The Last Chapel Talk

We burned up the road, and the gas, to Chattanooga for David's Chapel talk. Our last chapel talk of our three boys. Many have talked about Joe's and have viewed it on every social media sight, the McCallie boys related to Tony's and his quirky humor punching fun at himself, but the boys hung on to every word of David's.

After Dean Sholl's thoughtful introduction David began listing things he was afraid of, but then the last, and the most important statement, was that he had no fear of failing. He went on to say, "all of us aren't the sum of our successes but the collective fragments of our failures."

We often measure ourselves by our successes, rarely revisiting the times we fail, leaving those buried deep in our secret memories. David's take is the accumulation of failure makes us who we are and raises us up to our successes. He went on to say, "Failure is a gift, so welcome it." Most of us run wildly away from the very idea. But there was my son, David, standing tall and boldly in front of his peers giving them the green light to try and yes maybe fail, emphasizing McCallie is the best place to experience your first failures; a place where there is a community to support you when you do.

I have seen David try and fail over all these years, but he holds those as treasures in his heart, using them to build an incredible life of successes.