Practice

Almost twenty years ago, I thought about becoming a concert pianist. Just thought about it, mind you. I was told by my not so warm and fuzzy piano teacher that I had reached the point that I could play anything. I still had misgivings about my left hand, which just doesn't respond as well as my right hand. Still, it was a nice thing for a piano teacher to say.
At that point, I had mastered enough for a fairly decent recital. A little Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy. There were days when I played that I felt one with the universe, that I was singing to it and for it. (These were my days before I could say the word 'God') I did just fine until I smelled his coffee. Then I knew he was standing outside the door and listening. Why did he do that? I didn't get it. And of course, at the thought of an audience, I became stiff and fearful. It I even think someone is listening to me, I get horribly afraid.

I have severe performance anxiety. What I have learned many years later is that I have a huge, gigantic, enormous ego. An ego of this size cannot be ignored. It has to do with self-worth and how I was treated as a kid and what I thought people expected of me and what I expected of myself. I didn't want to let anyone down. I didn't want to let myself down. I knew that, with just a bit more practice, I could do it (my music, golfing, dancing, writing, art, hiking, climbing, 'priesting') perfectly.

Only God is perfect. The rest of us don't even make a close second. Pride. Narcissism. Hubris. There was a line in "Almost Famous," a fairly good movie about life in the 70s...a wasted guy is standing on the roof at a party and cries out "I am a god!" and jumps from the roof into a swimming pool. We seem...okay, I seem to swing my pendulum between feelings that I am going to change the world to feelings that I can't even change myself. And of course, the operative word here is "I."

I'm into pronouns. They say a whole lot about what we are saying and most of the time we don't even know we are doing it. I had a great conversation with someone yesterday about it. I thank God that He continually brings me the people I need to sort out my own puzzles...and perhaps in the sorting, I can be of use to others...but I went back to the pronoun topic; one I had wanted to write about 15 years ago.

Why do we speak in third person when we are in the hospital and talking with a doctor but are not the identified patient. "Stop talking as if I am not here!" We often hear that when something important is happening. We try to distance ourselves from the reality around us by changing our pronouns. I thought I was a genius for realizing that when I was reading and re-reading the mystics...but then I found out, from a Harvard professor, that psychologists have known that for YEARS. Sigh...I am not a genius after all.

Yet each "aha!" moment is relevant for our lives. Yes, the news may be known, but now it is known to ME. I recall a woman who refused to learn math and it was my job to get her through her first year of college. I kept telling her "Math is your friend." And she used words I will not put here about what she thought of math. Then one day, late in the semester, the idea of "x" (a variable) seemed to click. She looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Cindy! Math is my friend!"

No doubt, the apostles, maybe a few days after Jesus ascended into heaven...okay, maybe years for some of them...they "got" it. An aha moment. A mountaintop experience. A moment of holy ecstasy.

But to get there, we've got to let go of so many presumptions and wrong learnings. Pride is the most horrible of our vices...and yes, I'll call it a vice. Humility is damn near impossible. Especially when you have low self esteem...and you would be so very surprised that almost all of us are ill with that disease.

Thinking we are not good enough means that we will probably overcompensate for that which we think we lack. And that angry demon manifests in such clever ways. Like thinking we have to be perfect at everything. Like creating a Barbie doll, or Ken doll, image of what we think we are supposed to be. And that makes us posers. It make us plastic, superficial and it denies us the real pleasure of being human and being alive.

I had someone recently tell me "Keep your eyes on Jesus," and all I felt was the hypocrisy in the statement. I heard the litany that accompanied the statement. I felt the pride that it tried to hide. And I was pissed. You know that feeling, when you are struggling with something and a person says to you, when THEY can no longer handle your truth, or they just want to shut you up, or they disagree and really believe they are right and you are wrong, "I'll pray for you."

"I'll pray for you." was a statement I heard over and over again from my so-called Christian friends when I was still unwilling to see God again in my life. I recoiled at their inference of self-superiority. I recall how one "Christian" action drove my daughter from the church. I recall how I begged a relative to leave my husband alone as she pounded his with her reasons for why he should believe in God. She gave him a good reason to say no.

And all this holiness is dripping with pride.

Humility is a hard thing. It is am almost impossible thing...at least for me, because trusting anyone was not possible as a child, and unlearning those lessons has been slow and painful.

I look at the Missionaries of Charity (nuns) as I attend the Novena Masses for Mother Teresa...and I think, I will never be like them. There is no way I will ever be able to be so humble, so submissive, so obedient. And I love being in their presence. Two nights ago, two of the nuns shook my hand during Mass. I was humbled. They usually do not touch anyone.

I have a special talent on the piano, I am pretty sure. Even yesterday, as I was pounding away on reclaiming passages of pieces and trying to rebuild my muscles, a woman said as I was leaving, "That was beautiful." I wanted to argue with her, but I knew better...I learned better. My world and my issues are mine. I have no right to impose my baggage on her. I said thank you and smiled.

But I have kept my music to myself, not because of humility, but because of pride. I was too proud to make a mistake before others. I was too proud to allow God to use me as an instrument because I didn't want to be embarrassed or humiliated at not being perfect.

Can you see how warped that thinking is? I am willing to bet that you are hiding a great gift from God because you have decided you aren't "good enough." I heard a woman speak last night who told me she was 'uneducated' and without a doubt she is one of the wisest women I have ever met. I have been blessed with a multitude of steel magnolias who think that they are dandelions, victim to the winds of life.

Father and Son by Cat Stevens on the radio here. Just ran into another student I used to teach.

I better stop here. Time for Mass.

Be who God made you to be. Practice being real. Don't hide. He'll hold your hand and you will dance with Him for the stars.

Love, Cindy