Category: Miscellaneous

Serious business

As I drove past, I barely noticed the broken down car on the grass verge at the side of the road. Except, something had caught my eye. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said to my wife, Alison. ‘Did you see the sticker on the back of that car?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Why? What did it say?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘But if it’s anything like what I think it was…’ I found the first safe place to U-turn, back we went and pulled up beside the abandoned car.

The very prominent sticker on the rear of the car was what I thought it was. In big bold letters it said: Got a problem? Just try Jesus!

I don’t have any issue with encouraging troubled people to turn to Jesus. It’s the right thing to do when you have problems, and even better to do it before you have problems.

But I do have issues with that way of communicating the message.

The least of my issues was that the sticker was a bad advert in those circumstances. That car looked like it had been broken down for several days. ‘Got a problem? Just try Jesus!’ clearly hadn’t got the car going. If I’d driven past it every day, I’d have been thinking, ‘What Jesus wants you to try now is calling a garage or a rescue service.’

However, I had more significant problems with that car sticker.

A 21st century generation isn’t won over by trite messages. Sloganizing doesn’t impress. I’ve come across sayings like these:

  • Why worry when you can pray
  • Know God, Know Peace; No God, No Peace.
  • Let Go and Let God
  • When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out alright.
  • 1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4 Given

I almost like the Jonah saying, but it’s funny and understandable only for people who know their bibles. They, presumably, are not the target audience.

 Some slogans are much more troublesome than my examples.

An associate minister told me that, when he was younger, he used ‘conversation starters’ with university students.

‘What kind of conversation starters?’ I asked.

He listed them. I shuddered. The worst was probably ‘Turn or burn’. The rest were nearly as dreadful and offensive.

‘Who did you say them to?’ I hoped they were people he knew well and who wouldn’t be too upset. I was wrong.

‘I’d go up to students in a bus queue, tap them on the shoulder, and let them have it.’

It’s a wonder they didn’t let him have it. He thought his shoot-from-the-hip approach would get them talking. I suspect what most people said was ‘Go away,’ but with less polite language. When I asked him if he still used that technique sometimes, he said, ‘No, it didn’t work’.

Now there’s a surprise.

Some advertisers still sloganize, but many of the best prefer to tell a story or make people smile. They don’t smack them in the mouth with their message. They want people to think, and use subtlety and humour to achieve that. (Do an internet search for john lewis christmas adverts and you’ll see what I mean.)

In what most call the ‘western world’, there are two disturbing truths. One is that few people believe in God in a deep sense. The second is that many people have never even thought about God in a deep sense. We need to make people think, but slogans won’t do that. What’s easily said is easily dismissed. We can do better.

Slogans aren’t appropriate for serious business. And Christianity is serious business. One of the most important conversations of my life occurred when I was 17. I never expected it, and the way it happened was very odd.

My first year in journalism included study, and a few days of the journalism course were spent with other young reporters at a residential centre. The place was no upmarket conference suite; facilities were basic. I was allocated to share a room with John and Graham. I knew both of them already, including a strange peculiarity of John’s. He liked black. He liked everything around him to be black. His hair was jet black, and his clothes were all black (long before that was anyone else’s fashion choice). He told me how his parents had responded when he wanted black curtains, ‘John you’ve already got black wallpaper and now you want black curtains…?’He got his black curtains. John was a likeable one-off.

Late that evening each of us climbed into our narrow, dormitory-style beds, and John switched off the light. He also liked darkness. But the three of us talked, about lots of things and then one of them mentioned God. John was unmercifully direct: ‘So, what do each of you think about God?’ Graham mumbled something about reaching the age of ten and giving up believing God existed. Then it was my turn.

‘I believe in God…’ I said hesitantly. There was silence. They expected me to say more, but I didn’t have anything more to say. John and Graham had studied journalism with me for several months. They knew me. I’d never mentioned God before, and my lifestyle wasn’t bad but no advert for Christianity.

Then John’s voice came out of the darkness. ‘I respect you believing in God, but what I can’t respect is that you don’t then do anything about it.’

I remember nothing more of what was said that night. But John’s sentence stayed in my mind in bold capitals. ‘…WHAT I CAN’T RESPECT IS THAT YOU DON’T THEN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.’

When those words were still there next morning, and the one after that, I decided I had to talk to the minister of the church I (sometimes) attended.

But the minister went away to another church.

I went away for seven months to report the news in another city.

