The Art of Failure
“To the artist, all problems of art appear uniquely personal. Well, that's understandable enough, given that not many other activities routinely call one's basic self-worth into question.”
― David Bayles, Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
I came across this quote as I began writing this post. Since reading this quote, I have purchased the kindle version to further delve into what David Bayles is saying. I believe this quote speaks profoundly to what I am about to share. It has been seven months since the first Cooking with Lancey Pants video came out, and I can still remember the immense struggle I had while editing it. In order to fully understand my struggle lets take a step back to July of 2017. The Holy Spirit had communicated to me that the God the Father wanted me to serve him in ministry by taking the first step and going to Seminary and to start a YouTube Chanel. I could not for the life of me find a name for the channel. I wracked my brain for days and weeks trying to think of a name. This went on for two months, until one day I was doing a bench press at snap fitness, not thinking about it at all and I heard “Papa’s Heart”. Months go by and I did not touch the channel. Hiding in fear, I was paralyzed by the thought of putting videos on the channel. I come to work one Thursday afternoon and a coworker who is a work study at Dordt College, asked me how the YouTube Channel was going. I said fine, she left, and I was filled with regret. She came back to me and I admitted, “I have not posted any videos so far because the thought of doing that scares me.” I paused and let that admittance set in. After a few awkward seconds, she responded “Well I guess, if God called you to make it, he will give you the strength and the courage”. That statement hit me hard, here I am listening to the Lord and hearing him talk about the Seminary Degree and Channel he wants me to do, and I don’t trust him to walk with me in the process. I trust his voice like it was my mom’s voice, however when it comes to carrying out what he calls me to, I feel abandoned. I ponder that statement for the rest of that day and on Friday afternoon I decide that Saturday I will film the video. I wake up the next morning without a script and a lot of coffee. I create a setup for my phone because that is the only camera I had at that time and start filming. Because it is improv, I have no idea what is going to come out of my mouth. I finish the Cinnamon Rolls and they are horrible. I have never made something so foul in my life. I went to bed feeling like a failure. “There is no way I am going to post this!!” I thought as I went to bed.
A week later I was reminded by the Holy Spirit after a long while of arguing with him to not post the video, of a thought I had as I was forming ideas for the channel I my head. I wished that this channel would show my failures as an OK occurrence and that as humans we are allowed to fail because if you are failing that means you have not mastered that area, and you are growing. If you are not failing, you cannot grow fully. That gave me just enough energy to fight my fear and wrestle through the editing. I finally posted the video a week after it was filmed on February 17, 2018 in the middle of the night. I awoke the next morning and I hid under my covers shivering, knowing my video, which in my mind meant my failures and vulnerabilities, was out there for full scrutiny. This is a very risky and vulnerable place to be. I was terrified, but eventually I got out of bed and for the next week, everyone who saw it shared how much they loved it. I was shocked at how supportive people were of my new video. I watched the video with a friend and we couldn’t stop laughing at the mistakes I made. It was then that I realized, mistakes when put in the context of a past experience can be quite comical.
