Rehearsal
Rehearsal: the act of practicing in preparation for a performance.
This week, I've been thinking of the importance of rehearsal -- both in terms of music rehearsal and in terms of life rehearsal.
The music rehearsal thoughts:
Well, last week my handbell stand partner fell and broke her wrist. She's a strong ringer and a person who brings a lot of personality and life to the group (actually, everyone in the group brings a lot of personality and life to the group...but a group suffers anytime one member suffers). We've found ways to compensate for her absence as her wrist heals, but it's going to be a long and difficult process for the group. Our rehearsals are going to require added concentration, extra effort, and probably extra time.
And I feel guilty, because I'm planning on missing a rehearsal in a couple of weeks. This seems like the scummiest thing that I can do at this point in time. But the alternative is to spend only 1.5 days (instead of a more reasonable amount of time) with my family, who I haven't seen since Christmas and probably won't see again until August. That also seems scummy (and very undesirable). I'm feeling pressured and guilty and I want to try to figure out a way to be at that rehearsal and spend a decent amount of time with my family, but it's just not feasible.
The life rehearsal thoughts:
Yeah. I've decided that the line between "rehearsal" and "performance" in life is really, really blurred, and perhaps nonexistent. Sometimes I take the view that a lot of life experiences serve to prepare us for future life experiences. And other times I take the view that a lot of life experiences that feel preparatory in nature are actually performances in and of themselves. This week I've decided, very informally, that these two views are not mutually exclusive: rehearsals are performances and performances are rehearsals.
At first, it feels sort of odd to think of a rehearsal as a performance. But it is, really -- in rehearsal you are supposed to try your best with the intention of noticing yucky things that you should work on perfecting later. And a true rehearsal is one in which you are somehow evaluated on your performance in the rehearsal -- either by yourself or by some observer or director. Honest and genuine feedback is a necessary and desirable component of rehearsal. So you really should treat the rehearsal as a performance.
And at first, it feels sort of odd to think of a performance as a rehearsal. But unless you expect that performance to be your absolute last one, the performance becomes a rehearsal for future performances. Your mistakes, instead of being annoying or "something you just need to work on," really really sting. And the praise you receive, instead of being nice or welcome, can make you float and can stick with you for years. But the emotional load that feedback from a performance takes serves only to make your upcoming rehearsals and performances more directed and more productive.
But the intertwining of rehearsal and performance in life is painful. Because when you realize that you've messed up in rehearsal, you realize later, to great chagrin, that what you thought was rehearsal was actually a performance.
Well, actually, it was both.
posted by Katie @ 10:12 AM
1 Comments:
Yes, thanks for posting this! You definitely got me thinking about a lot of things.
The big thing, though, is this: we all had to come this way. What I mean is that all of the things that happen in our lives (including us messing up and others messing us over) had to happen this way. The rehearsals we've had to this point have, somehow, gone the way they were supposed to, even if they looked completely awful, even if we don't want future rehearsals to look the same.
It's a given for me that our performances will never be completely bad and never be completely good. Life is a progressive thing.
One more thing, taken from a very good book (Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli): he talks about how we envision spiritual growth as being a simple upward-sloping line. Y = MX + B and all that good stuff. His idea is that real spiritual growth looks like a jagged line (maybe like one of those graphs of how the stock market is doing or something).
Anyway, a good quote:
"Usually when we analyze a graph like the first one [the y=mx+b, upward-sloping line], we make value judgments. The high spots represent the good or positive moments in our relationship with God, while the low spots represent the bad or negative moments. But what would happen if we removed value judgments from our thinking? What would happen if, in place of good and bad, positive and negative, high and low, we used words like resting, listening, waiting, starting, returning, savoring, celebrating, dancing, learning, growing? How would our understanding of the spiritual life be altered if we used these words to describe our growing?
Maybe waiting is good and not waiting is bad. Maybe stopping has a higher value than starting. Maybe success is bad and failure is good. Suddenly the ups and downs of spiritual growth come into better focus. Some of us grow fast, some slow, some both fast and slow."
Anyway, I thought you might appreciate that.
*hugs* Have a great week!
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