Failing to Learn, or Learning to Fail? Accounting for

Qual Sociol DOI 10.1007/s11133-017-9361-z

Failing to Learn, or Learning to Fail? Accounting for Persistence in the Acquisition of Spiritual Disciplines Erin F. Johnston 1

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017

Abstract Failures abound in religious and spiritual life: Religious prophecies can fail to come to fruition, prayers sometimes go unanswered, and adherents are often unable to feel God’s presence. Experiences of perceived failure and personal shortcoming — especially when frequent or salient — can erode religious commitment. How then can we account for individuals’ persistence in the face of these experiences? Drawing on fieldwork in two organizations dedicated to the transmission of personal spiritual disciplines — an Integral Yoga studio and a Catholic prayer house — I find that texts and teachers at both sites promote a similar interpretive style related to experiences of shortcoming, one which translates perceived failures into constitutive features of practice. In doing so, this authoritative discourse normalizes, universalizes, and even valorizes the most common sources of frustration and anxiety for practitioners. More, I find that this interpretive style is tied to both identity and progress: The enactment of these sociallysanctioned scripts becomes a way to project oneself and to identify others as committed and authentic practitioners. More broadly, this research draws attention to the ubiquity of failure in cultural systems, and to the challenges posed by these events. Drawing on insights from social psychology and cultural sociology, it reveals the importance of organizations, social interaction, and meaning-making in accounting for persistence. Keywords Failure . Persistence . Practice . Discourse . Attributions . Religion . Identity Failures abound in religious and spiritual life: prayers sometimes go unanswered (Sharp 2013; Smilde 2007), religious prophecies may fail to come to fruition (Festinger et al. 2008), and adherents are often unable to feel a sense of God’s presence (Engelke 2007; Luhrmann 2012). Likewise, feelings of personal shortcoming can occur across the religious Bcareer^ (Tavory and Winchester 2012); novices may find it difficult to accept new beliefs or to implement new religious practices (Galonnier and de los Rios 2015), while even the most experienced adherents regularly fail to live up to the moral and ethical standards set by their community * Erin F. Johnston [email protected]

1

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Qual Sociol

(Johnston 2016). Experiences of perceived failure and personal shortcoming—especially when frequent or salient—represent a problem for individuals and for communities. When our prayers are unfulfilled or when we fail to feel God’s presence, we can lose faith in the efficacy of religious practice or begin to doubt the existence of God. When events in the world contradict our beliefs and expectations, we may question the validity of our religious convictions. Failures therefore have the potential to poke holes in the Bsacred canopy^ (Berger 1967), or universe of meaning, provided by religious communities. These holes in turn can start to erode religious commitment. During the course of fieldwork and interviews in two religious communities—an Integral Yoga studio and a Catholic prayer house—I found that feelings of failure and shortcoming were frequent and salient experiences in the lives of practitioners. At these sites, individuals struggled to implement a disciplined, daily practice of either Hatha Yoga or Centering Prayer,1 respectively. Many of the individuals I spoke with were disappointed by the slow pace and small scale of the positive changes they observed as a result of their efforts. Others felt frustrated by the experience of practice itself. Irene,2 for example, a 57-year old practitioner of Centering Prayer, told me her experience with the practice is generally one of Bconstant struggle.^ Despite eight years of dedicated and disciplined effort, she regularly finds herself engaged in thoughts and must continuously Breturn^ to a focus on God’s presence. While Irene occasionally experiences a sense of peace or of connection with God during the practice, typically she is lucky to have one minute during a 20-minute session where this feeling is predominant. And Irene was not alone; feelings of failure and shortcoming seemed to be a defining feature of the lived experience and social organization of practice in these communities. While we might expect practitioners like Irene to give up or drop out, many of the individuals I met in the course of my fieldwork have maintained personal spiritual practices for years or even decades. These individuals emphasize their commitment to the practice despite regular feelings of shortcoming, anxiety over their performance and progress, and an inability to clearly identify very many tangible benefits. Why and how do practitioners like Irene remain committed in the face of these experiences? How, if at all, do the communities and organizations in which they participate help promote persistence? Integrating insights from social psychological studies of persistence with existing work on failure in religious communities (Abramson et al. 1978; Festinger et al. 2008; Luhrmann 2012; Sharp 2013; Smilde 2007; Tavory and Winchester 2012; Weiner 1985), I argue that interpretation and interaction are key to practitioners’ continued engagement. Drawing on ethnographic research in two practice-oriented religious communities—the Integral Yoga Institute and Trinity Prayer House—I show how texts and teachers at these sites promote a similar interpretive style related to experiences of shortcoming, one that translates perceived failures into constitutive features of practice. In doing so, this discourse normalizes, universalizes, and even valorizes the most common sources of frustration and anxiety for practitioners. These communities offer more than just post-hoc justifications for discrete instances of failure (Sharp 2013); they help to reinforce commitment by anticipating and incorporating failure, challenges, and obstacles into an authoritative vision of spiritual formation. Moreover, I find that this discourse is used to perform identity work: Understanding and enacting the socially sanctioned approach towards experiences of failure comes to define and mark authentic spiritual personhood. The association between discourses of failure and morally salient, aspired-to identities 1 2

A form of silent prayer similar to mindfulness meditation. All individual names are pseudonyms.

Qual Sociol

constitutes a relatively subtle but powerful mechanism in garnering commitment to the practice and the community. This research suggests that discourses of failure are part of the Bsecond order beliefs^ (Smilde 2007)—beliefs about belief and practice—transmitted in religious communities, and highlights the importance of the discursive in studies of social practice (Vaisey and Frye n.d.). More broadly, it draws attention to the ubiquity of failure in cultural systems, and to the challenges posed by these events. Religious communities are not the only arenas of social life in which failures are frequent and salient experiences, nor are they the only communities that develop collective strategies for dealing with them. Indeed, any Bsuccessful meaning system, whether religious, political, or scientific, usually has interpretive tools for coping with setbacks, for making sense of failure^ (Smilde 2007, 136). In the discussion, I consider the broader implications of my findings and suggest directions for future research on failure across a variety of social contexts.

The Inevitability of Failure in Cultural Systems Cultural systems articulate a vision of the social world and of the Bgood life^ that helps orient and give meaning to individual lives. They also provide strategies of action, practices, and projects that are said to be effective means for achieving socially desirable ends. However, in conceptualizing the world, these systems also open themselves to potential failures. Writing more than a half-century ago, Mary Douglas (1966, 48) argued that all cultural systems Bmust confront events which seem to defy its assumptions.^ In other words, reality often violates our socially-informed expectations. Anomalies, ambiguity, and disconfirming evidence can threaten the coherence and validity of the systems of classification, ritual practice, and ideologies that structure social life (Berger 1967; Glaeser 2011; Smilde 2007). Cultural systems cannot ignore these threats, Bexcept at risk of forfeiting confidence^ (Douglas 1966, 48). Somehow, the system must find ways to guard against or counteract potential threats to its validity. This work suggests that failure is a ubiquitous and potentially threatening feature of social and cultural life. It also highlights the importance of investigating how cultural systems deal with threats in order to better understand individual commitment and persistence. Few studies, however, have taken up this task. For example, while theoretical work suggests that failure and shortcoming are common features of social practice (Bourdieu 1977; MacIntyre 1981), empirical accounts tend to portray the process of apprenticeship as well as the connection between practice and disposition in terms of either stable embodiment or successful progressive attainment (Becker 1953; Benzecry 2009; Foster 2015; Mahmood 2001; Sudnow 1978; Wacquant 2004). These studies provide evidence that failures and setbacks are common experiences in the lives of practitioners across a variety of social contexts; however, most fail to devote explicit attention to how these experiences are dealt with and overcome. Given this, the means and mechanisms through which practitioners remain committed in the face of failure and shortcoming remain undertheorized. This article focuses on failures and shortcomings in the realm of religious practice. Drawing on existing theoretical work, I proceed from the assumption that, in order to sustain confidence and commitment, religious communities must develop provisions for dealing with ambiguity (Douglas 1966), for circumventing disconfirming evidence (Glaeser 2011), and for making sense of failed projects and practices (Luhrmann 2012; Smilde 2007). But how? Integrating insights from social psychology and cultural sociology, this article emphasizes the role of

