When I was young I was afraid of trying new things. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to learn how to do new things. Instead, it was because I did not want to feel the sting of humiliation associated with knowing I tried something and failed. I don’t think this is an uncommon fear. In the 20th Century in the United States, we were not taught that it’s ok to fail. We’re taught that winning is everything. In our country, winning is important and losing is bad. As I’ve developed in my faith and my spirituality, I have grown to understand that failure is not a bad thing. For one thing, unless you play for the Harlem Globetrotters, it’s unrealistic to think you’re going to win all the time. For another, as much fun as winning is, it is from our failures in life that we learn the most valuable lessons. It is through our failures that we grow.
Brene Brown is someone I truly admire. Brene participates in speaking engagements, podcasts, TED talks, and more. She is a widely-published author and a professor. She has famously encouraged people to “be brave enough to suck at something.” I think this statement holds true brilliance. It does require bravery to suck at something. Society is not exactly kind to people when they “suck” at something. Remember a couple of months ago when Dallas Cowboys kicker Brett Maher missed four consecutive extra point attempts in a playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? He was ridiculed on social media, skewered on sports talk shows, and lampooned by football fans across the country. I don’t envy his experiences in the days following the game. By the way, the Cowboys actually won the game vs. Tom Brady and the Bucs. Imagine how bad it would have been for him had they lost? But the truth of the matter is there isn’t a football fan alive who wouldn’t have given up a whole lot to have half the experiences Maher experienced in his career. Maher played college football at the University of Nebraska, a traditional college football powerhouse. He has played professionally for ten years in both the NFL and in Canada. He was a first team All-Big Ten kicker twice. He was the NCAA kicker of the year twice. He was the NCAA punter of the year once and he was the CFL’s all-star punter in 2017. Even if he had an unlucky streak during one game in this year’s postseason, he has had a better playing career than many football players.
Why do you suppose there is a need for bravery in failing at something? Are we all so good in our endeavors that we never have to worry about failures? I think that’s the opposite of what the Christian faith teaches. Christianity teaches us that we are all imperfect, but we follow Jesus, someone who is perfect. We try to be like him, even though we know we never will be as good as him. But that doesn’t mean we let ourselves off the hook and it doesn’t mean we give up trying. When we fall down, we dust ourselves off and try again. Maybe we’ll continue to fall down. But hopefully we’ll get better as our lives progress. I remember when I was in elementary school, I played basketball with my babysitter every day after school. She was in high school and she played high school athletics. Obviously, she was taller than me. And day after day, she would beat me in one-on-one. It was really frustrating. But one day, I found my game. One day I hit almost every shot I took. One day I grabbed every rebound. One day, I scored more points than she did. Most days I sucked. But on that one day, I won.
I’ve failed at many things in life. I don’t always celebrate my failures, but they’re a piece of who I am. I wear my class ring from the University of Notre Dame, but I don’t wear a ring from the University of Utah, the school I once attended and dropped out of. That doesn’t mean that my time at Utah wasn’t valuable. In fact, dropping out of the University of Utah probably helped me to learn how I might succeed and one day attend Notre Dame. Failure at the University of Utah is just as much a part of my story as graduating from Notre Dame is. When I was in the process to become ordained a priest, I was not received as a postulant on my first try. I was devastated when I was turned down, but I kept working on it and was finally received a year later. I was not called as a Rector the first, or second, or third, or even fourth time I discerned a call. In fact, I don’t know how many Rector searches I had entered before being called as your Rector here at St. John’s.
Our failures don’t define who we are. But they are undeniably part of our stories. Our failures can be tremendously valuable when we learn from them. Hopefully we do not continue to fail, but eventually work toward success. And sometimes, when we do continue to fail, we learn that maybe our gifts and talents are of better use in a different field. I wanted to major in engineering when I was in college. But when I realized I couldn’t pass calculus, I changed majors. We all have gifts and talents in different areas, and each of us is called to discern and develop our gifts to be the best we are called to be. Sometimes we are successful, but we don’t learn anything about ourselves through our successes. It is in our failures that we learn about who we are and it is through our failures that we learn about who we are called to be. Be brave enough to fail at something. And then be brave enough to get up, to dust yourself off, and to try again.