Not The Same Man
(This story appeared in issue one of the Restoration Project Small Batch Journal)
Torrents of rain and wind pressed against us, water pouring from the sky as if from a waterfall. The storm was overwhelming, and though we walked merely feet apart, we could not hear each other’s laughter, tears, and singing. The spongy earth beneath us accepted our pilgrim feet with its softness and wetness as it has welcomed the feet of thousands through the centuries. The Scottish island of Iona, just 3 miles long and a mile wide, gave us its gale-force best as we hiked the cliffs and glades to St. Columba’s Bay.
Along with three of my best friends, I made the journey to Scotland as a 40+ year old man in search of something new, something deep, something different. Though I had never been to the northern part of the “Isle of the Mighty”, I knew it held for me, and for us, a doorway to a new way. I was in search of something, though not knowing what it was, knowing I’d recognize it when I found it.
All four of us had entered our “second half”, having passed the mid-field line of our lives. Each one of these men represented a different season of my life: one I met in college, one I met overseas in missions, and one I met after my return from the foreign mission field, broken and bruised and in need of a brother. All four men have children the same age as mine. All four have fierce and lovely wives, all four have an awareness of their own imperfections and fragility, and all are desperate for God’s healing in their lives and stories.
In every way, this was a trip of a lifetime, and at that stage in the career game, none of us could afford a 10-day journey through the Scottish Highlands in pursuit of brotherhood, whiskey, and witnesses. And yet, with a bit of creative saving and airline mile manipulation, our wives blessed us and sent us off, hopeful we’d return more like men and less like the boys we still felt we were inside.
Each day held an architected and intentional experience, designed to invite play and purpose into our pilgrimage. From distillery tours to sea kayaking, from castle-stays to hiking up Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, the days were filled with adventure and man-play. Windy single-track roads in the Highlands took us to places in the world and in our souls we had never traversed.
Parallel to the experience du jour, I wrote a simple but prompting guide designed to invite our everyday conversations into deeper and more meaningful places. Knowing that men typically hover far above the true landscape of our important stories, we all agreed to laugh and play whilst also inviting curiosity from one another. Our experiences provided the doorway into our stories, and in the midst of those stories, we found ourselves and each other. Quite unexpectedly.
I did not grow up with a lot of close friends. While the mountains of Colorado offered me great vistas and quiet streams, large boulders and fantastic sunsets, in my middle and high school years they often prevented me from regular connection and contact with others. The drive to school or to a friend’s house often proved too far, too windy, or too challenging. And so, I stayed at home more often than not, finding ways to entertain myself with my horses, my dogs, and my forest.
The second of two children, I grew up with a severely mentally disabled sister. Many would say I grew up in a good home with good parents, and indeed, they would be correct. However, my childhood circumstances of that good home also created an environment where her needs overrode all others, and I often found it easier to keep my distance than to disrupt the status quo with my needs or desires.
As a result, I often felt alone and awkward. To be part of the “pack” was foreign to me, and though I had opportunities in Young Life and student leadership, I regularly felt relationally cumbersome. My conservative Christian parents restricted my consumption of music, limiting me to Christian artists and albums. This prevented me from experiencing or knowing mainstream media, increasing my otherness. To this day, I am culturally illiterate of my own time.
The mountain roads created too long of a commute to participate in sports. And, while I never truly felt like an athlete, given the opportunity, I would have participated in almost anything just to have something to do, somewhere to go, and a place to belong. It was not to be.
And so, that little boy’s experience continues to live within me to this day. Though now a grown man, the feelings of awkward, different, and unknown lie just below the surface of my soul. It takes very little to access that young part of me: a cultural reference I don't understand, a video game I never played, tossing of the football, a night of "hanging out with the guys”. This journey to Scotland with my friends pressed hard against this ruling narrative, and all the while I fought to take up the pen and write a different story.
Experience leads us to our stories, and these stories can only be edited and revised in the presence of others. We need a kind witness with a warm welcome to transform our core narratives and to tend to those younger parts of us that are locked into repeating story loops that never seem to end.
One day in Dufftown, we hired two river guides to take us on an adventure down the River Spey. It is from these waters that most Highland whiskeys are made, and this river is as ancient as the world’s oldest landscapes. Having never river canoed before, I hesitantly agreed to participate, and after a painfully brief tutorial from our guides, we set off down the river under cloudy skies and Scotland’s typical drizzly rain. The longing to join rang loudly in my heart, and though I stepped into that boat as a grown, adult man, my awkward boy came with me.
