This morning I had a last minute call from my director of music in Chapel. Would I sing the introductory part of a song in Chapel, he asked? It was an old gospel chorus that I remember from my youth, but haven't sung in years. Of course I could sing, I said, as long as you don't expect me to sound like a choral scholar. (I was once asked to stop singing in a choir because I elided the notes - like a blues singer - instead of landing on them crisply like a robed and ruffed 9-year-old choirboy. There would be a reason for that, of course.)
I told a couple of the music students the amusing story of being thrown out of choir - at least, it was amusing to me many years later when I realised I was probably the only person from that choir who later earned their living from singing, still eliding my notes. And I told them the tale about Einstein - is it true, or apocryphal? - who supposedly said that if you judge a fish according to whether it can climb a tree, you will assume it is stupid, and never notice it's a natural born swimmer.
How many times, I wonder, do we try to do things the way someone else thinks we should? - pray like a vicar or a rabbi, dress like a business woman, sing like a choirboy, cook like your grandma - when in fact what we should do is pray the way we can, dress to our own lifestyle, sing with the voice we have and not the voice we think we ought to have.
I was reminded of all this when I read this piece in the New York Times - about a woman whose prayer life "tanked" when she became a mother, until she realised there is more than one way to pray.