What never went away was that sentence spoken in the dark, by the unlikeliest of friends. How could I believe in God but do nothing in response to that?

After my seven month exile I returned, and found there was a new minister at the church. His name was Peter, and he seemed friendly. Almost my first sentence to him was, ‘I need to speak with you about God.’

One day every week after that I met with Peter, and  we talked about what lived-out faith meant. Gradually it made more sense. Late one Thursday night – really late – there was a moment when all my thoughts came together. I knew I had to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to God. If ‘yes’ my commitment would be everything. If ‘no’ I’d never go back to church. And, in the dark, at 2.40 that morning, my decision was made.

Next day, as soon as work was over, I phoned Peter and said I had to see him as soon as possible. ‘Come now, if you like,’ he replied.

Thirty minutes later I rang Peter’s door bell, was welcomed inside, and I told him what had happened early that morning, and that I’d said ‘yes’. I couldn’t have been more excited. Peter was too. We laughed, we prayed, and from that day on my life changed. A man called John had caused me to find a man called Peter – it sounds so biblical – and now I knew what believing in God had to mean: my life lived for him.

I’ve described that deeply personal story because it illustrates something very significant: Christianity is serious business. We can reject it or accept it. What we can’t do is be complacent or casual about it. We can’t tuck faith away in a corner of our minds, dust it off occasionally, but mostly do nothing about it. It’s far too important for that.

That’s why it’s wrong to tell people to just ‘try Jesus’.

A slogan saying ‘try Levis’ is fine because if you buy jeans and don’t like them you return them to the store or consign them to the ‘rarely used clothes’ shelf in the wardrobe. That’s okay, because jeans are a ‘take it or leave it’ commodity.

God is not a commodity. We can’t try God on for size, and if he doesn’t fit we’ll return him or ignore him. My strange friend John had helped me realise that you can’t really believe in God and do that. Believing in God must mean following God, and that’s a serious business.

A much more serious business than any bumper sticker can communicate.

Procrastination

I’m a procrastinator. There, I’ve said it. I’ve been meaning to do that for a long time.

That last sentence is a joke, but not the first sentence. Apparently I was born on my due date, but it’s been downhill ever since in respect of getting things done in good time. Homework for school was always last minute. I needed ‘extensions’ for most of my university essay assignments. Preparing sermons involved stealing hours of sleep the night before the preaching date. It was the same when I wrote books. Editors gave me final deadlines so I would submit the work. I coined the phrase, ‘A deadline is the mother of motivation’ because nothing else got me going.

Not everyone procrastinates, but the procrastination club does have a lot of members. And those members ‘never quite get round to doing…’ everything from buying groceries or returning a phone call, to making life-significant decisions like changing careers or proposing marriage. For some, it’s not just procrastination about proposing marriage but procrastination about getting married. I worked beside a woman who’d been engaged for twenty five years, and she and her fiancé still hadn’t fixed a wedding date.

Procrastination is not laziness. The lazy person can’t be bothered to get off their couch, but the procrastinator could be energetic and active about many things, just not the right things, not the things that should be done. They’re postponed until…? Well, procrastinators prefer never to answer the ‘when’ question.

Nor is procrastination necessarily indecision. Often the procrastinator knows exactly what to do but just doesn’t get round to doing it. It’s inaction as much as indecision.

Why procrastinate?

Here are reasons that have sometimes applied to me.

I procrastinate when I’m not sure what to do or how to do it    There’s a warning light showing on the dashboard of my car. It’s not obvious what that light signifies, and the car is running fine. So I’ll do nothing and see if the light goes off. I should cut our tall hedge lower, but should it be down to six feet, seven feet, or compromise at six and a half feet? I’ll have to think about that… So far, that’s been for about a year. This kind of procrastination is compounded either when I have to choose between several options or when a decision can be delayed, because then it will be delayed.

I procrastinate when I’ve so many things to do I don’t know which to do first    I could prepare the talk I have to give next week. I could read the book I’m committed to study. I could walk the dogs. I could hang the pictures that have rested on the floor against the wall for ages. I could finish repairing the liner on the garden pond. Or I could do any of another twenty things. The multiplicity of tasks is a fog I can’t see through to what matters most. So, instead, I’ll go and play golf. A casual game of golf is neither urgent nor important, but a lot more pleasant than dealing with the things which are. Procrastination loves diversion to unimportant alternatives.

