Learning and Progress in the Spiritual Life and Beyond

hymn, church music, chant, evangelization, Jazz

Human progression is less linear than we think, and we shouldn’t always expect the spiritual life to be a linear progression either. This point is impressed upon us time and again, but it’s still easy to believe that we should grow in a linear way.  A funny story from my life relates this fact about progress.

Learning Piano

 

During the Covid summer last year, I bought an electric keyboard for my apartment and decided to become a pianist. When I stop to think about it, I’ve been dabbling with piano since I was a child. My mother gave me several books that we used as kids. I skimmed through those old piano books and decided to play “Good King Wenceslas” even though it was July.  On the top of the page, I saw the penciled date 11/25/96. I pictured myself, then a child, starting this piece on that date so many years ago.  I probably planned to play it on Christmas day or maybe during Advent and then master more and more, but I didn’t. I lost interest in piano and never became a maestro.

The linear or nonlinear nature of learning as children

The note got me thinking about the seemingly very linear nature of childhood. Children master more and more as they get older, and adults tick these accomplishments off one by one. “Johnny got his first tooth today,” “Claire said her first word on X date.” Once in school, the linear nature of learning seems even more heightened. The end of a school year is supposed to be a measure of achievement and progress. Letter grades indicate mastery or failure. An “A” in World History seems to indicate a child will never have to study it again.

Finally, the child grows up and, hopefully, graduates from high school and then university. Then, it seems the child has reached a final level of achievement. Is it really true? Looking at that penciled note and imagining the sense of achievement I probably felt when I mastered that piece, I couldn’t help seeing some humor in the fact that I was now relearning it. 

Does that mean achievement is illusory? In some sense it does. Yes, the idea that might exist in childhood of mastering an art is a little fanciful. As I quickly learned about so many of my childhood hobbies, if you stop practicing them, you lose them. Achievement is easily lost, and it is always relative–there’s always more to achieve. We’re never really masters of world history or algebra.

Progress in the spiritual life

 

Often, we apply our ideas about linear progress to our spiritual life. We believe that progress should go in a straight line. We think our faults should gradually decrease and finally disappear. For that reason, we get frustrated when we continue to struggle with anger, impatience, or impure thoughts. Yet, perhaps, God doesn’t want us to stop having these struggles. 

A mysterious quotation from St. Paul confirms the idea of being humble about one’s fallings. In Second Corinthians chapter 12 verse 8, St. Paul writes of a thorn in his side, “Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant.” St. Paul does not mean that God excuses us from falling back into sin over and over again. Obviously, God does not want us to have a lukewarm attitude to sin. However, when we do fall into sin and when we struggle with old sins, we should have the humility of St. Paul. 

Always a Beginner

 

What I cherish the most about learning piano now is the fact that I can dip into a piano book when I want and even play a Christmas song in the middle of June without the pressure of trying to achieve something definite. Ironically, now, no longer a child, I can enjoy learning the piano in a more childlike way than I even might have been allowed to as a child. The goal of becoming a concert pianist or just living up to the expectations of a scolding teacher no longer need to plague me. In other words, I can learn with a childlike trust in the present, not a fear of the future.

Perhaps, God wants me always to be a beginner in the spiritual life. He wants me to give up on my goal of becoming the equivalent in the spiritual life of the concert pianist–at least, becoming it on my own terms. He wants me to have humility and to trust him through my struggles and doubts. 

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1 thought on “Learning and Progress in the Spiritual Life and Beyond”

  1. Pingback: Zap Big Pulpit – Big Pulpit

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