"Perhaps a little engine in a children's story chugs her way over the mountain by saying, 'I think I can,' but in real life some mountains are too high and the going too tough."---Donald McCullough

If we can't get over or through our mountain, sometimes we can get around it.

Sometimes faith means having the courage to quit some mountains so we can move on to others.

"Not every dream comes true," writes Donald McCullough in Waking from the American Dream. McCullough's point is that positive thinking doesn't always work: "Perhaps a little engine in a children's story chugs her way over the mountain by saying, 'I think I can,' but in real life some mountains are too high and the going too tough."

In a day of conceive it-achieve it salesmanship and name it-claim it religion, McCullough's words may sound like blasphemy to some, but I agree with him, a conviction I hold partly because of an experience I had in junior high school.

In the 7th grade, the name of my mountain was Artie McAnarney. Standing about 5' 6" and weighing close to 170 pounds (not a bit of it fat), Artie was the starting guard and linebacker for our football team. I was a second (sometimes third) stringer at the same positions, meaning I lined up opposite Artie on a daily basis.

Believe it or not, I actually read Norman Vincent Peale's Power of Positive Thinking in junior high. Yet despite all the willpower and positive attitude I could muster, my mountain kept ending up on top of me. Artie went on to become Art McAnarney, two-time all-district guard at Canyon High School and three-time all-conference linebacker at Oklahoma's Cameron College. I, on the other hand, quit the team after my sophomore year, but I had learned some valuable lessons.

Artie was not a bully, but he was intimidating. He had that linebacker stare that defeats most opponents before the ball is even snapped (You know the look, the same one Clint Eastwood as "Dirty Harry" gets in his eyes before he tells his hapless victims to "Make my day"). Facing Artie on a consistent basis helped me develop some coolness under fire. Later, when I encountered other intimidating people in life (some really were bullies), I thought of junior high school ("You don't scare me," I would say to myself, "I've gone one-on-one with Artie McAnarney").

And so I gained some staying power from my unmovable mountain. I also learned the value of redirecting goals. If we can't get over or through our mountain, sometimes we can get around it.

When I left the football team, I concentrated my efforts on our marching band where I played the tuba. I didn't excel as a tuba player either, but I did develop a love for music and the arts, something that led to an intensified interest in literature, writing, and speaking.

I found a power with words I had not known on the gridiron. Maybe I couldn't physically move people around like Artie did, but, if I could motivate them to move on their own, I had accomplished the same goal.

My experience also taught me something important about faith, a principle especially needful as I face the mountains of midlife. It's not a defeat to pronounce some mountains unmovable; it's only realistic; it's only honest. For faith is more than believing we can accomplish something; oftentimes faith is accepting that we cannot. Sometimes faith means having the courage to quit some mountains so we can move on to others.