I procrastinate when I don’t want to do a hard thing    I don’t actually want to cut the hedge. It’s not an easy or fun job, so inability to decide on its height justifies delay. If I would be fined if I hadn’t started cutting my hedge by 12 noon, I’d say, ‘Okay, it’ll be 6 feet 6 inches’ and get the hedge trimmer out. But with no looming fine, I put off the work. Which is what I do with many ‘not easy and not fun’ things. One day I’ll probably have to do them, but not this day. Procrastination thrives on hard-to-do stuff.

The let-me-do-everything-now people of this world can’t understand why procrastinators are procrastinators. It’s just not sensible. It’s not rational. But rationality doesn’t have complete command in virtually anyone’s life. Our shortfalls are different, and, in my case, it includes procrastination.

I have no doubt, though, that procrastination is damaging and can be dangerous.

In practical things    My car’s warning light does mean something’s wrong, so perhaps one day the engine will fail or I’ll have an accident. My taller and taller hedge won’t kill anyone, but it is getting progressively harder to cut.

In relational things    At the end of a church service, a delightful older lady asked me if I’d give her a call as she had something she wanted to talk about. It didn’t sound urgent, so I put if off… After two weeks she called me. She was polite but she was mad at me. I’d said I’d call, but hadn’t. She felt unimportant.

In economic things    I was driving from Glasgow to Aberdeen late one night, a journey of nearly three hours. Mid way home – probably around midnight – I became aware of headlights in a field off to the side. Had a car gone off the road? I glanced over. No, the headlights were moving. Then I realised. It was the time of year when farmers cut down their crops, and this farmer was driving his combine harvester up and down his field. ‘Foolish man,’ I thought. ‘He should be in his bed.’ I got home, went to sleep, and woke the next morning to the sound of the wind howling, rain lashing and then hailstones crashing down. What if the farmer hadn’t worked through the night to get his harvest in? He’d have lost it. Delay would have been economically disastrous.

In psychological things    I thought I was bad when my email inbox had 500 messages. Until, that is, I found a colleague had 5000. And then I heard of someone with a crazy number like 50,000. But comforting yourself that you’re not as bad as others is false and cold comfort. I still had 500 emails I’d not actioned, and that weighed on my mind. What had I read and then neglected? What important message had I never even read? A procrastinator lives with constant anxiety that more and more things are mounting up, things that should be done but aren’t done. It’s a heavy burden to carry.

Have I found the answer to procrastination? Certainly not.

But I am better than I once was.

Here are the four key steps to improvement that I’ve taken.

  1. When I don’t know where to start, I start somewhere that matters. In other words, I no longer divert to something easy but unimportant. Instead, I take anything from my must-do list and do that. The result is one thing less on the list, and a feeling of satisfaction that motivates me to take on another must-do item.
  2. When I actually do something I’ve been postponing, I reward myself. The reward can be as small as a coffee and cake moment, or reading a (short) chapter of a novel. I’m celebrating an accomplishment. And the reward motivates me for more accomplishments.
  3. I remember a sentence I read many years ago in a ‘spiritual autobiography’ of the Scottish theologian, William Barclay. He was talking about ‘writer’s block’ for those who prepare sermons or academic papers. I won’t get Barclay’s words exactly right, but it was as snappy as ‘The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair’. Just sit down and start. That advice has helped me many times.
  4. I came up with a phrase of my own, and have used it to challenge congregations or audiences to actually make the changes in their lives they’ve always said they would. My phrase is: ‘Today is yesterday’s tomorrow’. Some promised yesterday that they’d lose weight. Some resolved to repaint a room. Some decided to get up earlier and exercise. All of them promised to start tomorrow. But they didn’t. All they did was invent new tomorrows. So I challenge them: today is the tomorrow you promised yesterday. This is the time – perhaps the last time you’ll have – to make the change you promised. Now or maybe never. And I accept that challenge personally. A promise for tomorrow is meaningless if that tomorrow never dawns.

Perhaps the most famous procrastinator in English literature is Shakespeare’s Hamlet. His lack of action is blamed for the deaths of many. I certainly hope my procrastination has never led to such dire consequences. But there have been negative consequences, and I regret each one.

And I’ll regret procrastinating about posting this if I don’t do it now!

When the right thing to do is nothing at all

I have a plan to revolutionise penalty-saving across football, whether teams are in the lowest amateur leagues or right up there in the premier division. In a nutshell, here’s my wisdom for goalkeepers: when your job is to save a penalty, don’t dive left; don’t dive right; in fact, don’t dive at all.

