Theory and Practice

There are some theories that are always constant in practice.  My mind goes back to school day Maths and Pythagoras - 'the square  of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides' is the one that springs immediately to mind.  There are other theories about the sum of angles in a triangle or square or the many Algebraic formulas that I have long since forgotten since I stopped needing to use them.  To balance out our thoughts of maths with the arts, in music a semibreve is always worth two minims and there are always four semiquavers to a crotchet.  And so we could go on citing theories that will always give the same results.

   

The particular timetable in question

There are however many occasions when the theory doesn't always correspond to the working out in practice.  Last week I visited a friend's house and had worked out the time of my bus to get me back to the centre of town.  Those living in larger towns and cities need to realise that here in the country towns of the south west the bus service is not so frequent.  They are often less frequent than one an hour and the last bus I could get from my friend's house back into town was at 4.30 in the afternoon.  I left in good time, or so I thought but after having stood at the bus stop for about 20 minutes I realised that it had been earlier than scheduled and decided I'd better set out and walk the 35 minutes in to the centre of town to get the bus that would take me home.  Fortunately the last bus from town to my home was around 6.30 pm.   I'm sure that those who depend on public transport will have at some time faced the problem of the theory of timetables not matching up to their working out in practice!  In fact it is so hitty missy that you need to take that into account when planning a journey.

I remember when I first went to live in Argentina.  I had been married to my Argentinian husband for only 6 months and was so keen to make a good impression when meeting his family for the first time.  I had read books and done all the exercises to learn the Spanish language. I had learnt the rules of grammar and correct pronunciation (or so I thought).  I was all ready - in theory.  That is until I arrived and couldn't understand a word anyone said!   To complicate things a bit I was often told that what I said was Spanish but in South America some words and pronunciation were a little different.  The theory was all in my head.  I knew how to conjugate the verbs correctly and make the adjectives agree with the nouns whether they were masculine or feminine, singular or plural but the theory on its own was not enough.  I lacked the practice.  Anyone who has studied languages at school will appreciate the difference between learning a language for a written exam and actually having to speak to an examiner in the oral exam. 

There are many who know the theory (or theology) of their religion but somehow the practice of it doesn't seem to match up.  There really is no point in being able to quote chapter and verse unless we actually put it into practice.  People feel the need to keep reading and learning and explaining the theory and when we understand the explanation we feel that now we've got it.  But actually it's the working out in the practicalities of daily living that matters.  It's no use knowing the bus timetable by heart when the bus doesn't stick to the timetable.  It's no use knowing how to conjugate a verb correctly if we don't pronounce it right.  And it's no use knowing the sacred text inside out if our living doesn't match up to what we read and learn in theory.  The theory is ok but no use without the working out in practice.  Or as the New Testament book of James puts it - faith without works is dead!