The Word in the Wings
The Word in the Wings > The Promise of Practice
The Promise of Practice
By: Aleksa Lawry
Agnes De Mille, choreographer of famous ballets and musicals, once wrote in her autobiography, “Ballet never becomes easier; it becomes possible.”
The technique, grace, and musicality needed to create even the most basic movements of ballet is completely unnatural to the typical human body. The ballerina must push her muscles and joints to their maximum, and she must make it look effortless. Agnes De Mille learned this about ballet from the start of her training. In her autobiography, she notes that after her very first ballet class, the instructor promptly told the teenaged De Mille that she was weak, stiff, overweight, and overall not suited for ballet. I doubt he knew his words would end up on paper one day, or that De Mille would become a famous dancer and choreographer, but what he most didn’t understand was the one thing that Agnes De Mille had figured out by the young age of fourteen: that progress comes from continual practice.
If you attend any ballet class in the world, they will all begin the exact same way. Each dancer will line up at the barre, take their positions, and begin with plié, then tendu, then dégagé, and so on. The class instructor will guide the dancers through a series of performed combinations at the barre, and then off the barre in the center of the room. By the end of the ballet class, the dancers will practice incredible whole-body movements, but every class always begins small, with bending the legs or pointing the feet. The next day, when class begins again, whether the students are five years old or fifty, whether this is the first ballet class they have ever taken or the hundredth, the class will start again with plié, tendu, and dégagé.
This formula of ballet class is a daily, consistent practice. By the time the dancer is ready to take the stage, they will have practiced the basic steps of ballet so much that the added pressure of performing in front of an audience will not affect their muscle’s memory of what to do. It will still take hard work and sweat, but, like Agnes De Mille said, the ballet will be possible.
Possible, but not perfect.
Ballet is a never-ending battle to reach closer and closer to perfection, a goal which continually moves further and further away. The leg can always go a little higher; the arm can reach longer. You can do one more pirouette, or you can fill the music with an ounce more passion and emotion. As Christians, we can relate to this shifting of the goalposts. When Christ came, He left behind a perfect, blameless example of human life. 1 John 2:6 states, “Whoever says, ‘I abide in him’, ought to walk just as he walked.” Our allegiance to Christ means that we must desire to become like Him, but the standard He left for us is perfection, and we are imperfect beings. We can always be a little kinder, a little more humble, or a little more generous.
In response, we have become experts at creating excuses for those areas of life that don’t come easily to us. “I don’t have the talent of talking to new people.” “I’m just not a patient person.” “I’m not good with kids.” “I wasn’t blessed with the ability to-” “I’m not good at-” “I just can’t-” It happens in ballet too. I was not born a natural turner. I would watch the other dancers perform eight pirouettes with ease and grace while I struggled to achieve two. You can imagine what feelings overtook me whenever it came time to practice pirouettes in ballet class. For all my desire to be the best dancer I could be, I always had difficulty shaking that fear of failure. If I failed to execute this pirouette, how could I call myself a ballerina? Who’s ever heard of a ballerina that can’t turn? So instead I made excuses, giving up easily or only trying for one pirouette instead of two or three, often repeating my little mantra: “I’m just not a turner.”
The truth is that all of us struggle with something. God asks us to be forgivers, but it’s hard when someone angers us.
God commands us to watch what we say, but gossip is so juicy and irresistible. We are called to be joyful givers, but anxiety makes it hard to give, much less be happy about it. We are called to spread the Word of God, but are afraid to speak to strangers. That last example comes from Moses, of all people. When God asked him to go and command Pharaoh to let the Isrealites go, Moses begged God to send anyone else, saying, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent” (Exodus 4:10). Sound familiar? Yet God replied to Moses, “Who gives speech to mortals?… Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak” (Exodus 4:11-12). God promised to help Moses, but not do it in place of Moses. God intended to instruct Moses, to guide him.
When I was in college, I was stopped by my ballet professor, a woman who had spent years as a prima ballerina dancing on the best stages the world could offer, and a woman I considered to be ballet perfection. She had watched as I tried and then gave up yet again on completing my pirouettes. She smiled softly and announced, “I have never been a turner either.” I’m almost sure I scoffed out loud, because she continued, saying, “Actually, I always had to think so hard while I was doing pirouettes. There was never a single pirouette I did on stage that I didn’t overthink during.” Her comment was intended to be comforting to me, and it was, but it also challenged me. The only difference I could find between her pirouettes and mine was the years of experience and practice. I realized that if I wanted to be closer to perfection in ballet, I had to seek perfection of the technique in all areas, including turning. I could ignore it no longer. I would have to start down the long, long journey of daily, consistent practice.
The same can be said of our walk towards Christ.
If we truly want to follow His example as we have been called to do, we must seek His example of perfection in all areas of our life, especially the areas where we struggle. Like the ballerinas that practice their plies each day at barre, we must commit to a daily practice of kindness, or patience, or generosity, or wherever our personal struggle lies. Galatians 6:9 says, “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” This verse is a promise that daily practice makes progress. Still, knowing that we will never reach the standard of perfection we have been called to can be disheartening.
Daily practice means that failure will be a likely occurrence, and perfection as the standard makes for a hard master to please.
Luckily, we imperfect humans were not created to be servants of perfection. Although the discipline of daily practice is important in making us better disciples, at the end of the day, the only master we serve is our merciful, forgiving God. The same God who came as Jesus to guide us with His perfect example. The same God who promised help to Moses when he could not speak. The same God who, when humans failed, chose to redeem and restore his broken creation so that we too could experience perfection. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Every morning the ballerinas return to the barre for plie. Every morning the Christian returns to the consistent practice of becoming like Jesus, and every morning, the mercy and steadfast love of the Lord is new and everlasting, promising to help and teach us if only we are willing to practice.
Scripture quotations in this post are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.
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