"Accordion Lessons and Holiness. I hated music lessons. As a little boy I was forced to learn to play the piano accordion. My teacher was very stern and harsh. I feared him tremendously. He was demanding and unforgiving. He expected flawless performance. With each passing week I would pracitse hour upon hour. Finally it came to my lesson. When I got there I was so scared of this perfectionistic unforgiving teacher that all I could do is make mistake after mistake - it didnt matter how hard I tried. He thought that he could get me to play better by instilling fear into me. But the more he demanded better performance based on fear the more mistakes I made. This got so bad that one day he locked me up in an adjacent room, broke walnut shells and made me kneel on them for hours. Finally he realised that I just wasnt going to perform better. So he decided to have me learn under his young assistant. This guy was happy, merciful, flexible, accepting. Because I was so scared for so long, I kept making more and more mistakes performing even though I practised so much. As I really got to know my new teacher better, the more I believed at a heart level that I was safe in his presence, the more I knew he accepted me inspite of my bad performance ... the fear subsided and I began to make less and less mistakes. In this atmosphere of love and acceptance I made my way through 4 years work in less than 6 months. I was later offered a position to teach at this centre. Why do I tell this story? "Sin [making mistakes playing on the accordion] will not control you because you are not under law [the first teacher] but under grace [the second teacher]". The same is true in our spiritual walk. If we think God demands performance and the more we try to perform to please God the more we will stuff up. The more we feel accepted and bask in his love and acceptance the more holy we shall live." ~ Santo Calarco
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 10:05:37 +0000
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