Qual Sociol

interpretation and interaction in how cultural systems—and the individuals within them— confront and deal with the inevitability of failure.3

Interpretation and Persistence Attribution theory (Abramson et al. 1978; Heider 1958; Weiner 1985) argues that how people understand the cause of failure has a significant impact on the likelihood of persistence (or drop-out). From this perspective, it is not the objective cause of failure that determines subsequent behavior but rather the individual’s interpretation of failure (Heider 1958). Posthoc accounts can Bcloud or even reverse the message of failure^ and Bprovide a crucial bridge from failure to renewed hope^ (Polivy and Herman 2002, 681). A recent study of failed petitionary prayer—prayers that ask God to perform specific actions—finds support for this approach. In his interviews with victims of intimate partner violence, Sharp (2013, 2) finds that individuals’ prayers to God often went unanswered. In making sense of these experiences, interviewees deployed God-serving justifications, or Battributions for God’s perceived, unanticipated, or problematic behavior that define this behavior as appropriate for the situation and thus portray God in a positive manner^ (4). In some cases, individuals argued that the failure was in fact part of God’s plan; therefore, whatever the outcome, it must, ultimately, be in their best interest (e.g. the Baffirmation of benefits^ justification). In other cases, individuals blamed themselves for failed requests, suggesting that their prayers must have been insincere, or that they simply failed to understand, see, or hear God’s response (e.g. Bdenial of the pray-er^ justifications). Sharp argues that these post-hoc accounts function as Bcognitive ‘sacred needles, thread, and patches’ that repair the damage done to sacred canopies, preserving the power and plausibility of the sacred nomos^ (2013, 12) in the face of failed practice. Sharp’s study, like much of the existing research on attributions, focuses on the individuallevel of analysis, revealing the supposedly Bidiosyncratic theories, rationales and explanations^ used by adherents to make sense of failures (Sharp 2013, 2). However, recent work suggests that individuals’ attributional tendencies are shaped by the social and cultural contexts in which they are situated and can be modified through explicit instruction (Choi et al. 1999; Haynes et al. 2011). Existing work on failure in religious contexts supports these findings, demonstrating the important role played by religious leaders and communities in shaping practitioners’ interpretations, justifications, and responses to failure. Tavory and Winchester (2012), for example, found that the failure to feel a sense of God’s presence in practice was marked as an important Bproblem^ and usually attributed to Blazy practice.^ In both of the communities they studied—newly religious Orthodox Jews and converted Muslims—religious leaders shelled out Bconstant warnings and reprimands^ (2012, 363) about messy or lazy prayer, and offered practical suggestions for how to Bre-enchant^ religious life (by, for example, practicing more frequently or adding in new practices). This and other studies (see also Luhrmann 2012; Smilde 2007) reveal how obstacles and challenges faced in the course of religious practice are interpreted and addressed in institutionalized ways. In doing so, they

3

Provisions for dealing with failure can be practical as well as interpretive. Tavory and Winchester (2012), for example, find that religious leaders often suggest modifications to practice—increasing the frequency, or adding new forms of practice—in response to experiential failures. The focus on interpretive responses in this article reflects the findings at my specific field sites. Future work should consider when, where, and why communities emphasize different kinds of solutions to the various forms of failure they encounter.

Qual Sociol

highlight organizations, institutions, and communities of practice as important sources for authoritative interpretations of and responses to both failure and success.4 This article extends on this line of research in several ways. First, I take the organization as the primary unit of analysis, and seek to elucidate the Bofficial discourse^ relating to failure and shortcoming that circulates in these communities. Second, I focus on broader discourses of failure, success, and persistence beyond the narrow attributional dichotomies and post-hoc justifications that tend to occupy existing research (Sharp 2013; Weiner 1985). My data suggest that meaning making around failure (and success) involves more than causal arguments about why these experiences occur. Shared frameworks also serve to define what counts as success versus failure, and to both evaluate (is failure a bad thing or a badge of honor?) and contextualize (is failure common or uncommon?) these experiences. I find that these communities promote a vision of apprenticeship that anticipates failure, redefining challenges and obstacles as constitutive features of spiritual formation. In doing so, this discourse serves to reorient practitioners’ expectations regarding the form and consequences of Bgood^ practice. Drawing on rich ethnographic and interview data, this article also illuminates the dialogic and communicative interactions through which the cyclical and recursive nature of practice, failure, interpretation, and persistence occurs. Finally, my research suggests that interpretive styles related to failure may become tied to membership, identity, and authenticity. I find that enacting the community’s approach to failure and shortcoming serves as a sign of membership and an indicator of spiritual development in these communities. Interpretations of failure then not only perform Bcorrective face-work^ (Vaisey and Frye, n.d.) or help motivate persistence, but are also an important means through which practitioners enact their identity as spiritual persons. This finding builds on existing work that views talk as a social practice in and through which we both construct and convey our membership in particular social groups (Lave and Wenger 1991; Somers 1994; Wuthnow 2011). More than this, however, the association between discourses of failure and morally salient, aspired-to identities increases the likelihood that adherents will strive to not only enact but to fully internalize these scripts.

Settings and Methods The findings outlined below come from a larger ethnographic study examining the process of spiritual formation in two communities of practice: a yoga studio and a Catholic spiritual center. Located just 35 miles apart, Trinity Prayer House (Trinity) and the Integral Yoga Institute (IYI) are both situated in suburban contexts within commuting distance of New York City. Despite being rooted in very different religious traditions (Catholicism and Hinduism, respectively), both organizations aim to facilitate the spiritual formation of their members through the transmission of disciplined spiritual practices. Trinity Prayer House, run by a Sister of Saint Joseph (Sister Nancy) and partially funded by the local diocese, teaches a contemplative approach to religious life. Many of the classes, workshops, and retreats offered at Trinity engage the practice of Centering Prayer, a form of silent prayer in which the individual sits comfortably in a chair or on the floor with his eyes 4

Studies of apprenticeship in secular contexts provide additional evidence for the importance of interpretation and interaction in promoting persistence in the face of perceived failures (Becker 1953; Foster 2015; Vaccaro et al. 2011; Wacquant 2004).

