I am a failure

I would just like to point out that I am a failure.
I was thinking about that today and I think it is SUCH a liberating thing to realize. A Jehovah's Witness came to my door today as I was home alone, wearing my sweatpants, eating reheated soup for lunch. He spent about thirty minutes at my door, as he tried to convince of his point of view, pointing out passages in a worn Bible. He seemed to have all the answers, answers to questions like what precisely happens to everyone after they die, and what will happen at the end of the world. His thumb had a band-aid on it. I listened politely to his arguments, but it made me uncomfortable that he had all the answers. It made me uncomfortable, the distinction he drew between "righteous" people and "unrighteous" people. Because I think, in some way, we are all unrighteous. And I think that none of us have all the answers. I think, to be honest, that we are all failures in some way. This week I feel like more of a failure than usual, but I think I am going to celebrate that.
We are all failures. We all fail to meet God's perfect standards.
But somehow, He loves us anyway. He blesses us anyway, extravagantly so.

I have been listening to this song lately and reflecting on the message I hear in it. "The Kingdom of our God carries on." The church has been around for over 2000 years. It started with 12 rag-tag disciples, fisherman and tax collectors from the Middle East, led by, as Frederick Buechner called Jesus, a "holy hick." A carpenter from Nazareth. And somehow, millions of people still believe in this holy hick. The church, and Christians, have made so many mistakes over the years. The Crusades. The Inquisition. Residential school abuse. Conflict in Northern Ireland. I don't know much about history, but I do know the Church has done wrong. It's like St Augustine said: "The Church is a whore, but She is my mother."
The Church is a failure, but somehow God's Kingdom carries on.
I am a failure, but somehow God's Kingdom carries on. Somehow he still can make beautiful things come out of my life.
For some reason, this makes me giggle. I think God is pretty funny, the way he turns things upside down.