When the Lads Get Together

A month previously I wrote about the boy in every man, that relief from daily responsibilities to allow that secret desire to be fulfilled, especially if there's nobody around to see you. Thus, for example, in a line of police constables standing military-style to attention, their serious and straight faces perfectly hiding those childhood cravings - such as that longing to try out that newly-installed helter-skelter slide at the nearby children's playground. Or to ride a shopping trolley down the steep hill late at night, or best of all, during an executive's meeting, to leave a whoopie cushion on the chairman's seat.

Or a female reporter in a bit of a downcast mood alighting from the train at London Euston Station at about the same time as another train also pulling into the terminus. That other train was painted red and windowless throughout, and on its carriage were the words in giant lettering: Her Majesty's Royal Mail. It was then when one of a couple of male fellow passengers who sat close by at her train, then exclaimed in a typical American accent, and in all seriousness, Wow! I never knew the Queen gets so many letters! Without a doubt, the reporter made her way to the office in a brighter, merrier mood.

This masculine trait. What makes us men so different from women? When I consider some of the greatest comedians in my time, all men, such as Tommy Cooper, Benny Hill, Dave Allen, duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, Harry Worth, Steptoe & Son actors Wilfred Brambell and Harry Corbett, along with the star of Till Death Us Do Part, Alf Garnet, played by Warren Mitchell, among others, all of them long dead but memories of their performances endure. Cooper's failure as a stand-up magician is typical. On one occasion he asked a volunteer in the audience to lend his wristwatch, with a promise that by his magic he would receive it back intact. So he placed the wristwatch under a handkerchief and then beat it with a hammer over and over again. Then he began to wave his hand over it, making some chant, until with final abracadabra! he lifted the handkerchief - only for the broken bits to scatter across the table. 

Of course, anyone in his right mind would have recoiled at the sight of somebody's precious property smashed to pieces in such a casual manner. But instead, the sketch was meant to make us all laugh, and we did laugh, the whole nation watching the stint on television - laughing at an act which at all other times would have merited wrath from the owner of the broken item. As such, I tend to believe that the wristwatch was a mocked-up fake specifically made for that part of his performance.

Therefore I do wonder whether humour is a predominantly masculine characteristic, although as I write this, two female-based comedies immediately come to mind. One is The Vicar of Dibley, played by Dawn French as Rev Geraldine Granger, and Keeping Up Appearances, with Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet) played by Patricia Routledge. But in the first comedy, there are five men in the cast, while Hyacinth's beleaguered husband Richard shares her stage. It's such programmes which seem to endorse my opinion that an all-female comedy cast remains non-existent.

In the world of sport, this masculine culture, at least in my younger days, couldn't be made more manifest than in boxing, wrestling, football (soccer) and rugby football, and even cricket, perhaps regarded as the gentleman's game. Rugby, also once known as rugger, was and still is, a very masculine-based sport. Even in comics, where cartoons of rugby players were portrayed as muscular hunks locked in a scrum, were known to say to a passing child who was amused at the oval ball, that this is rugby, a real he-man's game. And so at school, during the Winter months, we as boys played football and rugby while the girls concentrated on hockey and netball. At school, not a single pupil or teacher ever thought it plausible for girls to partake in male-based sports.

Therefore, when someone in our church at Ascot had sent an email to all members inviting us all to watch England versus Australia World Cup Rugby quarter-finals this morning, I was keen to delay my Saturday morning coffee at Starbucks to join the predominantly male group who had also come to watch. Cheers roared whenever England scored a try, followed by the conversion, while the one try scored by the Australian team was greeted with silence. The final result was England: 40 points, Australia: 16.

The game we watched: England v. Australia, 2019.

This was not the first time either. Earlier this year, my good friend Dr Andrew Milnthorpe invited me to watch football with him among a small group at the Kerith Centre, Bracknell's church. Although, like with rugby, I enjoyed watching the match, on both these occasions it was the fellowship with other believers which made the difference. As such, I strongly believe that men in every church should socialise together as men.