Qual Sociol

closed for a period of at least 20 minutes. The practitioner is encouraged to focus on BGod’s presence and action within in,^ and, like mindfulness practices, to simply watch his thoughts and feelings but not become engaged in them. The goal of this practice is Ba transformation of consciousness, perception and attention,^ leading, ultimately, to divine union and BChristconsciousness.^5 Sister Nancy was certified to teach classes on Centering Prayer by Contemplative Outreach,6 and she regularly used materials, books, and DVDs distributed by the organization in doing so. I regularly attended several monthly prayer groups over a 15month period,7 and participated in a range of one-day workshops on a variety of topics, including the Introduction to Centering Prayer class on four occasions. The cost of programs offered at Trinity ranged from as little as $10 for a one-time workshop to upwards of $250 for a year-long series. Attendance varied from as few as five to as many as forty participants. In the programs I attended, participants were almost entirely white. I observed only a handful of racial and ethnic minorities during the course of my fieldwork. The majority of attendees were well-educated and were employed (or formerly employed) in professional jobs such as teachers or nurses. The overwhelming majority were women, and most appeared between 40 and 70 years of age. The Integral Yoga Institute (IYI) is affiliated with the broader Integral Yoga tradition, founded by Sri Swami Satchidananda.8 The Institute, directed by a disciple of Satchidananda (Aadesh), offers classes and training programs in many aspects of yogic practice and theory. Hatha Yoga classes however are the most common, with two to four classes offered each day, seven days a week. A typical Hatha class includes call-and-response chanting in Sanskrit, a series of asanas (physical postures), a deep relaxation called yoga nidra (yogic sleep), pranayama (breathing practices), mantra japa (mantra repetition), and a period of silent meditation.9 More explicitly spiritual than the average yoga studio in the US, the goal of Integral Yoga is BSelf-Realization^ through the cultivation of BCosmic Consciousness.^10 My fieldwork at the IYI included attendance at a range of classes and workshops, as well as participant observation in the 200-hour yoga teacher training program held between May and August 2012. A monthly membership at the IYI cost $60–$70 per month at the time of my fieldwork. A single class or workshop ranged between $10 and $25. Attendance at classes and workshops varied widely from as few as two to as many as thirty students per class. Class participants were predominantly white (approximately two-thirds), with the majority of remaining participants appearing to be of South Asian (and some of East Asian) descent. As was the case at Trinity, the gender composition was disproportionately female: Women comprised approximately three-quarters of participants in any given class. Most attendees appeared to be between 30 and 60 years of age. I conducted fieldwork at these sites between January 2012 and May 2014. Rather than attending classes at the two organizations simultaneously, I spent 12–15 months focused on each organization in turn. I attended more than 200 hour of formal classes and training programs 5

Pamphlet on Centering Prayer, distributed by Contemplative Outreach, and handed out to participants at an BIntroduction to Centering Prayer^ workshop at Trinity Prayer House. 6 http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/ 7 Prayer groups met once per month, for two to six hours per meeting, between September and May each year. Participants registered and paid ($50–200) for the entire year, making attendance relatively stable across sessions. Each meeting involved at least one period of collective Centering Prayer practice. 8 http://integralyoga.org/ 9 See Satchidananda 1970 for complete overview of the Integral Yoga Hatha practice. 10 http://swamisatchidananda.org/aim-spiritual-practice/

Qual Sociol

at each site, in addition to observing informal interactions between practitioners both on and offsite. I was an active participant in all of the classes I attended. I practiced alongside others, read the assigned material, completed and submitted written assignments, and participated in collective discussions. During the yoga teacher training program, I was given permission to audio-record class meetings, resulting in more than 80 hours of recorded interaction. In all other cases, I took notes during classes, whenever possible, and wrote more detailed field notes immediately following my time in the field. During this time, I also conducted in-depth interviews with 60 teachers and students: 35 Centering Prayer and 25 Integral Yoga practitioners.11 Interviews were open-ended—seeking to elicit stories and narratives—but clearly structured around several key themes. I asked practitioners about their religious and spiritual backgrounds, how they first came to the practice and organization, as well as how their practice had developed over time. The shortest interview was 45-minutes and the longest more than two hours. All interviews were recorded and subsequently transcribed. Finally, as both forms of practice are ideally performed as part of a daily, personal routine, I also attempted to maintain each practice on a daily basis for a period of at least one month, and recorded extensive notes on my experiences and reflections during this time. This firsthand experience proved invaluable, allowing me to understand the kinds of challenges and obstacles faced by practitioners at both sites. The insights I gained in this process influenced the kinds of questions I asked during interviews and fieldwork, and shaped my analysis and interpretation of practitioners’ accounts. My approach to data collection and analysis was similar to what Tavory and Timmermans (2014) have recently termed abductive analysis. I entered the field with an explicit interest in the nexus between practice, identity, and experience. My focus on failure and shortcoming emerged out of my initial observations. Through fieldwork and interviews, it became increasingly apparent that feelings of shortcoming were an important feature of both the lived experience and social organization of apprenticeship in these communities. During and after data collection, I wrote a series of analytic memos (Glaser and Strauss 1967) describing emerging ideas and themes related to these experiences. I then used ATLAS.ti to review and code field notes, texts, and interview transcripts, focusing on when and how teachers, texts, and practitioners discussed these experiences. In focusing my analysis on failures, I do not mean to suggest that these individuals never experienced success. Practitioners regularly recounted evidence of progress in their physical ability (in yoga) or the extent to which their minds remained calm during practice (in Centering Prayer). Others reported feeling more at peace and less reactive in the course of their everyday lives since they began practicing regularly. These experiences of progress are important mechanisms underlying persistence in spiritual disciplines, without which many people would likely drop-out. For most individuals, practice ebbs and flows over time; dry spells alternate with periods of successful practice and progress. However, I focus primarily on experiences of failure and shortcoming in this article for two reasons. First, occasions of failure and shortcoming were far more salient in practitioners’ experience. I found that practitioners felt themselves to be perpetually falling short, regardless of any small forms of progress they might have 11

Eight of the yoga interviewees were participants in the 200-hour teacher training program at which I conducted participant observation. I interviewed these individuals on three occasions: before the training began, immediately post-training, and again one year later. By doing so, I was able to examine how their experiences and interpretations shifted over time.

Qual Sociol

experienced. Descriptions of success were almost always immediately followed by acknowledgements of how far they remained from their goals (see Johnston 2016). Second, my research suggests that challenges and obstacles prompt reflexivity and self-evaluation. In response, teachers and students tend to resort to the discursive level in order to Bmake sense^ of these experiences. Occasions of failure then are particularly revealing, because Bit is precisely in the moments of failure that some of the most active cultural work takes place^ (Smilde 2007, 135).

Findings I found that failures, challenges, and obstacles were frequent and salient experiences in both communities. Moreover, I found that the sources of and responses to failure were strikingly similar across the two communities. Given this, I do not divide the results and analysis by field site. Instead, I outline the key findings by drawing on evidence form both organizations throughout.

Failure in Practice People often come to religious and spiritual practices with assumptions and expectations about how practice works: what it is, what it should look like, and what it can do. These beliefs can and often do become the desired or even expected outcomes among adherents. Beyond articulating the nature and consequences of practice, these assumptions open up space for perceived failures, i.e. occasions when practices do not look or work as expected. Through fieldwork and interviews, I found that practitioners tended to describe a sense of failure or shortcoming in three key areas, each related to unmet expectations regarding the nature and consequences of practice. First, many practitioners articulated a sense of failure in relation to the performance or subjective experience of the practice itself. Most felt they had experienced Bbad^ sessions of practice and found these occasions discouraging. In Centering Prayer, these sessions were usually marked by an inability to empty the mind (lots of thoughts) or by falling asleep during practice. As the example of Irene at the opening of this article demonstrates, even seasoned practitioners struggled with these kinds of experiences. At the yoga studio, practitioners worried about their physical ability to perform various asanas (postures). Many came to advanced trainings and workshops with the desire to improve their physical performance, by overcoming current obstacles or by learning more advanced positions. On the first day of the teacher training program, for example, Julia told the group that one of her goals for the program was to become more comfortable in her Bbow pose,^ a posture she always struggled with. Another participant, Prachi, told me in the pre-training interview that she was concerned about her physical ability, and worried that her practice was Bnot good enough^ to complete the training. At both sites, participants also expressed concerns regarding the experiential content of practice. Novices assumed they should experience a sense of peace, of connection to God, or of transcendence during practice sessions, and were then frustrated when they (regularly) failed to achieve these states. Their disappointment and frustration were driven, at least in part, by an underlying assumption that particular kinds of experiences and performances marked Bcorrect^ or Bideal^ forms of practice. Newcomers felt that experiential failures reflected not only a lack of competency but a lack of spiritual progress as well, making shortcoming in these areas even more salient.

