In the end, the journeys brought joys that outweighed the pain.
‘Where did you go to for guidance in that part of your life?’
That was the question that my biographical counsellor, Julia, asked me last week, reflecting on my 20s, a part of my biography that the two of us have left relatively unexplored over the last two years of our work.
There were many answers I could have given, but I found myself talking about the singer-songwriter Frank Turner. Those who knew me in my 20s couldn’t have escaped Turner’s presence in my life - there was an almost missionary-like zeal about me. I remember thinking: it doesn’t matter if 19 of the 20 people I tell about Turner think I’m mad to talk about his work in this way, because for the 20th, it’ll be as life-changing as it has been for me.
‘What is the core message of his work?’ Julia asked.
At first I said something, perhaps inspired by his song, Photosynthesis - ‘Something about not giving up on your dreams.’
But as we slowed down another of his songs came to mind. The spectacular Journey of the Magi, in which the chorus ends with the line, ‘In the end, the journey’s brought joys that outweigh the pain.’
In the end, the journeys brought joys that outweighed the pain.
I haven’t been able to get that idea and that song out of my head since.
The depth of the profundity of that line seems bottomless.
The kind of truth that only great poetry really holds. And it holds it better than the best prose ever can.
Somehow, in my late 30s, I look back with some embarrassment about the zealotry that I had, the desire to spread Turner’s work.
But now, I’m forced to be reminded that… I was right.
Journey of the Magi is a beautiful piece of work. It is a re-examination of three of the great journey-legends of our culture. Moses, Odysseus and Balthazar, one of the three kings.
Turner plays with the legends, imaginging that - contrary to the stories we tell - they all, in different ways, ended their journeys without the ending they desired. Moses dying before the promised land; Odysseus finally coming home only to find everything changed.
Somehow most tragically to me, Balthazar riding for seven years following the star only to find a broken down stable with a normal woman and a normal baby in it. No king, no son of god.
The tragedy of that idea brought tears to my eyes this week. And yet, in Turner’s retelling, Balthazar knows the truth:
‘I could have lived with my Gods as a Persian prince, I could have played safe. But in the end, the journey’s brought joys that outweigh the pain.’
This week, given the week, I found myself thinking of Jesus as Turner had thought of Moses, Odysseus and Balthazar. (And I hope my Christian friends will forgive me for anything here that might cause offence.)
Wondering how, on the cross, dying in one of the most horrible ways imaginable, he would have weighed the joys and the pain.
If he didn’t know what would happen next, would the lives changed, the adventure with his friends, the bread and wine, the good deeds… would they be enough?
Could someone hang there, nails in his wrists, spear in his side, and say, ‘I could have stayed and lived as a carpenter’s son. I could have played safe. But in the end, the journeys brought joys that outweigh the pain.’
I can’t help but think he might have thought that.
And the look on the face of that man, with that thought in his mind. That could inspire a legend.
My close friends and I were reflecting recently that our mid-life crises are not far away.
One thread of that was a discussion about whether any of us (other than the one of us with many tattoos) would get any tattoos. I said that I just couldn’t imagine anything that I would want to always be there.
And now I wonder.
In my 20s, Journey of the Magi felt like it was about literal journeys. I shared the beautiful coda of the song (‘Burst at the seams, be what you dream and take to the road’) on social media before going travelling.
Now it means something different.
And perhaps a reminder that all journeys that count contain pain; and that in the end they are still worth it, still worth not playing safe for. Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad thing to ink into my skin.
Until then, though, it is just a mantra.
Something to remember in moments of pain, where regret and resentment might take over.
In the end, the journeys brought joys that outweighed the pain.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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