“Failure is not an option!”

If you have never watched Apollo 13 by now, you may never.

For those who have, failure on that mission meant, if we don’t try, the crew will die.

Stranded, wounded in space, the Apollo vehicle was currently incapable of bringing the crew home as planned. The thousands of tested scenarios didn’t include what they were faced with.

In one of the most famous scenes in the film, the Mission Director had someone dump out on a table representative parts of what the Apollo crew members had on board to work with. Then he commissioned all the engineers present, to find a way to make a square peg fit in a round hole.

“Failure is not an option!” If we don’t try, the crew will die.

What crisis looms large in front of you, in front of us? What seeming impossibility confronts you, or us, that if we don’t at least try, someone, or something inside us will die?

Yesterday’s news was bleak. But not all bleak. While pillars of our fragile Republic seemed to continue to erode, a national health crisis was being relieved by a new biological breakthrough.

Someone dared to try, to prevent others from dying.

Today is no different than hundreds of other significant historical moments in our past. We wake to crisis. For some, that leads to frozen fear. For others, an incredibly challenging opportunity.

The table is set. All the available pieces lay before you. How can you make them work for the security of others?

If you (we) don’t try, someone will surely…