What Have We Learned?

Garrison Keillor starts his short story "A Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra" thus: "To each person God gives some talent, such as writing, just to name one, and to many persons He has given musical talent, though not as many as think so."

Similarly, in our family, there are some self-effacing people, though not as many as think so.  I accept, however reluctantly, that I cannot count myself among their number.  I can also readily say that in a family of talented musicians I do stand out as one on whom that particular gift has not been bestowed.

Keillor goes on: "For the young Lutheran, the question must be: Do I have a genuine God-given musical talent or do I only seem gifted in comparison to other young Lutherans?"  I have no excuse for quoting that section other than its brilliance, for which no apology is required.

It might be thought that continuing to write about my cycling trip after the last blog is stretching a point too far, and bearing down too hard upon the indulgence on those kind enough to take an interest.  Several people have, very generously, made valedictory comments on my facebook page about the blog, possibly with a view to hinting strongly that that's enough. Don't push it.  Who, after all, do you think you are?

However, I can't leave it quite yet.  I have tried to deal with the events and track the progress of our journey, but reflections on what it actually means have been deferred.  And it has to mean something.  There would be no point in leaving family and home behind for a week if it were simply a self-indulgent frippery.

Now, I should make clear that I am not indulging in the kind of learning exercise so enthusiastically promoted in the modern workplace.  The last thing I want people to envisage is me sitting down opposite them with a clipboard, tilting the head to one side and asking, "Well, what have we learned from this?"

But what was its purpose? Why did I choose to do it, and what did I get out of it?

Let's start with what it wasn't.  It was not a nostalgia trip, reliving our youth and reminding ourselves of better days.  I would not need to travel to the highlands on a bike to have secure the memories of our original trip, or to enjoy the friendships which were strengthened by that experience together.  In any event, I don't consider that those were better days.  It was Norman, funnily enough, who made this point in characteristically succinct form on the birthday card they gave me for my 40th birthday, when he wrote: "40 and wishing you were 20? No, far better to be 40 and have all the things you wished for when you were 20".  I have thought about that a lot since he wrote it.  Not only was, and is, that true(Tom was about 2 when I was 40, and Charlie would come along less than a year later); it meant a great deal to me that he acknowledged it to be true for me.

In any event, I don't know what reliving your youth would be like.  You cannot go back 29 years and hope to experience what you had before in the same way, since you are bound to have changed as a person.  Pity help you if you haven't grown in that time. 

This is not some kind of pro-Murdo manifesto but why would I want to try to recapture what I was at 18 when this life is altogether more blessed and yet still filled with all the good things I had when I was that age.  Apart from youth, and frankly that was wasted on me.

In short, if it was all about looking back, we didn't need to go. 

Part of my thinking was to test myself again, to see how I coped with a week of steady, hard physical exertion.  I like to think I have a reasonable baseline of fitness, like many people do, but testing it is another matter.  There were times where I thought I couldn't go another yard - Achanalt in Strath Bran comes to mind - but a short rest and a change of landscape refreshed the spirit and the legs, and away we went again.  There is no doubt that I was undercooked but the legs improved as the miles gathered, and with that the confidence and the enjoyment.

However, there were really two main reasons for going again.  Firstly, I wanted to revisit an area of Scotland I hadn't seen since 1982, and which I have no normal prospect of seeing, and to do it in a way which allows you to experience, taste and feel it.  The road to Achnasheen, and from there to Torridon, is one of the last wild places in Scotland and feels much more remote than the islands.  When you're on a bike you have no choice but to press on in the midst of this emptiness, and while in a way it feels desolate, there is something thrilling about being so far from home, under your own steam, in what feels like a proper adventure.

It is also a reminder, should it be needed, that Scotland is truly the most beautiful country, and to say that does not sentimentalise it at all.  To pass through the enormous variety of landscapes, weathers, colours, skies, road surfaces, wind directions and temperatures we did, in such a short time, tells you that we are in an amazing place.  You should see it.  And, if possible, not in a car.

The second reason was to spend some time with Norman, in a way we haven't for some years.  It will be apparent from the way I have spoken about him that this is a friendship which means a great deal to me.  I am aware that I am, and am increasingly, expressive about my relationships, and that this is not typical of a highland temperament.  Norman, though brought up in England, has much more of that family reserve, and the last thing I would ever try to do is embarrass him.

It is also typical of men of our age to say as little as possible that might be seen as sentimental, especially about our male friendships.  To my mind, there's a risk that by saying nothing we miss opportunities to make clear to the people we love what they mean to us. And, when it comes to it, what's the problem with doing that?  Unless you're a stalker or a creep, the expression of mutual friendship must always be welcome.

It is not always awkward to speak about these things, but we tend to box them up in a safe context.  The two best examples are what might be called The Band of Brothers approach, and The Australian Cricket Team.  The Band of Brothers allows for strong feelings to be expressed in adversity, in order to demonstrate fellowship against a common enemy.  When I managed to lock my car in an empty car park in Durham last year, leaving a group of five of us stranded for the night, the other car came back to pick up survivors.  When I texted my thanks to Jonesi, the driver, he replied simply: "No man left behind".  Motivated by action rather than word, this is a comfortable form of meaningful expression.

The Australian Cricket Team is a variation on this, in which the autobiographies of one grizzled Aussie cricketer after another says that while playing cricket was good fun, the best thing to emerge from their years in the team was the sense of "mateship", of bonding with your mates and having a good time together.  It has always seemed to me that this is as much about telling outsiders that they don't belong, as forming mature bonds.  Paul Collingwood recently spoke about the change he experienced when he dropped out of the England cricket team, in that he still gets the odd text from his former team-mates but no longer has that sense of belonging he only recently enjoyed.  This demonstrates the limitations of both these kinds of relationships.

