Failure

My friend and colleague Rev. Dr. Kathy Hurt recenlty posted this on Facebook. And, she has given me permission to repost it here! What an amazing thing -- A "Musuem of Personal Failure".

     On my birthday last week, I read a beguiling story in the Washington Post about a Canadian man who set up a “museum of personal failures.”  He was inspired to do so after yet another rejection by one he loved.  Weary of feeling shame, and hearing that such a museum existed in Europe, he decided to set up such a museum in his hometown.

     The story has stayed with me, inviting deeper reflection:  how meaningful, I think, to have a dedicated museum that is not filled with inspiring art or beautiful objects but absolutely human, often predictable, failures.  Apparently people far and wide heard about this and sent in contributions, some amusing (amusing to me, though probably not amusing to the person sending in the object), some heartbreaking, like a statue constructed entirely of job rejection notices and pink slips, an unworn wedding dress in a cardboard box.  I thought about what I might send if I were so inclined, sorted mentally through my quite lengthy list of failures over the course of my life, and came up with a theme of not listening:  many of my failures came about when I turned away from what people were saying, what God/the universe was saying, what my own heart was saying.  Perhaps in this next year of my life, I can listen more often, more carefully, more deeply to all that is said to me, and come away with fewer failures.  If I were to submit an object symbolizing these failures to this museum, it might be a broken phone.

     Of course we would never see such a museum established in this country, where leaders never acknowledge failures of their own, endlessly point out the failure of opponents, and cast blame all about or simply deny anything is wrong.  To be willing to have one’s failures exhibited in a museum requires a degree of humility, a willingness not to take oneself too seriously, an acceptance of human imperfection, all qualities absent in most of those who set themselves before us as people we should admire and support and follow.

     But it gives me heart that in one place, a few brave individuals are openly showing where they have failed.  May more of us find a way to do the same, people who fail and keep going, imperfections and all.