practicing marriage.

12Aug
by Jon Swanson

On Saturday afternoon, I’ll be performing a wedding. I do this once or twice a year. I like it. It stretches me. As I do the premarital coaching and write the message, I’m pushed to think about what marriage is, what it means, what I need to be doing.

This time is no different.

The two people are both musicians They sang as kids and both have college degrees in music. Which got me thinking about how not to look at marriage.

I mean, people who have spent a lot of time on stage, a lot of time performing, might be tempted to look at marriage as a series of performances. As they spend time together, they may want to perform, to put on their best behavior, to hide what’s going on inside. They may want to perform well for the people who watch, giving family and friends and church and the rest of us the sense that everything is great. That they are the perfect marriage.

But I started to think that maybe marriage isn’t a performance. Maybe it’s practice.

Practice assumes that you are going to make mistakes but you are going to get better.

Practice is scales, but there can be delight in scales, in the mundane.

Practice is abandon, not worrying about audience or right notes as much as finding passion in improvising.

Practice is trying things differently,  making adjustments, discovering that as your heart grows, so does your capacity to try even more difficult pieces, to almost play pieces you would never have dreamt of.

Practice is paying attention to the little parts so the big piece works without thinking.

Somewhere a couple years ago, I read “Don’t practice til you get it right. Practice til you can’t get it wrong.”

I’m for working on that.

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I’ve written about marriage before.

10 thoughts on “practicing marriage.”

  1. Hannah's avatar

    Hannah

    I tell my students, “If something is hard, practice until it is easy, then you know that you know it.” Also, mistakes are inside of you whether you know it or not, so you might as well make a big old loud mistake right now when we’re practicing rather than hiding it behind tentative playing, only to have it rear its ugly head at some surprising moment. (“The Perfect Wrong Note,” by William Westney, is where I got these ideas)

    And as a newly-wed musician, the idea of marriage as practice and not performance comes as a relief. Marriage is new and foreign…practicing is something we know into our very bones.

    You’ve hit the nail on the head, Jon.

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  2. Diane Brogan's avatar

    Diane Brogan

    Wow Jon! Your words resonate on so many levels. After practicing marriage for 43years, I could give you many examples to go along with your words. I like the way you think. Thank you for sharing. Diane

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  3. Rich Dixon's avatar

    Rich Dixon

    Great analogy. Life as practice rather than performance is scriptural; on this side of eternity, we always mess up and start over through grace, and the only audience that matters is still pleased as long as we keep trying.

    I’m not a musician, but the best athletes don’t live for the games. They love to practice. And the very best learn to view even the games as practice, a chance to improve. They play, not to please the audience, but to get better.

    It takes a lot of confidence to make mistakes, face them, learn from them, and then make more. Following Jesus, that confidence is hope.

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  4. Joseph Ruiz (@SMSJOE)'s avatar

    Joseph Ruiz (@SMSJOE)

    Jon, love the concept when you think about it the proportion of practice to performance, I relate to what Rich said the sports piece. A team practices 6 days for a couple hour performance – yep about right. Diane congrats on such a milestone. Hope everyone has a recharging weekend.
    Grace and Peace
    joe

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  5. amyvanhuisen's avatar

    amyvanhuisen

    I think I may be attending that same wedding on Saturday..if so, it will be a treat to hear what you have to say. If not, I’ve been blessed by reading what you’ve said here…and, I concur with Hannah–you’ve (thankfully) hit the nail on the head!

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