There’s a very old and charming Jewish custom: When children repeat the alphabet after their teacher for the first time, everything stops for a little celebration featuring sweet treats. The tasty practice recalls the words of Psalm 119:103, “How sweet are [God’s] words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
Starting to learn something new is always worth celebrating, no matter who’s the learner or what’s the something new! For those of us who’ve been around the block a time or two, starting to learn something new takes a certain confident humility, paradoxical as that sounds. It takes confidence to take up something new in the first place, and then those inevitable beginner’s bumps and stumbles call for humility. When we’re already familiar, even proficient, with other things, those beginner’s bumps can feel awkward – even downright threatening.
When we start learning something new, it doesn’t always mean we’ll take it all the way through to competence. Sometimes those beginner’s bumps are too much. And that’s okay. Sometimes we end up learning that this “something new” is really for someone else, not for us. And that’s okay, too. Let’s still celebrate the start of learning.
This message is excerpted from “Celebrate the opportunity to learn something new” by Audrey Novak Riley from the August 30, 2017, blog of the Women of the ELCA.
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