01 February 2013

Failing

In the Methodist tradition, we observe infant baptisms. I love that. Parents outwardly promising to raise the child in the faith. Congregation outwardly promising to be an active presence in the child's life. All of us gladly assuming responsibility for this tiny human. I know it's hard to do baptisms wrong, but some guys just do baptisms right. Here at my church in Atlanta, Dr. Gil ends every baptism with a prayer, giving the child back into God's care and asking him to "give her enough tears to make her tender, enough hurts to make her humane, enough failures to know that all her successes depend on you". I love that.

For some reason, I just haven't been able to shake the notion of "failure" from my brain this week. (interjection: In high school, my church youth group hung a huge banner in the assembly room with the words "He>me" prominent in the center surrounded by smaller variations of "He>_____". One of them was, "He>my faliures". I thought it was awesome, intentional commentary on the realities of failing. It was a mistake.) Worrywart that I am, failing and failures and faliures just kept eating at me this week until last night, when I recalled Dr. Gil's prayer for "enough failures to know that all her successes depend on you", and then the failures didn't seem so bad.

1 comment: