SESSION 21 – NOVEMBER, 2009

SUCCESS AND FAILURE, ADAPTED FROM HEART TO HEART BY C. ROBINSON AND ALICIA HAWKINS

Chalice:  For every time we make a mistake and we decide to start again:  we light this candle.

For every time we are lonely and we let someone be our friend:  we light this candle.

For every time we are disappointed and we choose to hope:   we light this candle.

M. Maureen Killoran

Check-in:

Reading:  It is not the critic who counts:  not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end , the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

Quotes from the Common Bowl:  see attached

Life Questions:

1.  Have you ever had successes that backfired or failures that turned out to be blessings?  Describe these.

2.  What would you list as your most important successes and failures?  How did (do) they shape your life today?

3.  Have you ever experienced a “spiritual” success or failure?  What did this look like?  

Closing ritual:  May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek.  May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of our world.  Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.

Check out:

QUOTES FOR SESSION 21 – SUCCESS AND FAILURE

NOVEMBER, 2009

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence:  then success is sure.

Mark Twain

The secret of success is sincerity.  Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.

Jean Giraudoux

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Bill Cosby

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

Lilly Tomlin

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

Tennessee Williams

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas Edison

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Sir Winston Churchill

If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try – you don’t take the risk.

Roslyn Carter

Grace enters into our experience precisely at this point where we are wounded, where our longings are deepest and most inarticulate.

Alan Jones

Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you now lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good  His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours.  Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

Rainer Maria Rilke