Remembering Tom

Pure Conviction Over the Comfort of Compromise

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." – Revelation 3:15-16

Sometimes, the qualities we admire most are the very ones that drive us apart.

Not long ago, one of my closest school mates, Tom, who I’d been friends with for 20 years, became a Christian, seemingly overnight, and made it clear our friendship couldn’t continue.

The sudden, unexpected and final phone call happened while I was walking through London’s Primrose Hill Park in the dark. Tom told me that “I was going to hell for the sins I’d committed”—referring to our “sins” of partying and drinking and so on.

We spent two hours on the phone but it was mostly egos battling. I tried arguing with one or two of his beliefs that I felt were most easily refutable, “So I'm going to hell. And what’s the point of hell?! What does that even mean?!”

“There is no meaning!” Tom spat back, “That’s what hell is! It’s meaningless suffering!”

“How can you have suffering without meaning?!” I was pacing in circles.

My reaction to the suddenness of Tom’s news was the same then as it is now. I get it. Very often, big change happens outwardly in a flash and appears brash and abrupt to everyone around you. But that’s because nobody’s seen the incremental pressure and leverage building up—the courage you’ve been stockpiling in order to make the change.

Tom had an all-in attitude to the things he felt were important. An unrestrained, almost child-like pleasure in stuff that called to him—giddy, breathless, preoccupied, opinionated.

There were his tunes (always a new tune), his globe-trotting trance DJs, his Boss shirts and his aftershaves. There was Manchester United. There was his Ford Transit van and the 110V paddle mixer he used in his job as a plasterer.

There was Ibiza—the beauty of the island and its transcendental promise—which is why we all went there multiple times and why Tom chose to have his two-week (yes, two-week) stag do there.

You always knew exactly where you stood with Tom. One time, when our friend group was reminiscing about stupid things we’d done as kids, I said, “Ar! Remember that time we ran away from that Indian [restaurant] without paying?! That was so funny!” Tom had been part of it. But he immediately cut through our collective laughter and scolded us, “No! It wasn’t funny! It was bang out of order actually!”

The rest of us fell silent. I wondered why he was being so uptight. But looking back, I do regret it. Tom just got there first. It is the most vivid memory I have of a friend challenging me to think for myself.

As a man now in my late thirties and a working traveller for whom friend-time is less common, I’ve been thinking more about friendships. When I was on the first draft of this essay, I said to Corina, “I just know this essay is going to end up with me contacting Tom.”

But I think that would be missing the point.

Just like his music and his shirts, Tom’s gone all-in on his new beliefs. He means it as much as it's possible for anyone to mean anything. And such a purity of conviction can’t carry passengers or make allowances.

Tom’s transition was never about me or our friendship. I just happen to be someone who, in his reshuffling of values, has ended up on the other side of an impermeable boundary.

I would prefer to live in a world where people with different beliefs can be friends. But I also find myself admiring Tom and aspiring to have the same level of conviction in my own beliefs.

In his particular case, remembering Tom and the spirit he embodies is, I think, a better outcome than having him as my mate but knowing he's compromising.

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Shout-outs to my Write of Passage peeps

Linart Seprioto

, Andrew Bertodatti,

Alexandra Allen

,

Rohan Gayen

, Georg Bulmer, Diana-Maria Demco,

Lavinia Iosub

,

Heather King

,

Rahul Sanghi

, Brenda Geary,

Anthony D'Apolito III

,

Kat Koh

, Justine J,

Jenny Herald

,

ghalizha z. izzaty

and

Kelly Davis

for reading drafts of this.

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