FRIDAY SERIAL - Duncan's Evident Curiosity ( Epi 9)

You can't work for a business full of 'believers' and be in a relationship with its General Manager, without becoming intrigued about what their beliefs actually are. Fond admiration of Gavin, his good natured unflappable attention to others needs, had now reached the stage of a full blown love affair. Each besotted with the other. Gavin never wanted to proselytise to anyone, least of all his lovers. He realised Duncan's evident curiosity would one day get the better of him. Dreading the day that moment would arrive. Which one day of course, it did. 

'Gavin, if I wanted to find out more about your movement, where would I start? I can't find much detail on the internet. You got a book you could lend me? Something basic. You know me, something I could easily get my head around'

Gavin took a deep breath, looked him in the eyes - what might he be ready for? Riffling through his bookshelves he emerged with a very thin book, hardly a hundred pages in length - 'An Introduction to The Material Arts Movement' by (Runga Bunga La Di Da ) There on the cover the uncomfortable photo of that stern face, staring out at you like a disciplinarian headmaster with a kinky hidden secret life. Duncan was never sure how to interpret that face. Gavin placed the book, with a deliberately throw away casualness, into his lap. Touching affectionately the back of Duncan's head. He looked at him examining the book, then turned away biting his bottom lip.  This moment could be pivotal in their relationship. With the possibility he might have to get used to being without a partner in life, yet again.

'Try that to start with. If you want to learn more there are beginner's groups.'

Duncan turned over the book and read the blurb on the back. It was, as he expected reverential guff. 

'A brief explanation of the foundational beliefs of The Material Arts Movement, from this highly revered spiritual teacher. Written in the direct uncompromising fashion ( Runga Bunga La Di Da ) is so renowned for. Making accessible these teachings, derived from revered and time tested religious sources. Skillfully blending these into a cohesive whole, refreshingly contemporary, clear and beautifully expressed. Its accessible, yet challenging material, filtered through his perceptive analysis of our modern world, its problems, hangups and dilemmas'  

A synopsis of the life of (Runga Bunga La Do Da) prefaced the book. Much being made of his humble origins in Maidstone and the revelations and inspirations that made him decide to forge his own spiritual path for himself. 'Drawing from traditional religions, but free of becoming their unthinking slave' as he put it. And yet, thought Duncan, here he is a founder of his own movement, inconsistently deviating from his own first principle.

Approaching any religious movement for the first time, there is always the unspoken question -' Is this some sort of cult? Though its rare that anyone fully defines that latter term. Holding their cynicism in higher regard, than any truths that might be being laid out before them. Everything required testing in a bath of freezing cold water first. Duncan was no different, he felt his scepticism rising up to meet everything. 

Yet, here he was, in love with Gavin, and there was this one thing which he knew was so important to him, that he knew nothing about. Maybe this was what made St Gavin tick. Gavin was truly a lovely man, maybe The Material Arts Movement would be truly lovely too. He wanted to be fair, he wanted to like it, perhaps a little too much. He wanted to appreciate what he read. Take off that protective cloak of cynicism and professed indifference, and just read without prejudice, without rosy or harshly tinted glasses? Well, at least he could give that a try.

Gavin had gone out of the room into the kitchen. Nervousness had made him go there, ostensibly to make a pot of green tea. Really it was because watching his boyfriend read that book, was a form of torture. Similar to loaning a friend a favourite novel, CD or video. You want them so much to see it as you do, to join you in the loving of it, to bring them closer to you through it. He was also aware this was an unpredictable game he was in the middle of, with an equally unpredictable outcome. It could end up with the 'love object' wondering who on earth this person was who could like this sort of arrant nonsense. He'd no idea what Duncan's response to such 'spiritual stuff' would be.

Gavin returned to the room with a tray loaded up with a pot of green tea, cups, saucers and biscuits, Duncan was studiously curled up in the armchair with a pencil taking down notes on scraps of paper. Was that a good sign? Had anyone done that before? 

'How's it going? You getting on with it ? '

' I'm fine. Its well outside my usual reading and subject matter. Its wacky but interesting. I'm just reading the paragraph about the 'primacy of the individual in choosing his own allegiances.'

' Yes, some of my favourite aphorisms come from this book'

Gavin recited aloud from memory

'Your life is the vehicle for every insight and transformation possible.' 

'Your imagination is several steps ahead of you at all times, honour it, cultivate it, breath it in, live it.'  

'Art and creative self expression, is not a self indulgent luxury, but a vital intermediary in bringing what is internal and as yet unformed and giving it, not only form, but also the permission to be lived'.

Duncan noticed how much Gavin's face lit up. His whole body and mind   reinvigorated the moment he started speaking the words out loud. It obviously meant so much to him. Duncan felt his responsibility not to respond carelessly, not be too flippant or camply dismissive in any off the cuff comments he might be tempted to make. None of those reactions felt applicable as yet anyway. It crossed his mind that maybe he should read the book at home, on his own. Literally in his own time and space. Or would that just prolong Gavin's evident agony? So he asked him straight:-

'Gav, would you prefer it if I read this back at my flat? You seem a bit tense. My doing it here whilst you wait appears to be weirding you out. How about I take a break, have a cup of green tea, eat a biscuit or two, then go home?'

'Not sure if that'll help"

'It matters to you, that I appreciate this book. Well, already I can see something of why that might be. Yes, it feels a bit odd, but then a lot of stuff does at first, until you get tuned into it'

'Its just...its just.... I don't want to lose you because of it'

He stood up and moved towards Gavin and embraced him in a large reassuring hug. 

'I see. You think I'm going to get so freaked out I'll do a runner on you. I'm a grown up. Though some might say otherwise. I may or may not end up loving this book, or your movement. I don't know that yet. I love you, you big lump. Have some confidence in that.'

Though Gavin said he was OK with Duncan going home, he wasn't really. He was aware from extensive experience with beginners, that everything could be going quite hunky dory, someone could be really really enthusiastic, then they'd just disappear, not come back again. You'd never know why. But in retrospect there had been tell tale signs early on. They'd read something, take a phrase out of context, and it would trigger a seismic knee jerk response. If there was no one close by at such a time to explain or talk it through with them, people just spun out, never to return. Once it dawns in them what changes a spiritual life implicitly is asking of you, some folk felt that and baled.  Retention - always a bit of a problem.

So as he kissed Duncan in the porch of the community, and saw him walk away down the street, he couldn't stop painting this scene into his imagination as being the last he'd ever see of him. Sitting on the steps, covering his mouth lest anyone else in the community heard the melodrama going on in his mind spill out.

Beyond the particular strains of this particular moment, there were practices of the Material Arts Movement, that were a hard sell. Should Duncan come through reading this book relatively unscathed, such aspects of the movement and its origins, if trodden on too soon, might blow him completely out of the water. Alone in his room that night, given the contentious nature of some of them, he wondered quite why even he stayed involved.

NEXT EPISODE
Duncan's Selected Teachings of (Runga Bunga La Di Da )
( Episode 10 / 12 )
Will be posted next Friday 4th November 2022