Practice makes Perfect!

 

Whatever your experience of the Covid pandemic has been, it is certainly true that some industries have been hit harder than others.  The hospitality industry is one of course, and also the creative industry of which I am a part. Prior to March 2020 my working week typically included running 4 choirs and performing at care homes, hospices or Intensive Care Units on behalf of the charity I work for.  Of course all that stopped completely and we are just now tentatively finding ways of getting back into those activities.  This period of time has enabled several discoveries; amongst them I have found that without the prospect of a looming concert or performance, I lack the incentive to practice! 

 

Practice is part and parcel of the life of any musician, but it is also a part of all our lives.  I’m sure you’re familiar with the adage ‘practice makes perfect’.  I’m not sure that’s quite correct.  Perhaps better to say ‘practice makes permanent’.  The things we choose to repeat will become ingrained as habits, whether that is playing scales & arpeggios, learning to drive or to swim or play golf.  Or whether it is practising attitudes, behaviours; translating what we believe into what we do. 

 

The longer we are given to spend on the journey of life, the more opportunity there is to encounter both blessings and woes.  The blessings we can thoroughly enjoy, but how do we become skilled at negotiating the woes?  How do we learn not just to shelter from the storm, but to dance in the rain?  Perhaps practice is the answer.  The teaching of Jesus in his sermons on the mount and on the plain offers us a real counter-cultural look at life.  He tells us ‘blessed are you who weep now’.  I confess that I never feel very blessed when I’m weeping, but it is true that grief, loss and disappointment has softened me as it has done others, making them more compassionate and understanding of people, and more mature and resilient in themselves. 

 

Faith really shows its worth when it is tested, and I have found it helpful to spend time thinking about the attitudes and skills I would like to possess that will see me through the tricky times.  I like to keep in mind the list of  ‘fruits of the spirit’ which you can find in the book of Galatians chapter 5:  ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control’.  On my own, and especially under duress, my natural inclination wanders a long way from these ideals,  but happily….

‘Our effort is not a self-conscious striving to fill ourselves with the important Christian virtues; it is more getting out of the way and allowing [Christ’s] Spirit to transform all our activities. Christ will do the rest. His Spirit has joined ours and will never abandon us.’  (Richard Hauser). 

So that is my role….it sounds simple, but getting myself out of the way and allowing Christ to do the rest is not my inclination and in order to become a permanent fixture, it needs daily practice!