Qual Sociol

Second, practitioners regularly reported feelings of perceived shortcomings in their attempts to take the practice Boff the mat^ (or Bout of the chair^). In both communities, disciplined practice is thought to transform the individual’s dispositions and habits, ultimately moving them towards BEnlightenment^ (at the yoga studio) or BChrist-consciousness^ (at the prayer house). In other words, practitioners come to these communities with the expectation that disciplined practice would facilitate self-improvement and personal growth in a variety of tangible ways. The yoga practitioners I spoke with, for example, came to the studio with the assumption that regular practice would make them happier and less anxious as well as better able to handle the petty annoyances of daily life. However, the practices often fail to bring about the expected consequences. Donna, a 55-year old practitioner of Centering Prayer, for example, expressed a strong desire to overcome her personal faults and become more BChrist-like^ in her everyday life. However, after three years of regular practice, she was frustrated by the lack of progress. She told me: BI don’t really notice that [Centering Prayer] makes a difference.^ I found that practitioners at both sites felt they regularly failed to live up to the standards of excellence set by the community, despite believing that the practice ought to help them embody these ideals. While effort and hard work can be justified by tangible returns, practitioners often became frustrated when they did not think practice was effecting meaningful change. Lastly, practitioners expressed concern over periods of perceived stagnation or even regression in the course of their spiritual formation. Many participants, especially novices, believed that apprenticeship should follow a pattern of progressive attainment, one marked by continual improvements over time in both of the areas outlined above. However, spiritual development was rarely straightforward. Setbacks and challenges were frequent experiences, even for the most advanced practitioners. Mary, a Centering Prayer practitioner, for example, told me she was in the midst of a prolonged period of Bdryness,^ in which she failed to feel God’s presence during practice. Mary felt like she was Bhitting a wall^ and was concerned about what these dry spells meant to her spiritual development. At both sites, practitioners worried about these experiences, in part, because they came to the community with assumptions regarding how spiritual formation ought to unfold. Together, these experiences—in addition to the struggle to Bbe disciplined^ in their daily practice—represent the most common sources of frustration and anxiety for practitioners at both sites. Through fieldwork and interviews, I found that newcomers often attributed failures in these areas to either personal ability or to the efficacy of the practice itself. On the one hand, failures were interpreted as evidence that the individual was Bjust not cut out^ for the practice; some, for example, felt their minds were simply Btoo active,^ while others felt they were not disciplined enough to implement a daily practice. On the other hand, failures in experience and embodiment were often interpreted as indicators that the practice Bdidn’t work^: It was simply not an effective means for connecting with God or spurring spiritual development. In both cases, newcomers’ interpretations reflect the kinds of non-malleable attributions that are more likely to lead to exit rather than persistence (Weiner 1985). However, I found that teachers and texts in these communities promoted a very different interpretive style in relation to these experiences.

The Official Discourse

When you try to pray contemplatively…all the distractions in the world are there. Sometimes I say to myself, BI called that prayer? What on earth was I doing?^ But, I've come to accept the fact that, that's normal. I'm not looking for an experience, you

Qual Sociol

know? Some people…want to have a certain kind of experience…they want to feel peaceful…calm…but we have no control over that. I think the important thing is just to keep on doing it […] So the distractions teach me things like, BWhat are my abiding preoccupations?^ and BWhat do I allow myself to get taken up with?^ Sometimes I feel like a rat running a maze, you know? The rat goes down, following it to one end, and Boh, there's nothing there,^ and goes back and runs down another one and then follows another. But, that's just the way it is. – Jane, Centering Prayer practitioner Jane’s reflections on the practice of Centering Prayer illustrate several key components of the official discourse regarding failures and shortcoming circulating in these communities. I found that texts and teachers (1) redefine what counts as success and failure; (2) normalize and universalize experiences of shortcoming, stagnation, and regression; and (3) valorize common obstacles and challenges faced in the process of apprenticeship.

(Re)Defining Success and Failure First, teachers and texts in both communities sought to re-define what marks Bsuccess^ and Bfailure,^ including Bgood^ and Bbad^ sessions of practice. As noted above, novices often entered these communities with the assumption that Bgood^ sessions of practice were marked by certain kinds of experiences and performances. At a minimum, successful sessions of practice were thought to be marked by a peaceful (or Bempty^) mind in Centering Prayer or by competent physical performance in Hatha Yoga. Moreover, it was assumed that the ideal practice sessions were also Bspiritual experiences^—being characterized by a feeling of deep connection with God (at Trinity) or transcendence (in yogic language). These forms of experience were not only desirable, but were interpreted by many practitioners as indicators of spiritual development. In practice, however, participants rarely achieve these states. For some, this discrepancy—between their experience and what they understood to be the ideal— was a primary motivation for seeking out these organizations. In both communities, teachers and texts offered a very different way of defining success and failure. At both sites, authoritative sources argue that both the experiential content and physical performance of practice are irrelevant; neither, it was suggested, in any way indicates progress or signals efficacy. I found that participants learn—through interaction with teachers, texts, and their peers—that neither a blank mind nor the perfect asana should be the goal of practice. Likewise, while transcendent experiences are considered possible, practitioners were told they should not be expected or explicitly sought after. As Jane’s comment above illustrates, practitioners are told that they should not be Blooking for an experience.^ Instead, practitioners are told that Bthe important thing is to just keep doing it.^ At Trinity, this perspective was most clearly conveyed during periods of sharing and reflection that usually followed collective sessions of Centering Prayer. During these interactions, Sister Nancy modeled the Bcorrect^ approach to interpreting one’s experience and actively guided practitioners’ reflections. At an introductory workshop on Centering Prayer in January 2013, for example, Sister Nancy asked participants to Btry out^ the practice. Since most were new to Centering Prayer, she set the timer for just five minutes (rather than the typical twenty-minute session). Afterward, she began the collective discussion by noting: BFor some people that period felt very fast but for others it probably felt interminable. The next time around, it might be the opposite. The good news is: You can’t do Centering Prayer right and

