Practice, practice, practice

It is important to pay attention to the name the Holy One has for things.
We name everything according to the number of legs it has
but the Holy One names it according to what’s inside.
- Jelalludin Balkhi (Rumi)

We label the core activity of medical treatment and of worship as practice. We practice medicine. We practice religion. There are many who strive for a good deal more certainty in these crucial areas, who might prefer another, more definite, word. I don’t. Practice is exactly right. Practice is a word that is close to the ground, practical. It is linked to day to day actions, making do. For me, the preponderance of medical and faith decisions are of exactly that kind. Practice implies a kind of perseverance that is the hallmark of good health and good faith. These are not once and for all kinds of activities, but a lifelong quest. And practice keeps us out of a kind of grandiose way of thinking, that the ancients warn us is nearly always the prelude to a great calamity.

These are the sorts of things that crossed my mind while mowing the lawn this morning. I was mulling over how important are the names we give for things. MoveOn.org’s recent ad campaign, naming the actions of a variety of administration figures as “betrayal,” is one provocative example. On the face of it, the moniker is extreme. When one thinks with clarity about the events surrounding Iraq, Katrina, the FDA, the FCC, Scooter Libbey, to name only the top of the mind instances, betrayal is probably the right word.

The taproot of our nation’s political dilemma is that some politics are the natural outgrowth of broken religion. Faith that prizes certainty and ideological correctness over compassion exacts a heavy price. Compassion requires practice over certainty. The great souls have only their practice to show for their efforts.

I learn a lot about faith practice from musicians. The joke is telling. When asked by a tourist, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” . . . the New Yorker answers, “Practice, practice, practice,” of course.

“I wonder,” I ask, “should we impeach Bush and Cheney now or wait to indict them later for their crimes?” “How about both?” “Maybe neither.” Among other important things, law is also practiced. Justice, certainly, is a practice both of health and faith. I wonder what practicing compassion leads us to choose? Certainly betrayal is not too strong a word. It is the first step along the road to forgiveness and healing.

Burt Purrington just passed this little note along to me. It is an example of the sort of practicing I am thinking about. “Wars arise from a failure to understand one another's humanness. Instead of summit meetings, why not have families meet for a picnic and get to know each other while the children play together?” That’s the Dalai Lama’s idea of practice.

It is important to pay attention to the name the Holy One has for things.