In the words of “Monty Python and the Flying Circus”—now for something completely different:
When I started writing this blog, I had no preconceived idea about the frequency or schedule of its postings. After a while it became clear to me that once a week was about the right frequency (since there are a few other things I do, such as trying to retain a sense of reality in the current political season). And somehow Wednesday became the day on which the week’s post goes out into the mysterious world of the blogosphere. I had not decided on this schedule; it just happened; then it became a repeated fact. As such, it has acquired what the legal philosopher Hans Kelsen called the “normative power of facticity”: If a fact stays around for a while, it produces a sense of obligation—specifically, the obligation to keep it going. This happened with my blogging Wednesday. I feel obliged to meet this deadline, I know pretty well when I must have a text ready for posting, and I get anxious if it looks as if I won’t have it on time. I am not sure whether this has become a ritual; it is certainly a habit; every habit has the potential to become a ritual. Since ritual is at the very heart of religion, and since I have assumed the obligation to blog about religion at least most of the time, the topic is not out of order here.
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