Qual Sociol

you can’t do it wrong.^ Sister Nancy then encouraged participants to share their experiences with the group. In the conversation that followed, participants described highly divergent experiences. Sandy, for example, told the group that she felt a profound sense of peace. Mary, on the other hand, said she found it difficult to stay focused, and caught herself thinking about all of the things she needed to do later that day. Michael found himself starting to doze off in the middle of the session. Sister Nancy affirmed each person’s experience in turn, indicating implicitly that none of the experiences described were Bwrong^ or Bbad.^ Just as importantly however, no experience—not even Sandy’s—was defined as better than any other. While Sister Nancy acknowledged that feelings of peace and tranquility can occur, she also explained that practitioners should not actively seek these experiences. Through these exchanges, participants are taught that the content of their experience does not matter: Although they should not ignore it (in fact, collective sharing forced participants to attend closely to their experiences), they should not be concerned about it. In her responses, Sister Nancy suggested that the practice is still working— moving the person in the direction of spiritual growth—even if the practitioner does not experience a particular subjective state, such as a sense of well being or peace, during the session. Instead, Sister Nancy encourages these newcomers to Bjust do it.^ At the IYI, novices often expressed concern about their physical ability. As in Centering Prayer however, authoritative sources argued that physical ability and performance were inconsequential for the efficacy of practice and therefore to the spiritual advancement of practitioners. This was communicated to students in a variety of ways. The requirements for entry into and completion of the teacher training (TT) program, for example, as well as the content of the training itself, made it clear that physical performance was not the primary focus of practice. While participants were required to have some experience with Hatha Yoga to join the training, there was no test of physical competency required for either entry or for certification as an instructor. The content of the program also clearly indicated the irrelevance of physical ability. I was surprised—as were many other students based on informal conversations—by how little time we spent doing the physical practice of yoga during the training. Significantly more time was dedicated, for example, to the review and discussion of yogic philosophy than to the performance of postures. These aspects of the program communicated to aspiring instructors that technical ability was not a defining feature of what it meant to be a good teacher (or an advanced practitioner). Physical performance was also downplayed in the course of Hatha Yoga classes. This was particularly salient during the Bshivasana spiel,^ a segment of verbal instruction given during the first shivasana (or corpse pose), approximately 15 minutes into class. Although there is some flexibility regarding what teachers say during Bthe spiel,^ there are certain key elements, outlined in the teacher training manual,12 that should be included. The manual suggests that this posture is a Bgood time to give information^ and Brecommendations^ to students including, the imperative to Bapproach the class as a meditation^ and to Bpractice without competition or expectation.^ Students are told, for example, not to Bworry about what [they’ve] seen in a yoga competition or in a book or even in your own practice. Every day is different. Don’t be in competition even with yourself.^ The spiel is intended to discourage students from 12

Hatha yoga classes at the IYI follow a fairly rigid pattern or structure, with each component of the course clearly outlined in the Bteacher training manual^: a three-inch binder containing several hundred pages of information. For each component, the manual includes a general description, information on benefits, a list of acceptable modifications, and a script for how to instruct the pose.

Qual Sociol

focusing on or becoming anxious about their physical performance and ability. Instead, it prioritizes the individual’s approach towards practice, encouraging students to make Bthe whole practice a moving meditation.^ In each of these ways, teachers and texts communicated information regarding the shared standards of excellence for assessing performance and progress. At both sites, success is not defined by either the physical performance or the experiential content of practice; instead, both performance and experience were defined as irrelevant to the project of spiritual formation (the true goal of practice). While novice practitioners are often anxious about these aspects of practice, they learn—through interaction with teachers, texts, and peers—that these concerns reflect an incorrect (and immature) understanding. By decoupling practical efficacy and personal progress from performance, the official discourse circulating in these communities promotes persistence in the face of seemingly negative experiences.

Normalizing Challenges and Obstacles Second, teachers and texts attempted to (re)set expectations regarding the content, structure, and speed of spiritual formation. As noted above, students often entered these communities with pre-existing assumptions about the nature of apprenticeship. It was assumed that effort would be rewarded with tangible forms of progress, even if only incremental. However, this was not always—or even usually—the case. Practitioners, like Jane, often felt more Blike a rat running a maze;^ they regularly faced obstacles and challenges as well as periods stagnation and even regression. As Jane’s comment above illustrates, however, practitioners were encouraged to view these experiences as Bjust the way it is.^ I found that students at both sites were taught to expect challenges and to interpret these experiences as constitutive of the process of formation. Early in the yoga teacher training program for example we were discussing The Yoga Sutras, a foundational text of yogic philosophy and practice. Ron described the text as Bscientific^ in its approach to describing the process of self-transformation through yoga. The text, he said, Btells us in a very scientific way^ that as you work towards the goal of Enlightenment, Bthings are going to happen. There are going to be obstacles in your way.^ However, he continued, we should not be discouraged by these experiences. Instead, we should Bsimply note that this is what is going to happen and that this is something you’ve got to work through.^ Picking up on the same theme, Aadesh told us: BThere is no magic carpet to Enlightenment.^ In doing so, both he and Ron attempt to (re)set expectations for apprenticeship, depicting it as a long and arduous journey. Struggles and obstacles are described as definitive features of formation. At Trinity, Sister Nancy also taught practitioners to expect obstacles and challenges. In talking about the practice of Centering Prayer, for example, Sister Nancy would often refer to the human brain as the Bmonkey mind,^ repeatedly reminding students: BThe lungs breathe, the heart beats, the mind thinks.^ In other words, having thoughts during prayer was a normal, expected, and universal experience for both novice and advanced practitioners alike. By deploying this analogy, Sister Nancy encouraged practitioners to view a busy mind as an inevitable part of practice. This interpretation was supported by the stories and reflections of fellow practitioners. Susan, a middle-aged woman who was relatively new to the practice, for example, told me that the conversations she has during small group breakouts at Trinity are particularly helpful in sustaining her motivation and commitment to practice. She is comforted by the knowledge that other people face the same challenges. BEven the most expert in

Qual Sociol

contemplative prayer,^ she told me, Bit happens to: they get very distracted, or have dry spells.^ She finds herself Blooking at all the others in the class^ and thinking: BThey've all been where I’ve been and if they can make it this far, where they've been coming six years, ten years, fifteen years … I can do it too.^ The normalcy of these experiences was also supported by texts assigned at each site. At Trinity, for example, several of the prayer groups I attended were assigned Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle. This text sets clear expectations for challenge and stagnation as normal features of the process of spiritual formation. Teresa, who experienced long Bdry spells^— times where she did not feel a sense of God’s presence—serves as a role model and exemplar: Practitioners learn that they should continue to put in effort even when tangible signs of progress are lacking. At the yoga studio, books and lectures by Swami Satchidananda also acknowledged the centrality of these experiences to the process of apprenticeship, even for a practitioner as advanced and revered as the founder himself. In each case, apprenticeship is depicted not as a linear process of development, but rather as a winding and sometimes recursive path. These discourses then serve to redefine expectations for what practice and formation will or ought to look like.

Valorizing Failure and Shortcoming Failures and shortcomings, as well as periods of struggle or regression, were also reinterpreted as positive and beneficial experiences. These occasions, according to teachers and texts in both communities, were opportunities to practice, to grow, and to express one’s commitment to the project of spiritual formation. One day during the yoga teacher training, for example, we sat in silent meditation listening to a recorded lecture by Swami Satchidananda. In it, he discusses the benefits of these experiences explicitly. He says, BIf you understand the goal and dedicate yourself to achieving it, you won't be disheartened by failures.^ Practitioners are told that they Bneed adversity to know the truth,^ and that Bproblems help us develop our inner resources.^ They are further encouraged to Buse failures as stepping stones.^ In the discussion afterward, Aadesh explained that Bwhen seen in the right attitude,^ challenging and even painful events could actually be experienced as enjoyable. According to this perspective, experiences of failure are useful—they help the practitioner cultivate idealized spiritual dispositions. Obstacles and challenges teach practitioners humility and compassion. Periods of stagnation or regression help practitioners cultivate patience and a sense of detachment. The valorization of failures, obstacles, and periods of regression was true both within and outside of practice (e.g. in the application of practice to daily life). Within practice, the obstacles outlined above were described not only as normal but as beneficial, as well. At Trinity, for example, Sister Nancy explained that a Bbusy mind^ during practice provides the individual Bmany opportunities to return.^ The act of Breturning^—of using the sacred word to re-focus one’s attention on BGod’s presence and action within^—is an expression of one’s love and commitment to God. On several occasions, Sister Nancy used an analogy to illustrate this point. She described being engaged in a conversation with a loved one and said: BWhen you are talking to one person and you get distracted or called to by another and you tell that person, Oh no, I was talking to this person. Hold on. In that moment, you are showing your love and respect for that person by bringing yourself back^ to the conversation. In describing the act of returning in this way, Sister Nancy encouraged practitioners to adopt a positive interpretation of an experience (a busy mind) that was often considered frustrating and challenging.

