“You’ll Outlive Your Present Problem”

Religion in Daily Life By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min. Rector, All Saints’ Church 9601 Frankford Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19114 (215) 637-5225 Written 19 October 2000

TV actor Rick Jason died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on Monday, October 16. Jason starred in the 1960s television series Combat! Later, he was a regular on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless. The 74 year-old actor had been depressed over personal matters. Suicide is certainly a permanent solution to a temporary problem. However, aren’t all problems temporary? By using your head and trusting God, you can outlive your present problem.

For years Mount Everest was a problem to mountain climbers. In 1921 George Mallory tried to conquer Mount Everest. The first and second expeditions failed. In 1924, Mallory tried again, but an avalanche killed him and most of his climbing companions. In London, survivors held a banquet. Behind the head table loomed a picture of Mount Everest. Speaking on behalf of Mallory and his dead friends, a survivor turned and addressed the mountain: “Mount Everest, you defeated us once, twice, three times. But we shall someday defeat you, because you can’t get any bigger and we can!” Mountain climber s outlived the problem of Everest. Sir Edmund Hillary conquered it in 1953.

In the early 1900s, Handley Page of Great Britain was a pioneer in aviation. Page once flew in the Middle East. On his journey he landed at Khaibar in Arabia. Unknown to him, a huge rat was attracted by the smell of food in the plane. The rat climbed aboard. During the next part of the flight, Page heard the sound of gnawing. Suspecting it was a rat, he pictured the damage that would be done to the control wires. He faced a problem and outlived it. How? Page reasoned that a rat could not survive at high altitudes. He took his plane higher and higher until he heard the gnawing stop. At the next airport, Page found a dead rat behind the cockpit.

An old dog outlived his problem. The dog fell into a farmer’s well. The farmer decided neither dog nor well was worth saving. Instead, he planned to bury the dog in the well. The farmer started shoveling dirt into the well. As the first and the second loads of dirt hit the dog’s back, he panicked. Then it dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back, he’d shake it off and step up on the rising level of dirt. As load after load fell on him, the dog said to himself, “Shake it off and step up!” Soon, the battered and exhausted dog stepped over the wall of the well to safety.

Postscript: Thanks to Peter Lim, a new e-mail friend in Singapore. I spoke with Peter by phone last Friday about this matter of outliving your problems. Though blind since birth, Peter outlives his problem daily, not by solving it, but by dissolving it in a purpose greater than the problem. Peter volunteers at his local church, running the public address system. Recently, he traveled with a medical mission team to Malaysia, where he spoke with patients at their bedsides.