Failure

An excellent article in today's Times newspaper by The Rt. Revd. Emma Ineson Bishop to the Archbishop of Canterbury and York inspired this blog post.

Emma has written a book entitled:

"What Jesus Said about Sin, Mistakes and Messing Stuff Up."

I may well buy her book  but Emma's article also illustrates for me at least, why the Catholic Church needs to encourage women to become priests although I suppose Rome considers that given the huge number of Catholics worldwide, there is  a need to move in line with the slowest ship in the convoy rather than with the fastest.

Emma suggests that we should embrace failure which is one of the greatest gifts mankind has. Her Times article illustrates this with reference to the countless number of failures described in the bible. These include the original failure of mankind leading to  our expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the successful flight from Egypt followed by 40 years of wandering in the desert; the success of Moses on Mount Sinai followed by the creation of the Golden Calf to  worship and of course, the success of Jesus during his short lived ministry on earth followed  by his crucifixion on the cross.

Emma reminds us all that failure is never final and humorously mentions the story of the Benedictine monk whose wine stored in  a cold damp place began to ferment a second time and lo, Dom Perignon champagne was born.

Emma advises that we should embrace failure and recognise that:

"...failure is simply part of the weft and weave of life and the texture of our existence, does away with the fear of embarrassment that stops you trying new things...".