It has happened again. Another member of the body has been catechized and warned and taught and instructed … and disillusioned and embittered. Confirmation came and went, and there was no Experience to be had. No thunder clap. No overwhelming certainty. In the word of today’s evangelical, there was no “assurance.” Nothing.
I wonder if there is any way to articulate for the adult catechumen the many parables about counting the cost. I wonder if there is a warning to give that will be heard. I suspect that my wondering is quite close to that of the dead rich man begging God to send messengers to his family to tell them the truth. No matter who says it, and no matter how it’s said, they won’t believe. It won’t make any sense to them at all. They cannot hear it.
With my younger catechumens, though, I think I will adopt another illustration. Being confirmed is a lot like getting a full ride scholarship to a music school. You’ve practiced and learned and practiced and learned, and then you get accepted, and you’re ready to be a member of that place. You go there. They show you your room. You move in. You promise to be a good student. All your life, you’ve wanted to be there, with those musicians. You want to learn to play.
But on the first Monday morning of the school year, you have to go to class, and that’s when your life as a musician can begin. Getting to the school will not give you an experience of musicianship. Practice will. Hanging out with the other students, or attending recitals or concerts given by a Master – that won’t turn you into a musician. Only practice, the humility of discipline, the willingness to be wrong and correct your technique and the determination to learn new ways to hear – only those things will turn you into a musician.
We have a culture in which only the strictures of economics stop us or make things possible for us, and so I think we are easily confused about the Sacred. 
This is a matter of discipline. This is a living thing, passed from one human in the body (a bishop in Apostolic succession) to another (the confirmand). It is not merely learning leading to a personal and undeniable inner experience of the Divine; the Christian life has to be lived to be known. It’s hard work, what you’re ready to do once you’ve received the Gifts.
To be confirmed in the Anglican tradition is to be given bed and board in the school. Your scholarship is paid for. The Masters are ready to teach you. But having the experience of the Music … that part is yours to do.
