I call all this to mind—therefore, I will wait.
Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended;
certainly God’s compassion isn’t through!
They are renewed every morning. Lamentations 3:21-23a
Kay’s working on a painting project. She’s been commissioned to produce watercolor posters for her brother and sister-in-law’s soon-to-be-opening business venture, The Encrypted Escape. “Painting is something that looks like garbage, and looks like garbage, and looks like garbage. … The only reason I don’t stop is that I hope that it’ll come together okay. … It isn't always like that, but a lot of the time. ... Right now, it’s bad.”
I’ve always marveled at my children’s artistic abilities. (They get it from their father.) Still, I can connect with her sentiment. A friend was talking about their music practice the other day. “I’ve been practicing and practicing that one measure. I must have played it a hundred times. And do you think I could play it at rehearsal?” Head shake to the negative. (I could relate to this!)
I espouse practicing as a way to learn all sorts of things. It’s worked for me in all my years of playing instruments. When I was a band director, I expected (hoped) my students would practice theirs. At church, I talk about our faith practice, because (as a lifelong Methodist) I believe faith is something we live day-to-day rather than our assent to any doctrine. (Also, there is “no religion but social religion” and “no holiness but social holiness.”)
The thing about practicing – as the comments above suggest – is that we can do an awful lot of it before noticing any results for our efforts (fruit). I’ve been playing a certain Beethoven sonata for years, and I’ll never get it up to tempo. Still, it’s good for me. Playing piano clears my mind – at least while I’m doing it, sometimes longer. Most of the time, I’m more at peace and centered, even joyful, after time spent at the keyboard.
When we practice and see no noticeable results, it’s easy to get discouraged. My friend was at their lesson and talked about this frustration with the instructor. With decades of experience herself, she was able to assure them that it may only be when we look back at where we used to be that we’ll be able to notice how far we’ve come. My friend then added that doing this, they could see the improvement.
Whatever it is we practice – whether it’s music, painting, a sport, compassionate listening, or anything else – we’re better than we’d be if we didn’t practice. And most of the time I suspect we feel better for having done it as well.
At our community supper at church this week, I sat down to eat (and catch up) with Val and Janet. While I listened and encouraged them to share, I noticed that my mind and eyes were wandering more than I would’ve liked. I’ve been practicing attentive listening for years, and have gotten better, but this was discouraging. True, I was (am) sleep deprived and I’m under more than the usual amount of stress, but I expected to do better.
I’ve since reminded myself of two things:
I’ve always marveled at my children’s artistic abilities. (They get it from their father.) Still, I can connect with her sentiment. A friend was talking about their music practice the other day. “I’ve been practicing and practicing that one measure. I must have played it a hundred times. And do you think I could play it at rehearsal?” Head shake to the negative. (I could relate to this!)
The thing about practicing – as the comments above suggest – is that we can do an awful lot of it before noticing any results for our efforts (fruit). I’ve been playing a certain Beethoven sonata for years, and I’ll never get it up to tempo. Still, it’s good for me. Playing piano clears my mind – at least while I’m doing it, sometimes longer. Most of the time, I’m more at peace and centered, even joyful, after time spent at the keyboard.
When we practice and see no noticeable results, it’s easy to get discouraged. My friend was at their lesson and talked about this frustration with the instructor. With decades of experience herself, she was able to assure them that it may only be when we look back at where we used to be that we’ll be able to notice how far we’ve come. My friend then added that doing this, they could see the improvement.
Whatever it is we practice – whether it’s music, painting, a sport, compassionate listening, or anything else – we’re better than we’d be if we didn’t practice. And most of the time I suspect we feel better for having done it as well.
At our community supper at church this week, I sat down to eat (and catch up) with Val and Janet. While I listened and encouraged them to share, I noticed that my mind and eyes were wandering more than I would’ve liked. I’ve been practicing attentive listening for years, and have gotten better, but this was discouraging. True, I was (am) sleep deprived and I’m under more than the usual amount of stress, but I expected to do better.
I’ve since reminded myself of two things:
- I need to be gentle with myself, practicing as much compassion with myself as I do with others. We are each a work in progress. Forgiving ourselves may be one of our harder practices, but if we're to be healthy, we need to do it. Expecting perfection of anyone is doing an injustice.
- I am a better, more attentive, compassionate listener than I was ten years ago. In ten years, I hope to be better.
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