Walking Backwards to God
Mark Tully asks how best we should learn from our mistakes in a programme that tests Cardinal Newman's premise that we 'walk backwards to God'.
"We advance to the truth by experience of error; we succeed through failures - we walk to heaven backward."
The words of Cardinal Newman, academic and leader of the Oxford Movement, provide the starting point for this edition of Something Understood, in which Mark Tully asks how best we should learn from our mistakes.
"Make a mistake learn from it and move on" is common advice, but what does that actually mean? When do we stop making mistakes - and should we be actively trying to make them? Newman's assertion is tested in conversation with the writer Canon Stephen Cherry from Durham Cathedral and with the help of literary work by Robbie Burns and James Fenton and musical works by Frank Loesser, Shirley MacLaine and the Choir of Kings College, Cambridge.
The readers are Adjoa Andoh and Alistair McGowan.
Producer: Frank Stirling
A Unique production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4.
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Music Played
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Frank Loesser
Stand Up You're Rockin' The Boat
Performer: Stubby Kaye with Chorus
- Guys and Dolls.
- MCA Records.
- MCAD-10301.
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Gregorio Allegri
Miserere
Performer: Timothy Beasley-Murray; King's College Choir, Cambridge; Stephen Cleobury; Gerald Finley
- Renaissance Masterpieces.
- EMI Records.
- B004JN23BS.
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Nina Simone
Nobody's Fault By Mine
Composer: Blind Willie Johnson
- The Very Best of Nina Simone: Sugar in My Bowl 1967-1972.
- BMG Entertainment International.
- B000009HRC.
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Shirley MacLaine
Where Am I Going?
Composer: Dorothy Fields, Cy Coleman
- Sweet Charity.
- MCA.
- B000V8C8SS.
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Kiri Te Kanawa and the Utah Symphony led by Julius Rudel
Repentir (O, Divine Redeemer)
Composer: Charles Gounod
- Ave Maria: A Sacred Christmas.
- Decca.
- B000V6MSEO.
Broadcasts
- Sun 9 Oct 2011 06:05Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- Sun 9 Oct 2011 23:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4