Thursday, August 13, 2009

Success through failure

It was marvellous to welcome our friend Keith Dale, organist of Holz Trinity Church Geneva back to Cardiff today, to play an organ concert tomorrow lunchtime, as he has done annually since the organ was restored. He has a special affection for the instrument and has taken pains to devise a programme around compositions from the period in which the organ was constructed. He takes his work as an ambassador for music seriously, and always tells stories about composers as part of performing their works. I know tomorrow will be good.

This evening I had a meeting of the Street Carers Forum Representative Group at County Hall, and had to forsake my guest in a rush immedately after supper.

The meeting began painfully with the withdrawal of one of the key participant groups involved in attempts we've been making for the past nine months to forge a working partnership with the City Council in efforts to meet the needs of homeless and vulnerable people on city streets. This was an event a few people had worked hard to prevent for several months without success.

Call it a clash of cultures, a clash of values or a clash of priorities, it matters not. It represents a failure of Christian groups to live together with their differences, a betrayal of the Gospel as far as I was concerned. This left me angry and upset, though without justification, because the meeting continued with unanimity, without losing focus or sense of purpose, keen to carry through plans already agreed - and it concluded in record time.

Sometimes a little failure can concentrate the mind wonderfully.

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