In the past, Ascot Life Church did have a men's social group. Here, a group of us, numbering up to thirty people, meeting at an Indian restaurant roughly every six weeks. Most of us were married men which, by getting together, can discuss topics related to men, which included big changes in our Sunday service venue. It was at this restaurant where I heard for the first time a proposal to move our morning service from our own venue to the Paddocks Restaurant at the racecourse, a room with twice the capacity to accommodate our church which is growing in numbers. It was also during this move when Ascot Baptist Church became Ascot Life Church.

Other activities included meeting in a pub. Yes, I know, how "worldly" can we get? There are Christians who frown at the idea of visiting a pub and consuming alcohol. But having a discussion, even on serious issues, over a glass of ale is very different from binge-drinking when the consumer staggers out of the pub, stoned out to his wit's end.

Then it's the walk in the park. Virginia Water, with its large lake, is a popular venue for Summer walks. Back in the Spring, a few of us had a long walk through this area. This opened up the opportunity to touch on various issues. Also enjoying a privately-owned sauna with two or three other men at the host's home, along with a fry-up, while at another venue, having a swim in a garden pool, all to encourage interaction, where fellow believers can open up their trust to help solve personal problems or share with each other life's difficulties and the best way to handle them.

But it's the men's breakfast which I always attended. There were two of them. The rather well-attended one at Christ Church, Virginia Water, was regularly visited by my father-in-law, who always invited me whenever he attended. The other was our own men's breakfast held at Ascot. It was sad that dwindling support eventually caused this Saturday event to cease, as was the case with Virginia Water.

I believe that these Christian men's social get-togethers do have a part in spiritual development. According to my own experience, to go out with a group of lads actually enhances a marriage. Experience indicates that the wife who allows her husband to go out with the boys is generally happier than the wife who restrains or even henpecks him. Paul the apostle favours the wife who is happy to let her husband socialise with his Christian brothers when he writes:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Ephesians 5:22-24.

It's during these social meets, spiritual advice can be passed. But whatever cases which arise, and there are a great many, the bottom line of them all, Paul continues:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 
Ephesians 5:25-28.

By reading this portion of Paul's letter, which I have quoted only in part, there is far more emphasis on the husband loving his wife than the wife loving her husband. In fact, the apostle does not even instruct the wife to love her husband, but only to submit to him. He didn't need to. Women have a far greater natural tendency to love than men. Most likely due to her maternal instincts in giving birth and rearing her child, while the husband's principal role is in his productivity, to provide for his household.

Therefore I, like all other men, must work and make a conscious effort to love my wife. And the kind of love for her which is also honourable to God is enriched by the Holy Spirit who dwells in both of us. With my beloved suffering a physical disability - she can only go outdoors in a wheelchair - plus her recent cancer and the chemotherapy which caused her to lose her hair, my love for her and my devotion to her remains as strong as ever. And the source of such love comes from the Holy Spirit.

Jesus himself had said that when two or three of us are gathered in his name, there he is in the midst of us (Matthew 18:20). Therefore we can assume that he is here with us - although there are plenty of times when it doesn't seem that way, nevertheless, it doesn't change the facts.

A group of Christian men socialising together. And among them, Christ dwells through the Holy Spirit who dwells in each one of them. And to be together to watch a rugby player tackle his opponent to the ground in a major championship game - yes, we can handle that.

Crude? Or Not?

I always recall when I was one of five young men having fun while on a cycling tour, having disembarked from a ferry at Rotterdam, then cycled through Holland, then into Germany, where we arrived at the city of Cologne. We spent a couple of days there before taking a different route homeward, riding through Belgium, to board the ferry back to England from the port of Ostend.  For one who has always travelled alone, to be one of a group of five free-spirited, unmarried men was a learning curve, as we were all Christian believers from four different churches, yet we remained united as one. It was June 1987, in the midst of building up my window cleaning business, and therefore unable to afford longhaul backpacking throughout the period between 1978 and 1993.