Before I explain I should admit my credentials as a football coach are completely non-existent. Best I can offer is experience from my youth when I played football constantly – in the school playground, on common land every summer evening, and representing my school sometimes. My position was always goalkeeper. Negatively, that was because I couldn’t run fast. Positively, I had quick reactions, great ability to catch a ball, strong sense of positioning, and I was willing to dive for the ball at the feet of an onrushing opponent. The last of these left its mark on me; quite a lot of marks actually.

But my revolutionary goalkeeping insights are from recent observation, not old experience. When I watch football, and the referee awards a penalty, here’s what happens: the goalkeeper stands midway between the posts, the penalty-taker runs forward, the keeper dives left or right, and accidentally or intentionally the ball is hit dead centre. Because the goalkeeper moved position, the ball goes straight into the net. If only the keeper had stood still…

I assure you there’s more to this blog than football advice, so stay with me just a little longer.

To explain my penalty-saving theory, you need to understand these things. Penalty-takers dread one thing above all – missing the goal completely by firing the ball over the top or outside the uprights. So they’re motivated to play safe. Goalkeepers dread something too, failing to stop a shot they could have saved. So they’re motivated to attempt the dramatic catch in the corner. Put those motivations together, and here’s what you get: kickers don’t want to strike the ball to the edges in case they miss completely, while goalkeepers dive as far to the side as they can in hope of pulling off a stunning block. Those factors lead to one result: all a penalty-taker has to do is shoot more or less straight and they’ll score because the keeper isn’t there any more.

However, if goalkeepers just stood still but alert with arms reached out, they’d have a good chance with their body or hands to block a lot of penalty kicks. What if strikers guess the keeper won’t move much? Then they’ll have to aim for a corner and sometimes they’ll completely miss the goal.

Well, that’s the theory. Will there be mass-adoption of my method? Not a chance. Faced with an ace penalty-taker, goalkeepers wouldn’t dare not attempt a spectacular save by diving sideways.

But what goalkeepers won’t do is exactly what leaders should do sometimes. I have to write sometimes because there’s no single formula for all situations. Sometimes the right thing for leaders to do is nothing.

However, it’s important to note two things about that choice.

First, it must be intentional. Not moving isn’t a passive option; it’s an active decision.

Along life’s way I studied for an MBA (a management degree). Advice I picked up that has stuck with me was this: ‘Often the worst decision is no decision’. I agree with that.

So when a leader refuses to budge, that can’t be a ‘no decision’ position. It’s positive. It’s intentional. It’s wisdom that, at that moment faced with those circumstances, deviating is wrong. To change would be a bad option.

Here’s an example. From time to time as a church minister the challenge I faced was ‘the new thing’. People get itchy for something different, exciting, miraculous, or anything that seems to fast track them to super spiritual status. They could be stirred by new worship styles, new teaching, new methods to grow the church, new approaches to the mission of the church, new ways to live close to God.

At 8.00 in the morning, I was phoned by one of our church leaders. He was excited. He’d been to a meeting the previous evening when, as he put it, ‘The Spirit fell on everyone there, and lives were changed.’ His message to me was blunt: ‘We’ve got to get on board with the new thing God is doing. This is the second Pentecost, and if we’re not part of this wave of the Spirit we’ll be bypassed.’ Calls like that aren’t music to any pastor’s ears at any time of day.

But I’d already checked out the new movement he was talking about. It wasn’t unlike other ‘new things’ in the past (so, not really all that new at all), and it certainly wasn’t a second Pentecost. Sure, it offered spiritual experiences, and I believed they were helpful for some. But overall this movement’s message was that you come with your failure and inadequacy, fall under the Spirit’s power, and leave an hour or two later turbo-charged with holiness and spiritual victory.  It was as if core disciplines like prayer, Bible reading, learning, sacrifice, could be bypassed, not needed any more. All that mattered was being touched by the Spirit.

God does touch people, but in the Christian life there are no exemptions from the hard graft of denying self and taking up the cross every day to follow Jesus. (Luke 9:23) Faith is a free gift, but living it out always involves cost. And there are no discounts.

I assured my caller our church would take what was good from ‘the new movement’, but we weren’t abandoning all the old things – foundational things – that were at the heart of our faith and mission. And the movement the caller was talking about? It was gone within a couple of years.

I made a firm decision that we weren’t swerving away from where we stood. It was the right decision.