My friend Greg sat in the back of the boat. He’s a certified kayak and canoe instructor, so naturally he took charge of steering. This was a relief to me as I tried to find a comfortable way to pretzel my long legs into the small boat. Paddle in hand, we set off, unsteady and wobbly on the water. Within a few minutes, we faced our first rapid with me at the helm, the first of our crew to enter the choppy waters. Cheered on by our friends in the other boat, we entered the turbulence, and yet no one else knew of the paralyzing turbulence inside my soul. I did not know what I was doing, and had no skill in reading the river. I could not distinguish wave from rock, and frantically searched for a smooth path. Our unsteadiness increased, and I was sure Greg was playing a joke on me, intentionally rocking the boat back and forth to make fun of my water instability and ignorance.
But no. It was no joke. Behind my back, the canoe took on water, and burdened by the increase in shifting weight, the shifts and tips became more pronounced. And then, we tumped. Yes, as if in slow motion, the canoe capsized, and I found myself under the water, bouncing and bumping along the bottom of the river. As a relatively good swimmer, the water did not scare me. Indeed, it was shallow enough to stand. In that moment, however, the adult man departed, and the awkward and scared boy inside me stood up, looking at the faces of my friends. What would I see? What would they say? How could I recover from the tump inside my soul?
I had caused the tump. Clearly, it was not Greg’s fault, gifted and talented in all things water as he is. My inability, my lack of skill, my clumsy body and untrained paddle caused us to kiss the water. And in that moment where the tip became a reality, shame lept to the forefront, and I could hardly contain it.
As we regrouped, the guys (including the guides) laughed hysterically. Soaked to the bone and flush with embarrassment, hardly able to speak, I stepped out of the water and back into the boat. My heart raced, my face flushed, and the little boy inside me began to plan his hasty exit, not only from the river, but from the entire trip.
Of the four rapids on the river, we tumped a total of three times, and went backwards down the fourth. Yes, it was that bad. And, yes, each time, it was all my fault.
After we successfully pulled the canoes out of the water and changed into dry clothes, the guides pulled out a spread of food and drink. Present there at the table was the little boy inside me, ashamed of my inadequacy and sure it would cost him the togetherness we had fostered throughout our trip.
But no.
Something different happened. Something unexpected. Something overwhelmingly redemptive. The experience opened the door to my story, and my friends saw me. They saw that part of me that was afraid of rejection and ridicule. They saw that boy, and listened to his fears, and then moved in deeper rather than moving away. They asked questions, sat in the tension, confusion, sadness, and hope, and allowed for a new story to be written.
You see, experience leads to story, and when we encounter our stories with the disruptive kindness of Jesus in the face of another things change. Stories change. Beliefs change. Hearts change.
Kindness is God’s greatest weapon against evil on earth. Kindness stands stalwartly against the dark narratives that seek to enslave us to a narrative not our own. And it is in the kind face of others that we find the kind face of God.
And there on that riverside, my little boy experienced something new. Our day continued with our camaraderie intact, and we had one of the most holy experiences one can have in a private tour of a lesser-known distillery nearby. Though the tumps provided enormous fodder for laughter and memory, the terrified younger part of me came to understand that a mere tump would not have the power to break the bond of brotherhood.
Men become men through other men, and throughout the remainder of our Scottish adventure, the boy within found himself growing up to be the man God intended, all with the strong and tender witness of my friends.
And so, on the last big day before returning home, we set out to find St. Columba's Bay. It was on this shore that the Irish Christian landed in Scotland over 1500 years ago, bringing the good news of the risen Christ to the people of the great island. On that pebbled beach one can find small green stones, tossed and smoothed by the waves. These are known as "Columba's tears”. Tradition instructs visitors to throw a stone into the waves as a sign of departure, leaving behind a story of pain, turbulence, or loss, and to take a green stone to mark the transition from one season to another; the tears of Columba to hold out hope that newness and redemption can reign.
There we stood, each individually grieving our own losses and stories, yet together in the storm. Each throwing our own rocks, our tears mingling with the rain on our faces and our voices blending with the roar of the wind, the boys long held captive within released and raised more into the men God created us to be. What we came to Scotland searching for was actually found within us, and within an honest, strong, and tender brotherhood.
We are not the same men.
And then there's the tattoos, but that's another story altogether.
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Chris Bruno, Chief Visionary
