Janathan Grace Reflections   This is my journey of self discovery shared with you

Excerpt from Mike Mason, Practicing the Presence of People:

We should never be ashamed to return to the drawing board.  In fact all of us should return there every day like children playing on a chalkboard.  The virtue of a chalkboard is that everything drawn on it can be wiped out and begun all over again.  If we were children living in a cottage beside the sea, then every day we would rush out to the beach to play at drawing and building in the sand, and then every night the tide would wash our sandbox clean.  As adults, we might perhaps consider this a pointless activity.  But why cling so tightly to our grown-up accomplishments?  What better way to live than with a clean slate every morning?

Consider the example of Brother Lawrence, who “asked to remain a novice always, not believing anyone would want to profess him, and unable to believe that his two years of novitiate had passed.”  Even the truth, after all, is not something to be held on to doggedly.  If something is really true, then let’s learn it anew every day.  And if there’s anything we’ve acquired that is not true, that does not stand the test of heartfelt love, then let’s wipe it away with the blood of Jesus!

This openhanded, reachable attitude is what is implied in the word practice.  Inherent in this word is the freedom to experiment, to try and try again with limitless humility to fail.  Practice makes perfect, but the practice itself is not perfect.  Practice is a patient, relaxed process of finding out what works and what doesn’t.  Practice leaves plenty of room for making mistakes; indeed mistakes are taken for granted.  In practice it goes without saying that any success is only the fruit of many failures.  Hence the failure is as important as the success, for the one could not happen without the other.

Many people avoid practice because of the fear of failure.  Perfectionists have the mistaken idea that something is not worth doing if they cannot look good by getting it right the first time.  For the perfectionist, any misstep is an unpleasant and embarrassing surprise.  But for a humble person, the surprise is getting it right.  Humility expects trial and error and so rejoices all the more at success.  Humility is always being surprised by grace.

Either life is practice, or it is performance.  It cannot be both.  Do you love surprise, or do you prefer to stay in control?  Are you a professional at life or an amateur?  Do you live spontaneously and experimentally for the sheer love of it  Or are you an expert who takes pride in being right about everything?  Would you rather be right than happy?

None of us can be perfect.  But everyone can be free.  Which will you choose?