Second, you need to own your choice. When there’s a penalty, my guess is that goalkeepers get whispers from teammates, some saying ‘Dive left’ and others ‘Dive right’. I got those whispers in my management positions. (Except, usually they weren’t whispers but loud and strong opinions.)

One colleague came to my office and laid out radical change for the organisation, and when I didn’t agree accused me of ‘not being willing to take risks’. I pointed out the many risks I’d taken before he joined us, but that, of course, didn’t satisfy him. He wanted me to take his risks. They were risks so large they could have damaged our reputation and bankrupted the organisation. Well, he wasn’t the CEO; I was. And I refused. He wasn’t happy and probably shared his feelings with others. But an organisation can’t jump this way or that way to keep someone happy. I owned my decision to stay firm. I knew then it was right, and with time everyone knew it was right.

Owning your choice matters also in a different sense. Sometimes your choice will be wrong. That’s inevitable. Even successful businesses have failed strategies because no individual and no team can anticipate every outcome. When there are disappointments there’s also criticism. If the penalty-taker shoots the ball into the corner of the net, the goalkeeper who hasn’t dived to save it (no matter how unlikely a save was) will be blamed. And, when things go wrong, leaders will be blamed, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. Bad leaders divert blame to others, which is cowardly. I believe in admitting mistakes and accepting responsibility. As long as I know within myself that I reached the best decisions I could, I can live with negative consequences when plans don’t work out. To survive, leaders must own their choices. Leadership isn’t for wimps.

That last sentence is important. For a goalkeeper to face a penalty kick and stand still in the middle of his goal takes great courage. And it takes great courage too for a leader in any area of life to hold steady when voices around urge ‘Go left’ or ‘Go right’. Surprisingly often, the right thing is to stand firm exactly where you are already.

Dream on

Years ago I heard Rev Tom Houston (at that time, President of World Vision International) open a conference talk to ministers with a story I’ve never forgotten. Here’s the gist of it.

A wealthy Texan rancher gathered a hundred or more of his friends to his lavish home. The food was good; the company was good; being in the rancher’s presence was good. None of them knew their host had an ulterior motive in bringing them together. The rancher gathered his guests at the poolside, and made a speech which finished this way. ‘I want to find the bravest young man among you. So, I’m offering a prize. You can have $1 billion, or the whole ranch, or my daughter’s hand in marriage – if you swim one length of my pool. But I should warn you, the pool is filled with flesh-eating fish.’ Everyone stared at the water. Sure enough, piranha-like fish were thrashing around in there. For a moment no-one moved. Suddenly there was a splash, and one of the young men was in the water, and he was swimming for all he was worth. The water churned, the fish attacked, and blood poured from wounds on the young man’s body. But still he swam, pulling his arms and kicking his legs to power his way through the water. He was half way there, bleeding, hurting, but still swimming. Three quarters, and everyone was sure he would die. Somehow he kept going, got to the pool’s edge, and hauled himself out. He was badly hurt but he’d done it. The rancher ran over and said: ‘You’re a remarkable young man! Tell me which prize you want: the $1 billion, the ranch, or my daughter’s hand in marriage.’ The swimmer stared up at him, and replied, ‘All I want is to know who pushed me in.’

I laughed, as did Houston’s audience. But, for many of the ministers present, their laughter was hollow. They’d started out with optimism, confidence and a sincere belief they’d make a difference in many lives. But the reality didn’t match. Numbers in church had declined. Some in the congregation were sharp critics. The pastors felt seriously under-appreciated. They were sacrificing to serve, but met with piranha-like attacks on their ministry. Now they were hurting, deeply and probably permanently. Who pushed them in to work like this?

Far more than ministers ask that question. People start out cheerfully and hopefully into a career or a relationship. It begins well but doesn’t last.

I’ve seen it happen with young people chasing sporting dreams. A youngster excels at playing golf, so their goal is to be a professional and win the Masters or the Open Championship. None I’ve known have done that. Some have gone into deep debt playing on ‘mini tours’ but never winning. Some accept their career will instead be teaching golf lessons and selling clubs in a golf course shop. Some give up completely on golf. The pro at my course left recently, and is now tiling bathrooms and kitchens. End of the dream.

Not everyone who graduates with a medical degree ends up practising medicine. Some divert into related work; some change careers completely. I’ve known young lawyers, who began full of idealism that they’d help people fight for truth and justice, finally settle for a life writing business contracts. The salary was good, but they could hardly bear thinking about another thirty years of the same work. End of the dream.

