commitment to such timelessnpatterns and thus expresses hisnconfidence in the meaningfiilnessnof all of life, including that outsidenof ritual. Of course, whennfeith and commitment wane, thenstateliness of ritual seems nothingnbut arbitrary artifice. Ritualsntherefore then disappear or theynsurvive only as degenerate relicsnidolatrously valued for their ownnsake, not as reflections of a deepernreality . . .