Qual Sociol

Outside of practice, the struggles and challenges faced by practitioners in the course of their everyday lives were also reinterpreted as useful. From the mundane (e,g, unpleasant coworkers) to the traumatic (e.g. divorce, death), negative experiences were described as opportunities to embody and enact the dispositions adherents cultivated through practice. At the same time, failures to enact the ideal response provided the individual a window to observe and identify areas for continued improvement. Awareness of one’s faults was said to be the first step to overcoming them. As Aadesh told the teacher trainees, for example, BThat is the practice—you notice them [instances in which you fail to live up to an ethical principle], you catch them and eventually they dwindle away.^ These stories help transform seemingly negative experiences into beneficial opportunities. Failures are not only common and expected experiences but also drivers of spiritual growth and development. Challenges and obstacles are not things be avoided, but embraced.13 However, I also found that discourses which valorize failure can have unintended consequences. While these stories help mitigate the concerns of those who have experienced challenges, they may simultaneously produce anxiety in practitioners who have not faced obstacles in their practice. During one of the prayer groups at Trinity, for example, William, a participant in his mid-50s, drew the group’s attention to a passage in the book we were reading by Father Thomas Keating. In this passage, the author mentions that negative and painful thoughts often arise during Centering Prayer, and argues that these experiences are evidence that God is healing deep mental and emotional wounds during practice. William however had never had this kind of experience, and expressed concern about what this might mean for his spiritual growth. Sister Nancy responded by offering a different interpretation: BThis simply means that God is not doing that now and that maybe he never will. Maybe God wants you to be doing something else. The book is highlighting these experiences not because they always or inevitably happen but that because they sometimes do and it is better not to be alarmed by them.^ Sister Nancy affirms William’s experience—linking it to God’s will—without undermining the idea that these experiences can be and often are useful and beneficial for others. At the IYI, the potential issues underlying the valorization of failure were explicitly recognized. In this context, the instructors tried to deal with the problem preemptively by telling practitioners not to Bseek out^ challenges and obstacles in their lives or their practices. Instead, teachers suggested that these experiences would inevitably happen along the way, without the person’s intervention or intention. While the idea of purposefully seeking out obstacles may feel counter-intuitive (as it did to me at the time), this behavior becomes reasonable and even likely in a social world where these experiences are seen as an effective means towards a highly desirable goal. In valorizing failures and challenges, these communities encourage practitioners to adopt a perspective on practice very similar to that outlined by MacIntyre (1981): It is in the struggle to overcome challenges and respond to problems that practitioners gain access to the Binternal goods^ of practice. This discourse ties experiences of struggle to definitions of membership and measures of progress. Authentic and committed practitioners are distinguished by the fact that they have faced (or continue to face) these kinds of experiences. More than this however, spiritual development is tied to how practitioners interpret and respond to these kinds of experiences.

13

Other work has also found evidence of this interpretive approach to suffering and failure. Sullivan (2011, 140143), for example, uses the concept of Bredemptive suffering^ to capture an interpretive framework that depicts suffering as an opportunity for personal growth, ultimately helping to make the person more holy.

Qual Sociol

Failure and Identity The shared interpretive style, outlined above, serves as an important marker of membership and of spiritual growth in these communities. In other words, understanding, enacting, and ideally internalizing this interpretive style was considered a defining characteristic of Bspiritual persons.^ At both sites, those who failed to enact this approach were described as immature (or inauthentic) practitioners. In class discussions and popular texts, for example, practitioners who strove to achieve the perfect asana or who sought transcendent experiences during prayer were described in negative terms. These individuals were said to possess the wrong intention towards practice: They were driven primarily Bby ego-concerns^ rather than a desire for spiritual growth and self-transformation. It was expected that over time—and through immersion in a community of fellow practitioners—individuals would shift away from Begoconcerns^ and towards a focus on the true (spiritual) goals of practice. Father Thomas Keating clearly articulated this idea in the course of a recorded interview with Dr. Betty Sue Flowers.14 The interview, which group participants at Trinity watched in short segments over the course of the year, contained Keating’s reflections on the nature and process of spiritual development. In one segment, he argues: BLittle by little we enter into prayer without any intention except to consent…It has nothing to do with attaining something, or getting anything, or the desire for enlightenment, peace, or spiritual experience. Such desires are still ego, however devoutly masked.^ A lack of concern for performance and experience is part of what defines the spiritual ideal towards which practitioners aspire: Mature and advanced practitioners, according to Keating, do not worry about these features of practice. The link between intention and membership was also made at the IYI. On the Institute’s website, for example, each instructor has a picture and short biography. Unlike many other studios in the area, the teachers are not pictured practicing yoga or performing difficult postures. Instead, the viewer sees only a head shot, a choice that implicitly de-emphasizes physical performance. At the same time, several of the teacher’s biographies describe a shift in their understanding of practice— away from the physical—over time, and link this change to a process of personal maturation. One instructor, for example, writes, BWhat initiated as a fitness practice has evolved into a way of being.^ Another notes, BAlthough originally seeking yoga as a means to maintain and improve optimal physical health, she has since realized that yoga is so much more than physical postures.^ As instructors, these advanced practitioners are role models for novices and newcomers. Their online narratives demonstrate for students the correct approach to practice, translating a lack of emphasis on physical performance into evidence of one’s progress as a practitioner. Like the imperative to be a Bgood sport^ in practices such as basketball or soccer, there are collective norms regarding responses to failure underlying what it means to be Bspiritual.^ Giving up, becoming frustrated, or being self-deprecating in the face of obstacles and challenges are considered signs of spiritual immaturity.15 The advanced practitioner, it is 14

Heartfulness: Transformations in Christ, DVD set. http://www.contemplativeoutreach. org/product/heartfulness-transformation-christ-dvd-set 15 Luhrmann (2012) also found a link between failure and spiritual maturity in her study of Evangelical Christians. In that context, failed petitionary prayer was interpreted as Bpart of God’s plan to build a better relationship with the person praying^ (271). Adherents believe that God Bwants his more mature followers to turn to him for the sake of the relationship and not for his stuff […] In this developmental trajectory, God always answers your prayers specifically only if you are new to belief^ (271). The idea of Bspiritual maturity^ enables people to Breinterpret a disappointment as, in effect, a promotion^ (274). In this case, failure itself serves as a marker of spiritual advancement and maturity, rather than one’s response to failure, as is the case in the communities I studied.

Qual Sociol

argued, remains disciplined and committed to the practice regardless of these experiences, expressing a level of detachment from indicators of progress and occasions of shortcoming. The imperative to not only understand but to internalize and enact this perspective creates a context in which interpretations and responses to failure and shortcoming become spaces of potential failure themselves. It is only because of this, for example, that Irene can chastise herself for failing to not judge the experience of practice, as when she tells me, Band obviously I’m not supposed to judge Centering Prayer, but it’s discouraging to me.^ In this way, learning and enacting the community’s approach to failure becomes a project and goal of training, part of the way of being practitioners aspire to. Consequently, a collective discourse which strives on its face to relieve practitioners’ anxiety and self-doubt in relation to perceived failures actually opens up a new arena of potential shortcoming: the failure to (dis)attend, to interpret, and to respond to negative experiences in socially-sanctioned ways. These findings suggest that how individuals make sense of failure is tied to identity, membership, and progress. Accounts of failure are more than merely post-hoc justifications that restore self-esteem, they are also a means of enacting and embodying membership. Novices must learn to describe and respond to challenges as Ba yogi^ or Ba contemplative.^ Shared rhetorics represent not only new frameworks and narratives that practitioners can use to account for their experiences, but new dispositions that practitioners must cultivate in order to authentically enact their aspired-to spiritual selves. The association between discourses of failure and morally salient, aspired-to identities constitutes a relatively subtle but powerful mechanism in garnering commitment to the practice and the community.

