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Develop a Practice

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

—Galatians 5:25 ESV

When I was fourteen, I started playing club volleyball, and I was on San Diego Volleyball Club’s worst fourteen-year-old team, 14-Green. 14-Blue was elite, 14-Red was almost elite, and 14-White was really good.

Then there were all seven of us on 14-Green. Beginners.

Deanna, a college volleyball player at San Diego State, was our coach. She would often bring her very cute boyfriend, Tag, to our practices—which was one part thrilling and one part embarrassing (because we were so bad)—and he would try to help us too.

Deanna was very blonde and very tan and she wore Quelques Fleurs perfume that would fill the gym as practice would go on. She was kind of a goddess to me. You know, that girl. She was the person who taught me how to hit a volleyball. The right way.

Over the course of my time on 14-Green, we practiced learning the proper approach and timing and technique to hit a volleyball. And I was awful.

I grew up watching my older sister, Laura, play. I watched countless girls approach and hit the volleyball. Left, right, left. Jump. Swing.

But as you might imagine, it’s a lot harder than it looks. And when it was my turn to learn the finer points of being a hitter, it took time. A long time. An entire club season, in fact.

Each week at practice Deanna would set so we had perfect sets and we’d practice over and over and over again. Getting the rhythm and the timing and the footwork and the swing. It’s a complicated thing, jumping and hitting a ball that’s also moving.

Here’s the reality: you don’t get it until you finally get it. You lumber awkwardly. You miss the ball altogether, maybe. You trip over your own two feet. You send the ball sailing off your wrist, floating out of bounds, because you haven’t learned how to put topspin on the ball yet. You get too far under the ball, or behind it, or ahead of it. You hit the net because you haven’t yet figured out your body in the air. You look as awkward as a fourteen-year-old girl could look, which is miserable.

On the second-to-last practice for 14-Green, I approached—left, right, left—jumped, reached up, and I hit the ball out of the air and I knew THAT was what it was supposed to feel like to hit a volleyball. THAT was it.

Something clicked.

But it wouldn’t have clicked without a year’s worth of showing up. Not for me anyway. That’s the inconvenient truth.

A couple of months later, I made the varsity volleyball team at my high school as a freshman, played throughout high school, and went on to play in college. I was never an Olympian or anything, but I played and I was actually decent and I always loved it.

Years ago, I attended a lecture about ancient spiritual practices. I spent the entire hour dumbstruck, like I had happened onto the newest information I had ever heard, which was total irony because the word ancient was literally in the title of the lecture. I was struck by the idea of seeing my faith journey as a “practice,” as opposed to, I don’t know, a theory. Sure, I had been in church services my entire life and understood the concepts of prayer, worship, and sacraments, but it wasn’t until I sat through this inspiring lecture that I began to understand the significance and sacredness of learning to practice my faith. I wanted to develop a personal practice that included disciplines that were meaningful to me.

To practice means to learn by repeated performance. It is an ongoing pursuit, a habit, a routine. Our practice puts legs to our faith, taking it from something we’re reading about or talking about or learning about to something we are participating in, something we are involved in crafting with God. Practicing is learning to encounter, over and over again. Our practices can be conventional, taken from the monks. Or they can be ultimately creative, a confluence of our soul language and God’s presence.

We practice in order to get the rhythm of our soul. We practice to return to the song of eternity that we, during certain seasons of life, lose the words to or can’t hear anymore. The practice reteaches us the steps. It reminds us that we are marked with eternity, and so we need to touch eternity every so often. This, to me, is the definition of worship.

We hide behind answers, information, our sense of knowing. Engaging in a practice creates vulnerability. We have to drop our defensive knowing and allow life to begin again in the very moment we are living.

The first line of the preface of the Book of Common Prayer reads, “It is a most invaluable part of that blessed ‘liberty wherewith Christ has made us free,’ that in his worship different forms and usages may without offence be allowed.”

Your practice could include a variety of things. You have freedom! Prayer practices, time in nature, spiritual direction, journaling, art. When your practice includes time in Scripture, your interaction with the Word should be from a posture of inspiration, not information. Our practices allow the words to live and breathe presently. Sometimes this requires taking the absolute tiniest nibbles—one phrase at a time—and really savoring those bites instead of conquering large swaths without connection.

Your practice might include regular beauty intake from your favorite store. Or regularly scheduled time with other women you trust. Maybe it’s yoga on the beach. Or going to a baseball game. You could commit to a regular walk. Maybe laundry is part of your practice, and you use that time to pray while your hands move. Your practice might include waking up an hour earlier every morning and spending the time stretching, moving, breathing, listening. Maybe you need long drives and loud music. Maybe you create a small corner of your home or bedroom that becomes a sanctuary for you.

The key is engagement, ritualistic engagement. The key is remembering how important it is to show up for practice every day. We learn the steps—we keep in step1—from practicing. Where do you see beauty? Where do you see God? What is your soul longing to see, taste, touch?

As you might imagine, practice is so incredibly easy to show up for when you are the best player on the team, when you are on your game. Practice is much more intimidating when you’re stumbling, fumbling, trying to find your timing and your footwork.

I think it’s actually subversive to the darkness when we choose to walk ourselves out into the light each and every day, however awkwardly. We fight back with twenty minutes of soul time. We put on our running shoes or get out our paints. We move our bodies and our hands. We take a long bath. We call the therapist. We schedule a sitter. We sit on the floor and play. We turn toward our spouse. We forgive. We buy ourselves the good candle at Anthro (and we light it).

I believe taking some time to develop a practice when it comes to your faith is time well spent. You and I are, after all, pilgrims, and we are only journeying so long as we are practicing.

Left, right, left.

Reflection & Expression

Consider a few elements of your faith practice. What are some activities, outings, or rituals that would be spiritually significant to you?

For Your Brazen Board

Add an image of something you’d like to include in your faith practice.