The Power of Failure
My Dear People,
"...We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone..."
--from A General Thanksgiving, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 836
Really? We thank God for disappointments and failures?
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You may or may not have caught those lines in "A General Thanksgiving," the prayer included at the close of last week's Word from Grace Street.
The prayer was written by the late Reverend "Charlie" Price, a much beloved and admired Episcopal priest, seminary professor, and liturgist.
I have known people (including priests) who have been uncomfortable with, and even irritated by, those words.
After all, it's one thing to be grateful for good that is brought forth from bad, but, if we're honest, there is some difficulty (hello, understatement?) in giving thanks for the "bad" itself, the disappointments or failures themselves.
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In an op-ed over the weekend, "The Power of Failure," columnist William D. Cohan quotes Sam Wells, the Dean of Duke Chapel, hoping that students would "never be dazzled by their success...and not pretend success is everything or success makes you immortal. And, most of all, that you'll let your life begin the day you really, seriously fail, and [that you'll] let that day be the day you discover who you really are..."
Cohan writes, "There is enormous power in failure, especially when one learns from it."
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The power of failure. The gift of failure. The blessing of failure.
When it comes, are we willing to receive it?
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