Discussion and Conclusion When faced with failed projects and practices, individuals must decide whether to stay engaged. My research suggests that communities of practice—teachers, peers, and texts— offer adherents a set of shared interpretive tools for characterizing the problems they encounter, as well as deliberating, deciding on, and executing responses that Bfit^ with their goals and aspirations (Emirbayer and Mische 1998). These findings have implications for the analysis of commitment and persistence both within and outside the religious context. If all cultural systems inevitably face anomalies, ambiguities, and failures that threaten their validity and coherence, then successful communities—whether they be religious, political, occupational, educational, or therapeutic—must provide tools for confronting and overcoming them. My research suggests that communities may anticipate and counteract potential threats by transmitting a shared vision of individual and collective projects in which failures are both constitutive and valuable experiences. Rather than categorizing themselves as Bfailures,^ practitioners in these communities learn to view struggles and obstacles as normal, universal, and even beneficial experiences. This authoritative discourse helps justify and account for perceived failures in ways that mitigate negative self-evaluations and promote persistence. Further, this study identifies the role that shared definitions of identity, authenticity, and progress can play in facilitating the internalization of socially-sanctioned interpretive styles. By linking particular approaches to failure to identity and progress, organizations can further secure commitment to the practice and community. More broadly, this research suggests that religious communities not only transmit new beliefs and practices, but also teach adherents how to think about and imagine the process of religious formation—or of conversion—itself. Other empirical studies provide support for this

Qual Sociol

claim. In her study of evangelical Christians, for example Luhrmann (2012, 134) found that adherents were told that Bprayer requires training and discipline; that learning to pray is hard; that some people are naturally good at prayer.^ Likewise, in their study of religious education programs in two different communities, Galonnier and de los Rios (2015) found that instructors used metaphors—such as BIslam is a marathon^—to convey the idea that conversion is a long and difficult process that requires substantial effort. These meta-narratives about how spiritual growth unfolds, what role practice ought to play in the process, and how the practitioner should make sense of and respond to challenges convey a shared vision of religious life. This vision—of religious Bbecoming^ as lengthy, difficult, and rife with obstacles—serves to recalibrate members’ expectations about the nature of practice and the process of formation. It anticipates failures and provides a ready-made framework for interpreting these experiences. These Bsecond order beliefs^ (Smilde 2007) then provide the interpretive context within which expectations are (re)formed, failures are experienced, and attributions are deployed. Moreover, these shared visions articulate the ideal motivations and goals underlying sustained religious practice. In these communities, for example, practitioners were taught to de-prioritize instrumental goals and to downplay the importance of tangible rewards. While practitioners are told they can expect certain benefits—such being happier, calmer, and more at peace in their daily lives—they were also told that these outcomes should not be the primary motivation for practice. In doing so, these communities strive to create a religious ethic Bthat rises above the vicissitudes of everyday social life insofar as any given success or failure is not enough to challenge faith in it^ (Smilde 2007, 119). Practitioners are encouraged to move beyond the desire for measurable progress and concrete rewards, and to embrace the inevitability of failure. As an ethical ideal, this approach to practice becomes a defining feature of authenticity and spiritual maturity in these communities. Together, these authoritative visions of spiritual formation and of spiritual maturity help safeguard communities against failures and disappointments, and are essential to understanding the continued engagement of their members. Religious contexts are not the only arenas of social life in which failures are frequent and salient experiences. Apprentices (and experts) across a wide-range of social practices regularly work at the edge of their abilities, making experiences of failure and shortcoming common (Chase 2013; MacIntyre 1981; Wacquant 2004). In games such as chess or basketball, for example, players can expect to fail (in this case, lose a game or miss a shot) at least some of the time. Existing research suggests that the communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991) in which learning takes place matter for promoting persistence in the face of failures, errors, and personal shortcomings, providing Ba variety of socially validated excuses^ (Wacquant 2004, 79). In these contexts, shared rhetorics such as Byou win some, you lose some,^ for example, may serve as justifications and plausible accounts, encouraging players to see occasional failures as inevitable and therefore not a cause for concern. Likewise, behavioral mandates implicit in the ideal of being a Bgood sport^ encourage particular strategies of action in response to failure and tie them to identity and morality, discouraging overt displays of frustration and mitigating exit. Existing studies also provide evidence that failure may be (re)interpreted in similar ways— being normalized and even valorize—across very different social contexts. At the boxing gym, for example, Wacquant (2004, 144) finds that coaches and peers often reassure struggling newcomers that apprenticeship Btakes time,^ reassuring them that the speed and pace of their progress is normal. Vaccaro, Schrock, and McCabe (2011, 425) find that Mixed Martial Art (MMA) fighters tend to frame lost bouts as Bvaluable learning experiences.^ This framing, the

Qual Sociol

authors argue, Beased their fears and gave them enough confidence to continue.^ The normalization and valorization of obstacles, setbacks, and failures has also been identified among dancers (Wainwright and Turner 2004) and entrepreneurs (Cardon et al. 2011; Mantere et al. 2013). In the field of education, efforts to transmit Bgrit^—defined by persistence, determination, and resilience—often include attempts to modify how students interpret and respond to failures, errors, and shortcomings (Hochanadel and Finamore 2015; Duckworth 2016). In doing so, teachers and instructors draw on discourses and techniques that are strikingly similar to those outlined above.16 Future research on failure can extend these insights in a number of ways. First, while this article elucidates and analyzes the Bofficial discourse^ as it is articulated and transmitted by teachers and texts, it does not address individual variation in how practitioners navigate, understand, and engage with organizational discourses and frameworks for making sense of failure. Yet, it is clear that practitioners come to these communities with a range of different backgrounds, commitments, and identities. Variables such as gender, race, age, and profession, among others, likely affect the extent to which these discourses resonate with existing cultural repertoires as well as the likelihood that individual practitioners will take them up. Future work should consider how individuals take up (or fail to take up) these resources more explicitly. Second, more work is needed to understand whether and how the nature, interpretation, and consequences of perceived failures varies across different stages of practitioners’ Bexperiential careers^ (Tavory and Winchester 2012). On the one hand, the likelihood and frequency of failure may depend on the practitioners’ level of experience. Tavory and Winchester (2012), for example, found that Bexperiential failures^ are more common among advanced practitioners due to the Broutinization^ or habituation of practice. On the other hand, both the content and importance of interpretive tools may vary across time as well. Smilde (2007, 124-127), for example, finds that Evangelical pastors often reference the promise of concrete rewards when recruiting new members, but downplay instrumental goals in favor of Bother-worldly^ benefits when speaking with baptized converts. This suggests that organizations and religious authorities may shift their interpretive strategies depending on the audience and predominant goals of the interaction; in this case, from initiating commitment among potential converts to sustaining it among existing members. The importance of interpretive tools may also vary across time. While commitment in the early stages of conversion is particularly tenuous, failures may be less consequential in later stages as previous investments, identity commitments, small successes, and relational ties do much of the Bleg-work^ in motivating continued engagement.17 More broadly, future research should work to identify similarities and differences in how communities define, attribute, evaluate, and contextualize failures across social fields and organizational contexts.18 What forms of failure are considered relevant and irrelevant across The Stanford Resilience Project, for example, emphasizes Bthe importance of failure in the learning process^ and seeks Bto ultimately change the campus perception of failure from something to be avoided at all costs, to something essential to a meaningful education.^ [https://undergrad.stanford.edu/resilience] 17 I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. 18 While the determinants of success and failure appear less ambiguous in other contexts—boxers get knocked out, students receive an F, gardeners’ plants do not produce fruit, and quitters relapse—definitions and discourses of failure and success are often more complicated and diverse than assumed. Boxers, for example, can fail in a variety of ways outside the ring, including failing to live up to the Bprofessional ethic^ of diet, exercise and sexual abstinence (Wacquant 2004, 201), or to uphold the ethical standards of courage, mutual respect, and humility that define the ideal boxer (125). At the same time, losing a match is not always interpreted as a failure. While most studies of persistence tend to take Bfailure^ as an objective outcome, people often have a variety of ways of defining (and redefining) what Bcounts^ as success (see also Granberg 2006 on dieting). 16

