It was kind of an academic piggy bank. Each Wednesday morning, my fifth grade teacher at Dodd Elementary in West St. Paul handed out little envelopes with clip fasteners on them. Our names were on the front, along with lines labeled “date” and “amount.” We were encouraged to bring a nickel or a dime each week and put it in the envelope as a way to teach us about the magic of regular saving.
In the spring, each of us who contributed got a little check from the local bank for the amount deposited for the year, plus interest! (i.e. free money to us). By today’s standards, these checks were tiny – probably between $2 and $5 (at least for those kids whose families could give them anything to contribute) but in the late 1950’s, not exactly peanuts when a Snickers was five cents. Of course, the amount wasn’t the point; it was the practice.
At the beginning of Lent at St. James Lutheran, my parents got “Lenten folders” which had slots for dimes to be inserted on each of the forty days (the wealthy would pick up more than one folder, of course – not us). These folders would be brought to church on Easter Sunday as a special thanksgiving. Since a dollar in 1958 had the same purchasing power as $7.95 does today, the dimes added up. But it wasn’t the amount as much as the daily practice. (You’re doing the math now, aren’t you?)
Those of us who grew up well-schooled in the importance of saving, did not have parents (and certainly grandparents) who swiped plastic at the drugstore for a $3 purchase. Except for the mortgage and a car loan, they didn’t borrow unless absolutely necessary. They saved for the new chair, lived within a budget, and taught their children about the deadly perils of the Demon Debt.
As we circle around from the “Great Depression” endured by our grandparents and even parents to the “Great Recession” of the past several years, some of these practices have recycled, like the importance of a savings account, and using cash. Referring to the popularity of black clothing among New Yorkers and other hip types, someone observed that “Cash is the new black.”
Like saving money and resources, like learning a language or how to play the piano, practice makes things possible that aren’t possible without the necessary discipline. This applies to the spiritual and religious life, too. Practices of regular attendance at worship services, prayer, contemplation, reading, community, service, even fasting, have been promoted since the beginning of Christianity – in fact, in all major world religions — as important means to the ends of spiritual clarity and growth.
However, just as we learned things as children because of the variety of forces at play (the desire to please parents, pressure from the culture and from peers, our own curiosity), we may need to learn things as adults for different reasons. To do this, Brian Mclaren tells us, we may have to “ trust the tradition itself enough to engage in practices we don’t completely understand.”
Practice may not make perfect, but often it makes things possible that we thought would elude us. Things like playing the violin, speaking Spanish, knitting a sweater, or making perfect pastry. Things like faith, trust, hope, and confidence in “the faith that is within you.”
Put the dimes in the Lenten pockets each day…. and see what accumulates by Easter.
See you in church.
Barbara
(Great book: Finding Our Way: The Return of the Ancient Practices, B McLaren).
