Day Twenty-One: Practice

Gail writes: a beautiful process - yellow from the Fall with space to walk, and 8 image thoughts to make 9

Word of the Day: Practice

Images of the Day: Edinburgh labyrinth and views around Edinburgh

Token of the Day: miniature patterned tile

Practice - ah! the serendipity of this word coming immediately after "patience"!

I remember the torture of clarinet practice in between lessons. Sometimes my fingers knew what to do, other times they did not seem at all connected to my brain. And then hockey practice - not only did one have the battle with one's own body but there was the rest of the team too. We had to practice being parts of a body, parts of a well-oiled machine. And we had to practice skills and techniques. Drills in dribbling, defending, attacking, shooting, passing, takes corners... If one person were unwell, had fallen out with another team member we were all sunk!

Practice then requires working on several levels and sussing out how to tune in so that there is harmony.

Spiritual practice is the regular devotion of time, energy, focus, desire to being or doing in order to move closer to being all that i can be. God doesn't seek perfection in us but She does want us to keep trying... i think. Three might be days when we feel completely at one with the Divine - there are probably going to be many days when we simply go through the motions and feel dry, empty, dull. Practice, on those days, keeps us in touch with the Divine even if it doesn't feel like it. I am understanding more and more the value of the Divine Offices, the reciting of prayers, psalms, mantras.

With regular attention, regular practice, i can learn to still my busy-ness, quieten my chatter, and relax my body so that i can spend more of my practice time enjoying the presence of the Divine and less time worrying about my body, working out problems in my head, running through my day. With practice i can hand it all over, lay my burdens at the foot of the Cross, simply rest in the presence of God.

Practice makes perfect?
Practice without striving
Practice as a rhythm in life, part of a series of rhythms which together create harmony.
The art of practicality, orthopraxy. Actions speak louder than words.
Each day a new beginning - a day without learning is a day lost.
Learn from mistakes - "ecoutez et repetez"!

Is listening and repeating the way to learn? The practice of reciting prayer, mantra, the Rosary, the Jesus Prayer can be helpful or harmful depending on the intention, mindset, state of heart. I remember being struck by JD Salinger's "Franny and Zooey". Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature gives the following summary: "Franny is an intellectually precocious late adolescent who tries to attain spiritual purification by obsessively reiterating the "Jesus prayer" as an antidote to the perceived superficiality and corruptness of life. She subsequently suffers a nervous breakdown. In the second story, her next older brother, Zooey, attempts to heal Franny by pointing out that her constant repetition of the "Jesus prayer" is as self-involved and egotistical as the egotism against which she rails."

Being a precocious student i immediately had to go and find out more about the Jesus Prayer (this was before the Internet!). I discovered that it is part of the Orthodox Church tradition, the words are:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

According to the Jesus Prayer Project website (http://www.jesusprayer.org/), the practice of the Eastern Orthodox Churches calls for the Jesus Prayer to be used for the constant prayer that Saint Paul speaks of in his First Letter to the Thessalonians (5:17), where the prayer is kept on the lips and in the hearts of believers at all times. In its ultimate form, this prayer method is called Hesychasm, or a mystical tradition of experiential prayer.

We have to take the time to contemplate, to discern, which practice is most helpful to us. We have to be mindful in our practice, attentive to the process and prepared to reconsider.

Heart and mind prepared
i begin, with grace,
to open up my spirit life
i learn, through practice,
to trust the leadings of the Spirit
i develop the art of practice
with intention, love and patience.