I have an extraordinary and beautiful wife and two wonderful, fascinating, funny boys; that's the my inner circle.  I have been born into a great family, and we're still travelling on together as a family, led by Mum and Dad.  So where do friends fit into this? 

A man without friends is a pretty poor man, and a married man without friends won't be married very long.  Emma has her friendships, and looks after those friendships by regular contact.  I hear a lot of men saying that women are just better at that kind of thing than men.  Maybe, but that's just an excuse for being rubbish, something we wouldn't accept or excuse in any other area of our lives.  If my friends weren't important to me, that wouldn't matter, but the reality is that not only is it an enormous pleasure to have good friends with whom to spend time, it is essential to my wellbeing as a person, as a husband and a father.  I think the heart of it may be that men are very concerned that they might appear to be needy.  Does it make me needy to persist in making arrangements with friends, to make the first contact? Emphatically not. 

Paul's famous passage in his letter to the Corinthians about love is often read out at weddings.  Fine; the very place to hear about love.  But not the only place.  Paul tells us that love always hopes.  While there may be an eternal aspect to that hope, I think it's also a very wise and compassionate encouragement to interpret the actions (and omissions) of those whom we love, friends included, in the best possible light.  Once we have established who our friends are, (and that may be the difficult part) we are to stick with them. I have found this so often.  If a friendship is truly a friendship, it will endure over time.  Paul also says that love does not keep a record of wrongs, perhaps the most challenging statement in the whole letter.  It is human nature to defend ourselves by pointing to the failures of others, but Paul counsels against it, primarily, it seems to me, for our own benefit.

So why am I saying all of this now?  Because being away with Norman for a week made me think so much about friendship, both his and others.  Emma recently described Norman to another friend as being "like a cross between a brother and a best mate" to me.  On those occasions when I have needed a friend, he is one of the crucial ones on whom I have been able to lay burdens without a thought.  He's not the only one (and I'm not forgetting the critical importance of my family here) but he's been there longer than anyone else outside the family.  He fortifies me in my marriage, reaffirming Emma at every turn, and before we were established as a couple, Norman and Alison's positive endorsement was an important encouragement to me. The foundations were laid each summer when we were teenagers, when he would come up to Inverness for weeks; we were students together; and before we got married we were in and out of each other's way, spending a lot of time in Edinburgh together; and perhaps critically, we went on these cycling trips together, to Harris twice, to the south west of England (our cathedrals and county cricket grounds tour) and to the south of Ireland with Alison.

This recent trip simply reaffirmed all I knew about our friendship; it was a fantastic time together.  Not a cross word, no significant disagreements and, from my perspective at least, the constant pleasure of each other's company.  When new people were attracted by his charm and natural good humour as we met them along the way, I gained their interest by simply being with him.  He is such a generous companion and always ready to help.

In other words, a true friend.

The reason I have written this is that I think that we rarely reflect on friendships and to encourage others to do so.  And it is my privilege that I have a group of friends I could readily nominate as being crucial to me in similar but different ways, though it would be invidious to mention any names.  This is an example; it is amazing to me that there are others.  If you think this is embarrassingly hagiographic of Norman or anyone else, you need to read it for what it is: an expression of friendship.  If I thought he was perfect, it would not be a real friendship.  It's just that I choose not to record any criticisms here.

I have used these words elsewhere, at Dave Rankin's induction social, but I repeat them here for their aptness: "Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends."(W B Yeats).  But Yeats didn't quite express it right.  It's a token of God's glory in my life that I have such friends.


I return to Garrison Keillor at the end of this set of blogs.  I am acutely conscious that by putting all this stuff about myself on the blog, I am effectively asking people to recognise how interesting am I and my life.  I have tried to make it more about the journey but my personality, my weak spot, keeps getting in the way.  In Lake Wobegon Days, he embarks, in footnotes, on a diatribe against his parents entitled 95 Theses 95.  It's one of the funniest pieces I have ever read, and in it he includes a devastating blow to false modesty:

For fear of what it might do to me, you never paid a
     compliment, and when other people did, you beat it away
     from me with a stick.  "He certainly is looking nice and
     grown up." He'd look a lot nicer if he did something
     about his skin. "That's wonderful that he got that job."
     Yeah, well, we'll see how long it lasts.  You trained me
     so well, I now perform this service for myself.  I
     deflect every kind word directed to me, and my denials
     are much more extravagant than the praise.  "Good
     speech." Oh, it was way too long.  I didn't know what I
     was talking about, I was just blathering on and on, I was
     glad when it was over.  I do this under the impression
     that it is humility, a becoming quality in a person.
     Actually, I am starved for a good word, but after the
     long drought of my youth, no word is quite good enough.
     "Good" isn't enough. Under this thin veneer of modesty
     lies a monster of greed.  I drive away faint praise,
     beating my little chest, waiting to be named Sun God,
     Kind of American, Idol of Millions, Bringer of Fire, the
     Great Hafi, Thun-Dar the Boy Giant.  I don't want to say,
     "Thanks, glad you liked it."  I want to say, "Rise, my
     people. Remove your faces from the carpet, stand, and
     look your lord in the face." 

That's not me having a go at my parents, but an attempt to acknowledge that in publishing a blog I am not being modest, and that makes me slightly uncomfortable.  However, we are what we are.

Thanks for reading.