But it was not all peaches and cream. While staying at a backpacker's hostel in Cologne, I had all my cash stolen while having breakfast downstairs, as a result of being foolish enough to leave my wallet among all my other stuff in the dormitory. Penniless, I had to depend on the generosity of the other four men for the rest of the ride until I set afoot on English soil. But nevertheless, we made the most of our adventure, and I did not let the theft of my cash ruin the holiday. Instead if there were opportunities to laugh and joke around, at least this helped to take some of the grind from constant pedaling. 

During one of the city stops, one of my friends and myself needed to visit the gents (rest room, comfort station). It was in the days that the male urinal was just one unit which lined one of the interior walls, before the modern introduction of single individual units, and in this particular case the room being underground. When the two of us arrived at the urinal to answer the call of nature, I made a passing comment in a calm tone without the intent of being humourous:-

This is where they all hang out!

Suddenly, and much to my surprise, my friend burst into hysterical laughter. This was meant to be a statement of fact rather than a joke. I was taken in by his laughter, and we both ended up almost rolling on the floor with intense mirth. But this seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. In all my days of church life, I can remember very little of mirth and laughter among Christian men. So here I would like to ask: how would you have re-acted had it been you who had been with me instead of one of my friends in the group? Would you have laughed? Or gave me a stern look? Or even attempt to figure out the ambiguity of the comment? Do you see mirth and laughter as sinful? And in turn, do you believe that constant sorrow and mourning over your shortcomings is the sign of true godliness?

For this reason I would never tell a saucy joke in a church gathering. I suspect that rather than laughter, the response I would get is a cold, flint-hard look of disapproval. Saucy? This sounds to me like the fluid poured over a meal to enhance both the taste and flavour. I have to be honest with myself, but the majority of jokes which sends me laughing loudest have a dash of sauciness to them. The truth is, I do enjoy a laugh and a joke without incurring guilt. But over the years I have learnt not to tell downright rude jokes. Not only would it offend the Christian hearer, but by my own experience, I demean myself, even if I tell it to an unbeliever. But on the other hand, the above statement spoken in the toilets was neither rude, nor vulgar, not did it contain any swear words, nor was it sexually explicit. Yet the element of sauciness had sent my mate into fits of laughter.

Looking back on all this, I recall a gulf as wide as the Grand Canyon between a crude-minded working class yet experienced wood finisher, and a well educated professional holding down a desk job. And I learnt first hand by experience. Fresh from leaving school in 1968, at age just fifteen years, I joined a furniture-making factory as a trainee wood finisher. It was here, in an all-male environment, that I quickly became familiar of the most vulgar smut that could enter the ears of an innocent youth. Yes, some of it was funny, but on the whole, not only was it degrading to women, but also to our own gender as well. The volume of swear words uttered in between fifteen to thirty minutes of conversation became countless. But this was something I had to get used to, and became part of daily living without any more effect on my conscience.

And what makes this whole saga of special note is when I became a believer towards the end of 1972. Not long after I declared unashamedly my belief in Jesus Christ, there was a documentary shown on TV about a three thousand year old ancient mummy, found preserved at a frozen environment. During a discussion about the documentary the next day, our friend came out with this statement, as far as I remember, word for word:-

The presence of that mummy proves that this guy existed and was once alive. As for this Jesus, they never found even one of his balls!

If you find that statement so offensive, then please bear in mind what I had to go through as a young, inexperienced believer. So immature, I never thought about declaring the answer that would have instantly killed his blasphemous statement. I now wished that I had said,

Of course no one would find ANY part of the Lord's anatomy. He is risen from the dead and is now seated in Heaven. All of him, scrotum included!

By not coming out with such an answer is something I deeply regret, and sometimes I feel unable to forgive myself for allowing that statement to go unchallenged. But what did make an impact in the shop floor was the presence of a small New Testament which was given to all of us at school by the Gideons. I watched our foreman blush as if in fear at the sight of the book, while I found it nourishing to my soul during the breaks. Shortly after all this, I left the factory during Spring of 1973 to take on the Summer job as a qualified poolside lifeguard.

