Apprenticeship

Christian Century, July 16, 1997 by L. Gregory Jones

AT AGE 51, Noah Adams abruptly decided he had to have a piano. He didn't know how to play, but he thought that buying one would compel him to learn. He didn't just buy an old clunker, or even an inexpensive new one. He invested in a new Steinway upright--a financial commitment that provided extra incentive to practice.

Why does someone decide, as a mature adult, to take up a new activity that involves a steep learning curve? Adams, a host on National Public Radio, gives his account in Piano Lessons, a delightful memoir of his first year of learning to play. He had long been intrigued with music's evocative power, and he had become particularly enchanted by watching and interviewing piano players of diverse styles. He loved the beauty of their music, the power of their hands and arms gliding across the keys, the gift they offer to their audiences.

Yet learning to pay was a daunting task, particularly given his already demanding schedule. Not surprisingly, Adams found it difficult and frustrating; he couldn't simply sit down and make the beautiful music he wanted. There were scales to learn, and basic rhythms to be mastered. Initially, he decided against going to a teacher, trying such shortcuts as a "Miracle Piano Teaching System" on the computer. A friend's warning proved to be prophetic: "You might be learning music with that computer, but you're not learning how to play."

Eventually, Adams signed up for an intensive ten-day music camp. He discovered that there is no substitute for regular, disciplined practice and the tutelage of teachers. By the end of the first year, his frustrations began to recede. He actually desired time for practice. He had become initiated into the art of piano playing. He also learned to appreciate the craft of making and caring for pianos, as well as the importance of the history of pianos and great pianists--classical, jazz, blues, even rock-and-roll.

Just as Adams decided to take up the piano as an adult, so many adults these days are deciding to seek out the church. Some have had childhood lessons in being a Christian, but left the church for many years. Many people who are taking up the church have had little if any exposure to the Christian faith. They are searching, sometimes unaware of what exactly they are hoping to find. How can they learn to practice Christianity?

One temptation is to look for shortcuts, a "Miracle Christian Teaching System." To be sure, new technologies and insights can offer important ways to attract people to the faith. But shortcuts are not likely to teach us the truth about God and ourselves. There is no substitute for the slow, sometimes painful growth that comes through disciplined habits of practice shaped by the grace of the crucified and risen Christ. One does not become an excellent piano player, painter or a soccer star overnight; neither does one learn to become a Christian overnight. One needs teachers and mentors.

In the early church, catechetical practices shaped the initiation of adults into Christian faith and life. Reflection on these practices stirred the imagination of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who in the face of an acculturated and coopted Christianity sought to reclaim spiritual disciplines, the insights of "the discipline of the secret." They also provide the backdrop for the Roman Catholic Church's Rite for the Christian Initiation of Adults. Some of these practices--learning the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed, renouncing evil and resisting injustice, singing praise to God, participating in the Lord's Supper--might seem alien and frustrating at first, similar to what Adams experienced in starting with the piano. Yet, guided by teachers and mentors, such practices foster life-giving and renewing habits that change people's lives.

Those already on the path of Christian discipleship often discover that teaching others helps to renew their own learning. On one level, this is true of teaching anything. As a woman commented to Adams, "Music is such a living thing. I think you learn so much about yourself sitting at the keyboard, and I'm constantly learning just by teaching."

St. Augustine described teaching and learning in similar terms. "So great is the power of sympathy, that when people are affected by us as we speak and we by them as they learn, we dwell in the other and thus both they, as it were, speak in us what they hear, while we, in some way, learn in them what we teach." We do this particularly because, as Augustine elsewhere notes, Christ is the true Teacher from whom all of us--teachers, mentors, students, apprentices--continue to learn by God's grace. Christian formation is a lifelong task for all of us.

Even so, might not the catechumenate seem too "heavy," too "disciplined," for contemporary seekers? To be sure, even in the early church it was only over time that people became comfortable with particular practices of Christian life. We can learn from the example of Adams's piano lessons. He began by simply trying to learn the basics so he could eventually play one piece of music as a gift to his wife. This did not dramatically change his schedule, much less his life. But he gradually began to discover that he wanted to play whenever he could, and these desires began to transform his priorities and his life.