I’ve married lots of people, by which I mean I’ve conducted their wedding services. Those were good experiences. The couples, young and not-so-young, were brimming with excitement for their future together. I wish they were all together still, but they’re not. One of my first attempts at saving a couple’s marriage was a miserable failure. I urged the departing wife to make another effort for the marriage. ‘I don’t want to try,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to save the marriage. It’s not what I thought it would be.’ End of conversation. End of marriage. End of the dream.

I should quickly say that sad outcomes for careers or relationships are not everyone’s experience! Plenty are doing well.

But, for some, the dream withers and dies.

Are there ways to ensure dreams always have happy endings? No, there aren’t. The complexities of life and our psyches rule out trite formulas for success.

But two maxims about dreams seem true.

Chase your dream; no-one else’s    In my teens I talked several times with my parents about what kind of work I wanted to do. By 13 or 14, I’d abandoned my ambition to drive a bus, and accepted I wasn’t going to play rugby for Scotland. I was doing fairly well at school, but no intellectual star and none in my family had ever gone to university, so no-one (including me) imagined that would be in my future. ‘Perhaps you should go into banking,’ my Dad said. ‘It’s a safe career, and if you pass your banking exams you’ll be promoted and earn a good wage.’ What if I’d done that? Two things would have followed: a) I’d have hated every minute; b) I’d have been out of a job long before promotion – simply because banking changed, and thousands were made redundant through rationalisations. I couldn’t have known the second of these, but I was dead certain of the first. Banking was my Dad’s dream of a safe and good career, but never mine, and thankfully Dad never pressed it.

But someone owning their own business and longing that it stays in the family may well pressurise their child to work in the shop or office with a view to taking over one day. That pressure can be hard to resist. Or youngsters are encouraged into the professions their parents always wished they’d followed. ‘Become a doctor, and save lives…’  It’s hard to argue against saving lives. Or cases are made by parents for other careers they esteem, like being a lawyer or an architect, or to follow a family tradition of working in the local factory or (as it used to be) going down the mine. ‘It was good enough for your Dad and Granddad, so it’ll be good enough for you.’

I wouldn’t judge the virtues of any of these career paths. But I would urge young adults to follow their dreams, not someone else’s dream for them. Chasing a dream you don’t ‘own’ ends in boredom, disappointment, and perhaps an early mid life crisis. It can never fulfil the deepest hopes of your heart.

Your dream must be earthed in reality   Even when the dream really is your dream, the road you’ll travel won’t be easy. My first career role was in journalism. I studied Pitman’s shorthand (not easy), touch typing (a life-long asset), law, current affairs, journalistic practice, and eased my way into reporting large and small stories for the paper. I attended a train crash, plane crash, and car crashes. They were gruesome, yet also exciting in some dreadful way. But sitting for hours in a minor court hoping at least one case would be interesting stirred not a single fibre of my being. I learned always to wear a warm, waterproof coat every day, because I might find myself standing in the cold outside a building for two hours waiting for a Council meeting to finish, hoping someone would tell me what had been decided. And, after two hours of freezing, they might not. Days like that were not exciting. That was the reality.

The reality of work for many is redundancy, or being overlooked for promotion, or being assigned brain-numbingly boring work. And marriages aren’t about a wonderful wedding day, they’re about years and years of hard work building a relationship that will fulfil the deepest part of a person’s being. It can be absolutely wonderful, but never without pain along the way.

We dream… But dreams don’t usually include hard graft and deep disappointments.

As a youngster I stood beside our town’s rugby pitch watching players running, tackling, kicking, catching lineout ball, and rucking players aside to get the ball from a loose scrum. It looked fun, and I dreamed of when I’d play rugby. A few years later I was playing, but being buried under a mauling heap of overweight bodies wasn’t fun. And being raked back by an opponent’s studs hurt. It hurt a lot. But that was rugby.

So, is it better not to dream? I might have made you think so. But we must dream, must hope, must strive, if we are ever to attain. Dreaming is the starting point for the greatest achievements. Life holds marvellous opportunities and experiences, and we mustn’t retreat away from our dreams. Just let your dreams really be your dreams, aware that the journey to that dream will have pain as well as joy.

And, what was the real issue for the swimmer in Tom Houston’s story? It wasn’t ‘Who pushed me in?’ The real issue was ‘Now that I’m in, how do I get to the far end of the pool?’ And he did.

And we can. Dream – work hard – persevere – enjoy – be fulfilled. Absolutely possible.