A woman was asked one day why she cut the ends off the ham before cooking it. “This is just the way my grandma always did it,” she replied. What she didn’t realize was that her grandma had to cut the ham so it would fit in her small pan.
It is human nature to follow tradition without even knowing why. We often perform tasks as they have “always been done.” Some traditions are positive and carry with them culture and history, and some bring us a sense of security and stability. Other traditions, like the ham-cutting, outlast their use and replace the original function altogether. This is called “putting form over function.” The form is the tradition or way of doing a task or function; the function is the basic goal that lies at the root of form. The form should exist to bring the function to life, not the other way around.
Take for example the function of a prayer of petition. In one form, a priest in a high-liturgy church recites David’s words from Psalm 51 included in the Book of Common Prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” A layperson in another church leads the congregation, “God, we’ve messed up in many ways this week. Make us clean again. Put Your Spirit into us.” A soldier in a foxhole simply cries, “Jesus, I’m sorry!” All three prayers share the same function but have various forms. To read more, click here.
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