Don't You Remember The Famous Men Who Had To Fall To Rise Again?

The story of history is the story of men and women who overcame great odds and surmounted failures to make a significant contribution to life. They have been able to turn a minus into a plus, a defeat into victory, and a failure into success. Many who have made great contributions to life have also suffered failures as well.

One of the "failingest" men who ever lived was always trying experiments that were unsuccessful. But we never think of Thomas Edison as a failure. Eleven hundred unsuccessful experiments did not mean failure to Edison. Instead, he said, "I found 11 hundred ways how not to do things."

Cy Young, perhaps the greatest pitcher of all time, accumulated 511 victories, a mark that has never been threatened. But what has often been forgotten is that Young lost almost as many games as he won.

Failure is often God's tool for carving some of the finest outlines in the character of us all. Bitter and crushing failures often have germs of new and unimagined usefulness and happiness.

Failure can be the beginning of reform. From our disappointments and failures we can learn patience and humility. There is a mellowing effect in failure. How hard it would be to work or live with people who had never failed, for they would lack sympathy and understanding in the failures of others. To know the humiliation of failure helps to make a person fit to live with.

A failure may mean a new direction for our lives. A young man started out at West Point with his heart set on being a soldier. He was prevented from going into the military profession because he couldn't pass chemistry.

Failing at West Point, he then dabbled half-heartedly in engineering and finally went into the field of art. Whistler's painting of his mother attests to the fact that the wall that prevented him from being a professional soldier or engineer had a door that led to greater usefulness. Not getting what he liked, he learned to like what he got.

Another young man who followed his first love, teaching, found he had no skill for teaching and was released from his teaching job. Discouraged and distraught, he said, "I don't know what will become of me and I don't care. I shall not study for another profession." He was so embarrassed and overcome with grief that he stayed indoors for days and would not greet his friends.

Years later, when William James was asked to define "spiritual," he said, "I can't define it, but I can point to one who incarnates it in his life - who is an embodiment of what `spiritual' means" - and he pointed to clergyman and writer Phillips Brooks, the teacher who had failed.

Many people fail to live up to their best or achieve any skill because they aim too high. Someone ought to write a doctorate thesis debunking the proverb "Hitch your wagon to a star" - only one of many proverbs that have destroyed human happiness and created frustration. We should hitch our wagons on a plateau - something within reach - then upon reaching it, move on to higher plateaus and eventually reach the top.

I have seen this demonstrated in some students who come from small high schools to a great university. In high school they had been president of nearly every organization, first in their class, a captain or star in every sport. But in the university they were unable to achieve the same recognition. In the presence of stronger competition, they have imagined themselves failures, when such was not the case. We are called to do the best we can with what we have, regardless of how it compares with others.

"If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill,

Be a scrub in the valley - but be

The best little scrub by the side of the mill,

Be a bush if you can't be a tree

If you can't be a bush, be a bit of the grass

And some highway happier make.

If you can't be muskie, then just be a bass

But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,

There's something for all of us here,

There's big work to do, and there's lesser to do,

And the task you must do is the near.

One failure doesn't mean we lose the race of life anymore than losing a battle means the loss of a war. One slip does not mean we are forever a sinner any more than one good deed makes us a saint. It is not falling down, but staying down that is a disgrace. Some failure is inevitable to anyone who tries to accomplish anything.

It is better to do something imperfectly than to do perfectly nothing. Those who do less than their best have failed as surely as those who attempt nothing. The only difference is in degree.

Real success in life does not consist of accomplishing everything we set out to do. The quality of mind and spirit developed in tackling these tasks, especially during barren moments, is the important thing.

It is not so much what we achieve but what we become that determines the worth of our lives.

The Rev. Dale Turner's column appears Saturdays in The Seattle Times.