Your Practice is not Limited to You

Someone practice baking and gave me the possibility of experience these divine pies.

It is unlikely that a person can deliver a brilliant sermon without practice, but practice does not guarantee a brilliant sermon. Practice does not make perfect but practice does make possible. 

In preaching, sports, music entertainment, parenting or any other field we practice, we think about the possibility that practice can offer. We might think about the glory we may gain if we practice and 'nail it' when it comes time to deliver. We think of the personal sanctification we might get if we get the results we worked hard to obtain. However, we may forget that our practice may lead to another's possibility.

Each week, choirs around the church world practice singing their praise songs and hymns. When it comes time to offer those songs in worship, the practice of the choir offers a possibility for the choir to have a level of fulfillment to be sure. However their practice also offers a possibility to those in the congregation: the possibility of being reconnected to the transcendence of God and that which is beyond. 

Your spiritual practices also make it possible that you may encounter the divine, but more often than not, your spiritual practice creates the possibility of others to encounter the divine through you. 

The possibilities of practice do not end with you. 

Prayer Life is Dance Life

A song was shared to me the other day entitled "O Life Is Like A Sacred Circle". Here is the first verse and chorus:

Verse: I life is like a Sacred Circle when we walk the Good Red Road. We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance.

Chorus: We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance. I life is like a Sacred Circle when we walk the Good Red Road.

The person who shared this song with the group I was in then asked us to reflect on the lyric "we dance to pray" and what it could mean for each of us.

It was quickly pointed out that both dancing and praying are acts of vulnerability. That is, for many of us, dancing is not something we are trained in and as such we tend to shy away from. For as many people as I have heard say,  "I can't dance" I have heard that many people say "I can't pray." Dancing in public and praying in public each take a level of trust and vulnerability that our time does not encourage. 

It has also been my experience that there is a deep draw that dancing has on many of us. That is so many of us want to know how to dance. We want to be able to have the confidence and the moves, the rhythm and the smoothness of body to dance on the floor. The dance desire is also echoed in the prayer desire. That is many of us desire the words and speech, the poetry and prose to pray, and since we feel like we don't have those things - we don't pray. 

Prayer life is dance life. That is to say, the ones who I know have a vibrant prayer life are the same ones who are comfortable dancing. Through prayer, these individuals are accustom to being vulnerable and so the act of dancing is just another expression of the vulnerability they have practiced in prayer. 

Rev. John Thornburg, who was leading the discussion, said that the US is the only place and time that has a culture of "I can't dance". I would add that we may be the only place and time that has a culture of "I can't pray." 

I ask you to consider the mantra:

"We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance." 

Confusing Traditions as Customs

One of the greatest gifts of the Church is the preservation of Tradition. Tradition is the wellspring of life that was present prior to our arrival. Traditions invite us into a relationship so that we can dance with and build up the life of those that came before us. In some of the more beautiful moments Traditions help move us into a new level of understanding or even better, relationship with those around us. And like all life, I believe that Traditions are to be protected and respected - because life is Tradition. 

Waling a sacred path as Tradition

At a core level we know that Traditions are life, which is why sometimes we are over-protective of Traditions. Much like a parent over-protecting their child, sometimes we feel that to change or stop engaging with a Tradition will some how wound the Tradition to the point of death. We forget that one of the things that make a Tradition so powerful is the Traditions ability to adapt, grow and roll with the punches. Traditions are hearty and thick skinned. When we feel a Tradition is not strong enough to handle new realities we either don't understand Tradition or are not actually handing a tradition.

We may have a custom on our hands. 

Customs can look like Traditions and in fact we sometimes use the words interchangeably. However, Traditions and Customs are not the same. For instance no matter what you try to do YOU cannot start a Tradition. You can start a custom. If that custom is built upon by the next generation, then the custom is moving toward becoming a Tradition, but one person does not create a Tradition.

Customs are those practices that serve a particular situation. They are specific and often times, bound by time and circumstance. Because of these limitations, customs are not very adaptable and are fragile when attempting to change. 

The Church is at her best when we honor Tradition for all that Tradition is. When we respect Tradition with a life unto it's own. Like a mature person who is able to respect being invited and not invited to a party. Tradition is strong enough to be set down for a time because Tradition endures. Customs need constant attention and tending.

Customs fear death, Traditions transcend it.

And this is the frustration that some have with the Church - confusing Traditions as Customs: treating a Tradition of the Church as helpless practice that needs our attention least it dies. Trust me, Traditions can handle death because Traditions have seen it before - it is what makes them Traditions.

Are we confusing the Tradition of unity as the Custom of uniformity? Are we confusing the Tradition of Love alike as the Custom of think alike? Are we confusing the Tradition of orthodoxy as the Custom of fundamentalism?