As July winds down and August approacheth, we are entering into Parade Season up here in Washington state. Here in my hometown, we are in the thick of our local parade. In nearby Seattle, we are just about to have the Seafair Parade. There will also be (and have already been) parades in various local towns.

Which is curious when you think about it.

One of the things that marks us off from the beasts is that we are alone in the animal kingdom in our peculiar desire to get up, get in a more or less straight line with a number of our fellow homo sapiens and then walk in front of a bunch of other homo sapiens. Oh sure, birds and lizards and other critters will “display,” typically in order to say to a mate, “Hey baby. What’s your sign?” or to tell a rival to get lost. But parades aren’t about either sex or territory or food. They’re just ... about parading.

I think parades are a sign of the health and dignity of the race for the most part. You get up, put on a funny suit, and play John Phillips Sousa while you walk down the street. You ride in a funny car and throw party favors from a car that advertises the local bowling alley. You saunter along in a t-shirt advertising the new play you and your castmates are producing at the local theatre. On the sidewalks the beer flows freely, everybody whoops it up, little kids sit on daddy’s shoulders, a balloon periodically escapes to the stratosphere.

The point of all this is deeply Chestertonian: It is a sort of civic liturgy in which ordinary folk stand up before other ordinary folk and celebrate the fact that they exist, that they are human beings and that they have meaning, dignity and value.

It is not terribly surprising that our secular liturgies have roots in sacred liturgies. Ancient Israel, for instance, conducted something that looked like a parade as each tribe marched under various banners. Their liturgies likewise consisted of various processions. And the Catholic Church has taken over all this. Every time John and Suzy Smith and their kids process up to the altar and give Father the gifts for consecration, they are being bestowed with the awesome dignity of Adam and Eve in the Garden. They are the primal priests called Man and Woman bringing themselves and all they know, cherish and love to God the Father. They are, indeed, us conferred with a dignity by the crucified Christ in baptism and raised up to walk among their fellows—and among all the angels and saints of heaven—in a tiny parade that shows all the proud principalities and powers how much God loves his small and humble creatures.

There is nothing else like that anywhere in nature. But then, there is nothing like man and woman anywhere else in nature.