Failure: An invitation to contemplative living

Spiritual Life, Winter 2002 by Ward, Veronica

FULLNESS AND FAILURE MAY APPEAR to be opposites, but in life's rich pattern can one experience fullness without being aware of failure? Until I failed, I took my successes for granted, rarely paused for thought, was busy about many things, and, although prayer was an important part of my life, my understanding of it was about to change. It was only when life fell apart that I discovered some of its deeper meanings and found a need to be what I now call "contemplative." I had received much information about "God," but I had not met the Holy One. When I did come face to face with my own "burning bush," it became natural to spend time quietly in God's presence. Since my life may be the only bible some people read, I hope I can be present to others in a way that points to someone greater than I as being the source of the strength, peace, or faithfulness that I show.

Monika Hellwig describes the contemplative attitude in the following words:

The essence of a contemplative attitude seems to be vulnerability-allowing persons, things and events to be, to happen, allowing them their full resonance in one's experience, looking at them without blinking, touching them and allowing them to touch us without flinching. It is a matter of engaging in action, allowing it to talk back to us and listening to what is said. It is a constant willingness to be taken by surprise.3

How one reaches this position will vary. For some it may be the gradual growth in prayer described by the great Carmelite saints. However, I know people who have run, walked, spent time with nature, sat zazen, or prayed in many different ways. Whatever one does, it is not to avoid facing reality but in order to find it:

Wholeness does not consist in removing a present source of travail; it demands a complete transformation of the person's attitude to life, which in turn is an outward sign of a transfigured personality.4

We all have struggled with personal failure. Some we can easily chalk up to experience and put behind us. But when we fail in relationships, particularly in marriage, the effect can be "life threatening." Recovering from this injury to our personhood may take many years. As I have tried to come to terms with the breakdown of my marriage, articulating the experience has taken time. The trite solutions that were offered to me did nothing to assuage my guilt or restore my broken spirit. Instead, they forced me to move toward the center of my being to find there a rock, a solid foundation on which to rebuild. I needed to find peace in the midst of chaos and strength to meet unexpected challenges, and to learn to live again under circumstances that were once unbearable. In the early days, a friend asked me if I wanted to be bitter or better. To be better, I turned to prayer, to meditation, and to quietly pondering the situation. From hesitant beginnings has come a way "to be." Although I write from the perspective of failure in marriage, my observations tell me that those who lose their jobs or fail in other ways can identify with my experience.

Moving into Failure and Not Around It

Western society has a very low tolerance of failure, and the remedies it offers are largely unsatisfactory. The damaged marriage is ended and a new relationship begun as a balm for the dejected spirit, as father or mother for the fatherless and motherless. Only a few seem willing to confront the feelings, the meanings, and the possibilities that come with failure. For myself, coming to terms with failure was only partly a matter of intellectual understanding. Exploring it and touching it in the deepest way has been the very source of restoration. I was offered much advice in an effort to make things better, and, while some of it must have been useful, I now remember very little of it. What has helped me most has been a consistent and patient "sitting with" the situation, without struggling in my mind with ideas but just allowing myself to be in the presence of the Holy One. What began as a short-term goal-to get through the day-has become a way of living in the present, letting go of the past, and leaving the future where it belongs-in the hands of the Holy One.

Dietmar Mieth says that human beings have three nonphysical needs: the need for successful personal relationships, the need for social recognition, and the need for meaning in life.5 The situation of wife and mother met all three needs for me. When my marriage broke down, my whole world of reference, my way of meaningful existence, was lost. Society tends to define us by what we "do," and, although not all our "doing" may collapse at the same time, failure in a major area of life destroys more than that part of it. If "this area" has gone wrong, then maybe everything else is wrong, and I have just not realized it yet. This is not a question of the ego or about selfconfidence; it strikes at the very essence of being.

The Existential Nature of Failure

Dietmar Meth states,

Failure is irreversible. The characteristics of failure are irreversibility and irrevocability. Crises can be surmounted, problems can be solved. But when we speak of failure we mean something that is irrevocable, even if we know that not everything fails with the failure of personal relationships or a failure of social recognition or a failure to find an answer to the question of meanings