I once felt horrible guilt for all the usual things: not practicing enough (not reading my Bible enough), not performing as well in public as in the practice room (not "walking the walk"), not treating my teacher with enough respect (more focused on myself than on God). Much of this observation was going on just in my head, but sometimes other people took noticed and were happy to inform me that I was not a good musician (Christian). Sometimes other fundamentalists who pretend they have it altogether make themselves feel better by putting others down. "I'll pull the splinter from your eye while I neglect to acknowledge the plank in my own eye." The real downside of guilt is its cyclical effect of self-hatred and cynicism. Set low expectations, and one will always manage to make it to the end of the day and feel just enough comfort to make it to tomorrow. Still, it seems that contempt would hold one to seek a higher level, a better standard for oneself. Without contempt and guilt, afterall, we'd all just become lazy and then "anything goes."
But there was a beautiful thing that happened in my life: I went to seminary and embraced my depravity. As a Christian and as a person, I grew in stability, but as a musician, I did the unthinkable- I completely stopped practicing (gasp!) and almost never played for my first year. After having sometimes 5 performances a week the year before, rehearsals like crazy, and not enough time in the day to keep up with all the practice, I dropped almost all of it. I still taught lessons and played occasionally in chapel, but really I embraced all the negative stereotypes we musicians place on ourselves. I became "the quitter" who couldn't make it. In fundamentalist terms...I gave God the finger.
So did I end up being a lazy, sloppy, good-for-nothing musician, the way fundamentalist Christians think they will become if they let their guard down for one millisecond and dare to question God? At first- kinda. My left hand forgot where it was supposed to go for a while. When I did play for chapel or community orchestra, I would tell my left hand where to go and it would go somewhere else sometimes. But truthfully, by embracing the total depravity of being the worst kind of musician, I learned to accept who I am- human, flawed, beautiful in a special way, God's own beloved musician. I stopped looking at these "rules" of perfectionism as a sort of oppressive law that might just save me from hell, and I started seeing them as a compass for how to show God's love to other people. Because I love God and I am learning to love myself, I want to do what is right and up-building for the community. Think of it as Calvin's "third use" of the law.
Some days are good and some are still bad. However, bad days aren't ones where I have it out with God and demand to know why bad things happen to the people I love- bad days are when I fall back into the pattern of fear and guilt, and I attempt to retreat into the practice room of shame and hatred. Good days are when God and I are in active relationship, whatever that may look like. Increasingly, the bad days are fewer and less common.
Since moving to Iowa, I have been practicing violin once a day, everyday, for a few weeks. It's an exercise in calmness and meditation. I fix things, I work on technique, but it's in an environment of peace, rather than of war and pain with myself and God. Calvinism has not only shone light on the myths of guilt for me, but it's also allowed me to see that sometimes I don't have choices in life. Knowing that some things are predestined helps me to see where I do have choices. It's empowering. It's Good News. While I did not start playing violin at a young age with the best teachers, I do have this time now to practice technique, to cultivate the love for music that is already there, and to express that love to God and neighbor. Thanks be to God!
No comments:
Post a Comment