Practicing

I love knitting because all the sudden you look down and there is something there that didn't exist until I created it. It is the most satisfying feeling. I imagine painters feel the same way. One minute there is a blank canvas and then there is an image, a painting. Wow! This act of creation does take persistance. You have knit a lot of stitches, which can be very monotonous, to get your creation. And sometimes you have to rip out all the progress you made and start again to get the results you want to acheive.
Yoga and religion also require regular practice (a word that is used to describe both - one practices yoga and one practices Judaism)*. The product can be more difficult to see, but if you keep at it, the results just appear, all of the sudden.
One day, a year or two after I began practicing yoga, a realized I had muscles you could actually feel (well I don't let too many people do that) on my sides. They had not been there before. When I'm too tired to practice, knowing that I created newly defined muscle structure, gets me back on the mat. I wish I had taken pictures of myself when I started practicing because it is hard to see all the progress and changes I've made. But photographs would only show the physical progress, I have to look at my increased energy level, my ability to handle stress and access my inner strength, and remember that yoga helped in these areas too. Through my yoga practice I was able to create a new me.
Likewise, it can be hard to see the benefits of practicing Judaism. You could get discouraged coming to services every week and not feeling a connection to God or feeling more spiritual. But let's say one week you feel that connection, that contentment. If you hadn't gone all those previous weeks and laid the groundwork for connecting to God, it might not have happened that week either.
Judaism reminds us to practice being the best person we can be - to keep learning, to help others, to give Tzedakah, to take time to pray. Some times we do a great job and other times we get need to get back on track. But each step of the way, Judaism can serve as a guide as we work to create the best world we can.

*By the way- I love that both yoga and Judaism are practices, that means I'm not expected to get it right, everytime.