But I believe that the five year experience on that shop floor had changed me from a boy into a man. The daily torrent of smut had hardened my skin in a way to enable me to take on challenges which might not have happened otherwise. For example, more than once I was referred to as brave for backpacking both the Middle East and North America on my own, even though I had never associated travel with bravery. Rather, travel was always something I enjoy doing. But much more recently, in the days following my heart operation, I was commended for not moaning and wallowing in the luxury of pain. But that was because I had the welfare of my wife in the upper echelons of my mind. I had to think of that first, which necessitated my determination to recover quickly to resume my care for her.

Some time later from Autumn of 1973 onward,  I found myself working at a precision engineering factory, an environment of both gender, and therefore vastly different to the furniture factory of my former days. This company also gave me access to the adjoining offices upstairs, where I made friends with a couple of employees there. Although two of them were friendly towards the Christian faith without being committed, a third was an atheist, but without any of the slur which characterised the behaviour of the wood finisher. And that had gotten me to think about church, even to this day.

In a way I find it sad to see our churches, including the one I regularly attend, filled mostly with middle class men and women, college students, as well as a high percentage of senior citizens, but remaining absent of down to earth working class war veterans like our smutty friend. I have thought about the wood finisher (who by now has long died) and wondered whether it was the ravishes of war which made him the way he was. As a boy, did he attend Sunday School? That was something I had never asked. If he did become familiar with church life, then went to war for God, King and Country, only to witness the appalling suffering and death of his mates and colleagues, all in the name of God? Could this had an impact on his heart until worked up to a hostile frenzy? Somehow, I find it much easier to dislike a church going hypocrite than to dislike someone like that worker and war veteran. Yet it becomes too easy, in my mind, to pass judgement and write the person off as being without hope without first knowing the facts of his background beforehand.

That to be gives the impression that our churches are too much out of balance, favouring the middle classes, the well to do, the polite and well educated, and the professional. Many years ago I heard a pastor of a church I used to attend state plainly that he wishes that more of the wealthy, Corporation directors, the bankers, those from the yuppie culture, and so on would fill the pews - so giving towards a new building project can be quick and more effective. There are times that I can't help thinking: That somehow the ninth Beatitude in the Sermon of the Mount has been erased from the original manuscript by an early church father, for saying, Blessed are the wealthy and the well educated, for God has a preference for them. If you think that this is a dangerous tinkering of the Word of God, then it is only gotten from what I have seen in church life over the years.

There is only one answer that would help the churches make more of an impact on the unbelieving world, that is to walk in the Holy Spirit/to walk in love. So intertwined are the two suggestions, that only a forward slash is needed to define the two. Walking in the Holy Spirit is walking in love, I believe. But far more fortunate for the present rising generation is that the generation which consisted of world war veterans I had to face as an adolescent, is passing away at present, and none from that era will now be found at the workplace. By comparison with the 1960's, the present day student and apprentice had never had it so good. Gone too, I believe, are the dogsbody tasks every school leaver had to endure in the presence of their seniors, such as sweeping the factory floor, making the tea for all, and so on. But sometimes I can't help thinking, that in a modern industrial world relatively free of such humble tasks and dreadful smut, our present generation will be somewhat softer and less resistant to the challenges of life. I have seen this already, even in my own generation, there are men whose gentler, middle class and far higher educated upbringing has made them averse to any uncomfortable situation, such as carrying out a task in the rain, for example, something which I take in my stride, or visiting the Holy land as part of an escorted tour group, rather than as a free-going backpacker, and letting the land gradually talk back to him through day to day personal interaction.

But in all, thank goodness that perhaps we can have a good laugh, perhaps even border into sauciness, without the need to go into degrading and harmful smut. Really, we don't need this in life, and it doesn't edify anyone. I can certainly do without any smut, instead by giving thanks to God for his goodness and expressing joy for his salvation can lift the spirit in a way no amount of smutty language can achieve.

And that includes public toilet smut.