A Collection of Failures

Starting with not regularly posting for months...

In the first place it’s June. I don’t know what happened to the earlier months when I began collecting things in essays that are usually tossed aside like a weed or a bad onion. For example, May was a fever dream, filled with music. At any rate, here we are. It is June. I will let the other months scatter to the wind, like small seeds no one noticed on a dying hollyhock. I can’t collect them anymore, they are now a loss, but maybe things grow better that way.

I am reading Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxes. School has ended, I have folded up a lot of dreams and crumpled others. Because the past months have worn me down to such a smooth stone, I have started to wonder if I’m being polished or ground down. But since I am reading about a pastor who tried to assassinate Hitler, I have been having to wonder if polish is even a good thing. Maybe it’s best to be worn down, scattered to the wind, enriching the soil with the ashes of my ambition.

What I am suggesting is another collection: a collection of failure.

Bonhoeffer as a book was rather tedious until France was conquered by Hitler. Up to that point it seemed to be a see-saw of public opinion, a negotiation with the devil and a lot of information about Bonhoeffer’s theological journey. When France was defeated public opinion as a whole in Germany swayed to acceptance and even celebrated. Suddenly Adolf H. has defeated France and cements himself as the savior of Germany.

To be fair most Germans didn’t know the atrocities that had been systematically planned out by their maniac Fuhrer, but is it possible to negotiate with evil when you are trying to be holy? What is the cost of compromise, but maybe the real question is, what is the cost of success?

“…for it has been sung in noble poetry and music; and whether it be true or not, it stands forever as a warning to us not to seek for help from evil persons, or to gain good ends by evil means. For if we use an adder even against our enemies, it will turn again and sting us.”

-The Heroes, Charles Kingsley (p.157)

Negotiations with darkness doesn’t work, but it remains a great temptation. When Germany invaded France and reversed the WWI Treaty that brought them to their knees, compromises with destroyers seemed worth it. Success is a jewel that shines brighter than holiness. Holiness is the way of death, the way of the martyr and the self denier, and the wretch.

Germany was poisoned by success, they found their good through evil.

“In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done…The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard. God was interested not in success, but in obedience. If one obeyed God and was willing to suffer defeat and whatever else came one’s way, God would show a kind of success that the world couldn’t imagine. But this was the narrow path, and few would take it.”

-Ethics, vol. 6, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, ed. Clifford J. Green, trans. Douglas W. Stott (New York: Augsburg Fortress, 2008), 88-89, quoted in Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxes

We are back to failures and narrow ways. This past year might have been more of a success, and I wish it had been. Woven between accomplishments were disappointments. Many things were my own fault, many things were just terrible. I did not appreciate discovering four newborn kittens in my backyard in February when things were misty and everyone’s pencils were broken. I did not appreciate the physical and mental injuries that came from living life. I did not appreciate killing my sourdough starter, or forgetting when I had last mopped, or realizing I was limited, broken, and unsuccessful in goals I had expected to succeed in. Dorothy L. Sayers said education is a Pentecost, and sometimes I don’t like the flames.

I have been homeschooling for 9 years and it’s a way of life, and possibly an identity. A bad year makes me question everything. I don’t have answers yet, but after reading Bonhoeffer I know to be wary of success. Maybe all my failures are a sign that I am on a narrow path.

It’s tricky because people’s education is on the line, and possibly my mental health. It’s tricky because success is measured differently based on different pasts. Personally I would not be overjoyed to suddenly be in charge of France. I have not been affected by unfair French treaties, and more importantly I find it trying enough to be in charge of four boys, three of whom are teens. I have my own temptations. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could sell you Self Help, or even Answers? Imagine how high a platform can be.

What would it cost?

So here I am, low on thyroid hormones, deodorant and hope. I have learned a lot. I have lost a lot. I’m very rich in that regard.

Thankfully France is no temptation to me, but eternal youth sometimes is, and so is a few hours of uninterrupted quiet. I am surrounded by people who don’t appreciate Pride and Prejudice, and I have taken up saying “Skibbidy Toilet Rizz” for attention.

In the end, I am still walking down this road, because I am “willing to suffer defeat”. Another Hollyhock dries out, a million seeds scatter. May has flown away with Brahms and other nice things mixed with tears and minor keys, and June remains.

“What was the meaning of this allegory? The guests whispered to each other and wondered. Leonardo must have explained it to them as he did in his notebook: “Pleasure and pain are represented as twins, since there never is one without the other; and as if they were united back to back, since they are contrary to each other…Clay, gold…if you choose pleasure, know that he has behind him one who will deal you tribulation and repentance.”

-Leonardo DaVinci, Emily Hahn