Qual Sociol

different social contexts? What interpretive strategies are used to make sense of failures, errors, and shortcomings in other fields? How are these experiences evaluated, and to what extent do members embrace and internalize the interpretive style encouraged by the community? How and in what ways does failure or its interpretation change over time? Investigating these questions can reveal new insights into how cultural systems, organizations, and communities maintain commitment in the face of inevitable threats to their validity. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Robert Wuthnow, Joanne Golann, Victoria Reyes, Thomas DeGloma, Paul DiMaggio, Janet Vertesi, Maggie Frye, and Tanya Luhrmann, as well as the Editor and reviewers at Qualitative Sociology, for their invaluable feedback and suggestions on previous drafts of this manuscript. Earlier versions of this article were presented in the Religion and Public Life workshop at Princeton University, and the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (2014). This research received financial support from the Center for the Study of Religion and the Department of Sociology at Princeton University.

References Abramson, Lyn Y., Martin E. Seligman, and John D. Teasdale. 1978. Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 87 (1): 49–74. Becker, Howard S. 1953. Becoming a marihuana user. American Journal of Sociology 59 (3): 235–242. Benzecry, Claudio E. 2009. Becoming a fan: On the seductions of opera. Qualitative Sociology 32 (2): 131–151. Berger, Peter L. 1967. The sacred canopy : Elements of a sociological theory of religion. Garden City: Anchor Books. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cardon, Melissa S., Christopher E. Stevens, and D. Ryland Potter. 2011. Misfortunes or mistakes? Cultural sensemaking of entrepreneurial failure. Journal of Business Venturing 26 (1): 79–92. Chase, Catherine C. 2013. Motivating persistence in the face of failure: Equipping novice learners with the motivational tools of experts. In Expertise and skill acquisition: The impact of William F. Chase, ed. J.J. Staszewski, 59–84. New York: Psychology Press. Choi, Incheol, Richard E. Nisbett, and Ara Norenzayan. 1999. Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality. Psychological Bulletin 125 (1): 47–63. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and danger : An analysis of concept of pollution and taboo. New Yok: Routledge. Duckworth, Angela. 2016. Grit: The power of passion and perserverance. New York: Simon and Schuster. Emirbayer, Mustafa, and Ann Mische. 1998. What is agency? American Journal of Sociology 103 (4): 962–1023. Engelke, Matthew. 2007. A problem of presence: Beyond scripture in an African church. Oakland: University of California Press. Festinger, Leon, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. 2008. When prophecy fails. London: Pinter & Martin. Foster, Drew. 2015. Fighters who don’t fight: The case of aikido and somatic metaphorism. Qualitative Sociology 38 (2): 165–183. Galonnier, Juliette, and Diego de los Rios. 2015. Teaching and learning to be religious: Pedagogies of conversion to Islam and Christianity. Sociology of Religion 77 (1): 59–81. Glaeser, Andreas. 2011. Political epistemics: The secret police, the opposition, and the end of east German socialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Granberg, Ellen. 2006. "Is that all there is?" Possible selves, self-change, and weight loss. Social Psychology Quarterly 69 (2): 109–126. Haynes, Stewart, et al. 2011. Attributional retraining: Reducing the likelihood of failure. Social Psychology of Education 14 (1): 75–92. Heider, Fritz. 1958. The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley. Hochanadel, Aaron, and Dora Finamore. 2015. Fixed and growth mindset in education and how grit helps students persist in the face of adversity. Journal of International Education Research 11 (1): 47–50. Johnston, Erin F. 2016. The enlightened self: Identity and aspiration in two communities of practice. Religions 7 (7): 92. Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Qual Sociol Luhrmann, Tanya M. 2012. When god talks back : Understanding the American evangelical relationship with god. New York: Vintage Books. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After virtue: A study in moral theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Mahmood, Saba. 2001. Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: Some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival. Cultural Anthropology 16 (2): 202–236. Mantere, Saku, Pekka Aula, Henri Schildt, and Eero Vaara. 2013. Narrative attributions of entrepreneurial failure. Journal of Business Venturing 28 (4): 459–473. Polivy, Janet, and C. Peter Herman. 2002. If at first you don’t succeed: False hopes of self-change. American Psychologist 57 (9): 677–689. Satchidananda, Swami. 1970. Integral yoga hatha. Buckingham: Integral Yoga Publications. Sharp, Shane. 2013. When prayers go unanswered. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 52 (1): 1–16. Smilde, David. 2007. Reason to believe : Cultural agency in Latin American evangelicalism. Oakland: University of California Press. Somers, Margaret R. 1994. The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory and Society 23 (5): 605–649. Sudnow, David. 1978. Ways of the hand: The organization of improvised conduct. Cambridge: MIT Press. Sullivan, Susan Crawford. 2011. Living faith : Everyday religion and mothers in poverty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tavory, Iddo, and Stefan Timmermans. 2014. Abductive analysis: Theorizing qualitative research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tavory, Iddo, and Daniel Winchester. 2012. Experiential careers: The routinization and de-routinization of religious life. Theory and Society 41 (4): 351–373. Vaccaro, C.A., D.P. Schrock, and J.M. McCabe. 2011. Managing emotional manhood: Fighting and fostering fear in mixed martial arts. Social Psychology Quarterly 74 (4): 414–437. Vaisey, Stephen, and Margaret Frye. n.d. The old one-two: Preserving analytical dualism in cognitive sociology. In Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology, ed. Gabe Ignatow and Wayne H. Brekhus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wacquant, Loic. 2004. Body & soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wainwright, Steven P., and Bryan S. Turner. 2004. Epiphanies of embodiment: Injury, identity and the balletic body. Qualitative Research 4 (3): 311–337. Weiner, Bernard. 1985. An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review 92 (4): 548–573. Wuthnow, Robert J. 2011. Taking talk seriously: Religious discourse as social practice. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50 (1): 1–21. Erin F. Johnston is a postdoctoral fellow in the Thinking Matters program at Stanford University. She has written about conversion narratives among contemporary Pagans, the aspirational nature of identity in spiritual communities, and the appeal of practice-oriented approaches to religious life. Her previous work has appeared in such journals as Sociological Forum (2013) and Religions (2016). Erin is currently transforming her dissertation research on apprenticeship in two spiritual disciplines – Hatha Yoga and Centering Prayer – into a book. She is also in the midst of collecting data for her second project on the dynamics of personal transformation on structured Bgap year^ programs.