something about practicing

We have a fantastic Finish ensemble called Soinninkajo which is giving a benefit concert at Nativity this week for the local Waldorf School. The singers have flown in from Helsinki over the last couple of days. They have spent the better part of today rehearsing. It has been a treat for me, and interesting to hear the traditional music of Finland, a country I visited once, but know little about.The music is both bright and dark, sonorous, rich,  and a bit sad, as well as simply clear. These are very, very good musicians.

One of the singers told me that the flight to New York was nine hours, then, five hours out to San Francisco. Which means that as I write this, around 3 pm in California, these singers are well into their next day sleep-body-time wise. They are tired, but singing. For hours, they have been singing.

As I have listened to them rehearse today, it strikes me that this practice, which is their passion, is what brought them here, what keeps them awake after very little sleep, and what they want to be doing even now that they surely must be dizzy with fatigue. It is just like getting up for morning prayer after a sleepless night, just like showing up at the racecourse to row after a red-eye across the country, just like coming to church when you really would rather sleep in. There is a quality of the practice, despite everything, that adds to the passion of that which we are seeking.  For the singers, the perfect a capella performance, for the rowers, swing and the perfect stroke, for the prayers, an encounter with the living God.

The practice is not always easy, and our encounter in it is not always what we are seeking. But the practice itself opens us to the possibility o f the encounter. Dare we say the probability of the encounter?