{"id":4948,"date":"2025-10-08T08:23:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T12:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=4948"},"modified":"2025-10-08T08:23:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T12:23:31","slug":"temporary-container","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/08\/temporary-container\/","title":{"rendered":"Temporary Container"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Tim Hansel loved to push his body to the limits.\u00a0\u00a0

He went to Stanford University on a football scholarship in the 1960’s.\u00a0\u00a0

After earning two degrees, he turned down an opportunity to join the coaching staff.\u00a0His heart was set on more extreme challenges.

Hansel felt most alive in the wilderness\u00a0\u2013 especially California’s rugged Sierra Nevada mountains, forests, and glaciers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

As a Social Studies teacher at a public high school, he quickly discerned that his students did not<\/em> feel particularly alive.\u00a0They seemed terminally afflicted by\u00a0boredom and apathy.\u00a0If only he could push them beyond\u00a0their predictable boundaries.\u00a0\u00a0

What if he took them into the wilderness?

It was worth a shot.\u00a0

Hansel scheduled a couple of weekend camping trips for his students.\u00a0The results were so encouraging\u00a0that he began to offer longer and longer “outdoor experiential education” adventures.\u00a0\u00a0

Early in the 1970’s, Hansel founded Summit Expedition, one of the first wilderness-based ministries in the United States.\u00a0The wilderness, he said, is “the finest place to train servant leaders.”\u00a0Thriving in such an environment\u00a0requires courage, stamina, creativity, and a high commitment to collaborating with others.\u00a0\u00a0

And it’s definitely not boring.\u00a0\u00a0

Hansel\u00a0married a special woman named Anastasia.\u00a0They were blessed with two sons.\u00a0Life itself felt like a great adventure.

Until suddenly\u00a0it wasn’t.

In 1974, while trying to cross a snowbridge on\u00a0a glacier, his crampons became fouled with snow. Hansel\u00a0slipped.\u00a0He\u00a0plunged headfirst into a crevasse, landing with a crunch on his upper back and neck.\u00a0\u00a0

Hansel somehow got to his feet, climbed back up the crevasse, and walked 20 miles to his car.\u00a0But his injuries were severe.\u00a0He had cracked vertebrae, crushed spinal discs, and bone fragments lodged in his neck.

Hansel lived another 35 years.\u00a0But he would never be\u00a0the same again.\u00a0His life became a daily experience of unrelenting pain. The agile outdoorsman morphed into someone who could barely leave his house.\u00a0It was the cruelest of blows for a man who loved physical challenges.

Plan A was gone.\u00a0“Teach me to live in new ways, O Lord,” he\u00a0prayed.\u00a0 \u00a0

As it turned out, Plan B was\u00a0pretty spectacular.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

Hansel became a captivating speaker and writer.\u00a0He churned out\u00a012 books.\u00a0He is most remembered for You Gotta Keep Dancing, <\/em>in which he found an entirely new audience \u2013 people suffering from chronic pain, sadness, and physical limitations.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

“Pain is inevitable,” Tim wrote, “but misery is optional.”\u00a0We can always choose the way we respond to what life throws at us.\u00a0We can always choose joy.

Hansel’s suffering finally came to an end in 2009.\u00a0 Anastasia\u00a0asked that his cremated ashes be returned to her in the least expensive vessel.\u00a0A few days later she received a cardboard box that was labeled\u00a0“Temporary Container.”

The mortuary wasn’t trying to make a theological statement, but that’s surely how Tim Hansel would have taken it.\u00a0\u00a0

We all live in temporary containers.\u00a0\u00a0

On any given day, we might face changing waistlines and retreating hairlines.\u00a0Life includes headaches, joint pain, blemishes, reflux, diabetes, and\u00a0cancer.\u00a0And every 24 hours we are one day closer to the day that we have to leave these temporary containers behind.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

Followers of Jesus have always believed that life isn’t over when it’s over.\u00a0

It seems fitting that Anastasia is the Greek word for “resurrection.”\u00a0

In the new heavens and new earth that God promises, there’s every reason to believe there will be new mountains to climb.

And we will definitely be on our feet dancing.\u00a0 \u00a0
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Tim Hansel loved to push his body to the limits.\u00a0\u00a0 He went to Stanford University on a football scholarship in the 1960’s.\u00a0\u00a0 After earning two degrees, he turned down an opportunity to join the coaching staff.\u00a0His heart was set on more extreme challenges. Hansel felt most alive in the wilderness\u00a0\u2013 especially… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[555,112],"class_list":["post-4948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-joy","tag-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4950,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions\/4950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}