.  It happens when you spend thirteen hundred dollars on a television, it happens when you pay three dollars for a taxi ride.  It is the ritual of two people exchanging value. 

Ritual is an acknowledgement of an important event in human life. Trade is an event that we in the west live out many times a day with virtual unconciousness.  We see it as daily business, having little meaning, often an invconvenient piece of our day that interfers with what we really want to do.  A larger purchase, such as a television or a car, we'll acknowledge with a lot of questions to ensure that we are getting everything we expect.  For the daily business, we seldom make eye contact with the vendor, never mind actually acknowledge the value they have added to our lives.  We reach into our wallets, pull out a credit card or some bills, and casually toss them on the counter.  We may hand them to our server, but always with one hand, and very seldom with eye contact.   

I remember once as a child I had gone to a store with my father to buy baskets for my bicycle.  They were the double baskets that went on either side of the rear wheel. Having them meant I could ride to school without carrying my books in my hand.  (Age alert:  the concept of book bags had not yet emerged when I rode my bike to school.)  I'd been saving all my coins for this day, and I had them with me in a large plastic bag.  Came time to pay up and I emptied the bag right there on the counter.  The poor salesman was aghast at the thought of having to count all those coins.  But he did, sans ritual to say the least.  Can you imagine dumping a bag full of coins into two extended hands? 

Too often we put our minds on the thing - the item being purchased or the form of payment.  In a trade, we are connecting with another soul.  That person has offered us something of value, something they have invested time and fortune in, something they are willing to part with.  In return, we do the same.  The money we offer represents the time of our lives and the toil of our hands and minds.  In many ways, it represents that with which we define ourselves.  To give some of that to another soul is sacred.  It marks a connection, however brief, between us as human beings.  Even if it is a hired clerk, that clerk is offering us time and attention - some bit of her life that makes our lives better.  We must not diminish that act as a casual act, unimportant for its routine. It is a holy moment, a moment fit for ritual.