Heaven, Hell and Harley Davidsons

‘It’s a middle-aged crisis—in a good way,’ says journalist Rob Harley, of the abiding love he has discovered for Harley Davidsons and the ‘call of the road’. Big, bad motorbikes have become a metaphor for Rob’s evolving spiritual journey, reflected in his latest series, The Survivors Guide to Hell, Part Two.

Rob Harley tells me he has got a tattoo. It was an act of ‘pure recklessness’ in Waco, Texas, while filming the DVD series, The Survivors Guide to Hell, Part Two, which is released this month. I’m expecting something discreet, something meaningful. Rob rolls up his sleeve to expose a big, bad tattoo taking up most of a bicep, emblazoned with the Harley Davidson logo and expansive eagle wings. It’s not discreet. But to Rob, it is meaningful.

Gas-guzzling motorbikes are as much part of The Survivors Guide to Hell as the stories themselves. It’s a kind of spiritual Long Way Round, where two mates drive bad-as motorbikes in exotic locations, collecting stories and leaving behind memories. In this version, though, the stories are about suffering, faith, forgiveness and transcendence.

Richard Nauck, Rob’s sidekick, takes the role of the wondering cynic. And the two reflect on spirituality over the snarl of their Harleys.

Born to be wild

Rob is well known for telling other people’s stories of faith, but the bikes are about Rob’s own journey. ‘I was coming down the road one day in my perfectly suburban rural lifestyle vehicle, when this column of about 20 bikers came up the road, all of them on Harleys, all of them in black and wearing German army helmets. And I thought, “My goodness, I would love to be with them!” ’

Rob bought his first, big, ugly motorbike and fell in love with the ‘camaraderie of being on the road’. But this has also opened up a new way of exploring spirituality, free of the church walls.

‘Men were made to make and break things. But for many of us young men who came to faith in our early teens, we never got the chance to explore that side,’ explains Rob. ‘There’s something about the call of the road.’

Following this call of the wild is not about leaving Christian culture, but about deepening his expression of faith. ‘We all desire a sense of belonging and a shared experience. You get a bunch of Christian bikers together and it’s a real brotherhood.’

One of the most powerful moments Rob has experienced was when he was a celebrant at a biker friend’s funeral. Rob was part of a cavalcade of bikes that accompanied the coffin. He recalls, ‘There was such a raw sense of emotion and devotion there. All these men riding their bikes, with tears streaming down their faces. I want to be that raw in my storytelling.’

Raw stores

And so The Survivors Guide to Hell was created to tell faith stories, with a twist. Rob keeps his interpretations of the stories to a minimum, and any faith reflections are told in the form of conversations between him and Richard. ‘We’ve tried to stand right back and let the stories earn us the right to talk about spiritual issues,’ explains Rob. ‘We wanted to see things through the eyes of ordinary, slightly jaded people who’ve heard enough of the Christian clichés.’

One of the highlights for Rob from the recent series was meeting Dr Izzuldein Abuelaish, who was born in a Gazan refugee camp. Educated in the refugee camp schools, Izzuldein won a scholarship to attend Cairo University and became the first person from a Palestinian refugee camp to attend Harvard University’s School of Public Health. In another milestone, Izzuldein became the first Gazan doctor to be appointed to an Israeli hospital, treating equal numbers of Palestinians and Israelis, and using his position to promote his message of reconciliation.

Then, in 2009, the apartment block where Izzuldein lived was hit by an Israeli tank round—despite claims that Israel wasn’t targeting civilians. His three daughters and niece were vaporised, and Izzuldein returned home to a room filled with only red mist. In the days coming, he questioned the humanitarian work that he had devoted his life to.

But from this inhumane act, Izzuldein went on to do something sublimely human, setting up the Daughters for Life Foundation, which provides education scholarships for both Palestinian and Israeli women. His book I Shall Not Hate has become a modern classic, urging ethnic and religious groups to overcome hate and revenge, and to view their differences through the eyes of peace and human dignity.

It’s a challenge to the Christian worldview, which often only recognises the work of God’s kingdom in fellow Christians. ‘Jesus was constantly shocking his followers and Jews by commending and highlighting the faith of people who had nothing to do with the Jewish tradition,’ says Rob. ‘If God can speak through donkeys and through a despised Samaritan woman—who became the first missionary for Jesus—then we shouldn’t shut our minds down to eloquence and truth wherever we find it.’

Finding truth

Rob made a name for himself early in his career as a daily television news journalist, but became disillusioned with what he calls the ‘same 15 minutes at the beginning of every news bulletin, playing the blame game’.

At 48, he decided to devote the rest of his life to telling stories of people who had found the solutions, not the problems. Since then, Rob has become a collector of people’s stories: finding those who have suffered deeply and who, through their experiences, have learnt how to live more deeply still. The tagline for The Survivors Guide series is: ‘People who have experienced the worst that can happen, and through it become the best they can be.’ Finding these people has become Rob’s life mission.

There is a recurring theme for those who overcome adversity, says Rob, and it is the simplicity of thankfulness. For these people, counting their blessings is not just a platitude, it is a survival mechanism.

A couple that Rob has followed for several years are Andy and Nikki Bray. As a young man, Andy was a New Zealand representative athlete, but a bout of strep throat led to kidney failure. He had two kidney transplants, which allowed him to stop daily dialysis, and importantly, meant Andy and Nikki could have children. They had three daughters, but when Andy got cancer, he lost his kidney transplant in the process.

Then, in 2008, their eldest daughter Natasha went rafting down the Mangatepopo River as part of an Elim Christian College trip. In a flash flood, seven young people lost their lives, including Natasha.

Andy became a spokesperson in the daily news. ‘It absolutely does test my faith in God. Of course it does,’ explains Andy honestly. ‘So, sure, we’re saying to God: “Why has this happened? Where does this fit into your plan?” And I don’t have an answer for that. But I do have a place to go in my heart, and I can trust that we’re going to get through this.’

Rob says that whenever he follows someone’s story, he looks to see if their optimism is a ‘barely disguised bitterness’, but he believes Andy and Nikki are the genuine thing. Last time they spoke, Andy was on dialysis and said that the key to getting through their immense grief had been to find something every day to be thankful for. ‘When I’m home, and not in hospital, that’s something to be grateful for,’ he says, simply.

Nikki is honest that she has her ‘bad Natasha days’, where she asks God that most aching of all questions, ‘why?’

‘They are realistic, but they’ve made discoveries along the way that God can be trusted in good times and bad,’ reflects Rob. And for Richard, Rob’s younger counterpart, Andy and Nikki were the first people to ‘keep him up all night’.

‘Seeing people come to the quitting points in life, and choosing to overcome it is utterly profound,’ says Rob, effectively summing up the Survivors Guide series as a whole.

Quitting points

More than profound, it is divine. For, as Romans chapter five, verses four and five say: ‘We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’

Rob has been through his own quitting points in life. He has spoken openly about his journey with depression and the ‘near financial collapse’ that came with owning a leaky home. ‘I call depression “the mad aunty that lives in the attic”. Every now and then the aunty gets out of the attic and runs riot through the previously seamless veneer of your life,’ laughs Rob.

But he is not so interested in telling his own story as the stories of others. Instead, Rob chooses to quote his friend Trevor Yaxley, who lost his son in a horrific car accident, and who suffers from chronic pain. ‘Trevor said to me that he has learned to live above it.

‘For me, I’ve been at the point where I’ve wanted to break something and stamp my feet, but you have to live above it. There is such a thing as courage, and courage does not come except through trials.’

Today, Rob is more interested in reflecting on life, rather than preaching about it. ‘You do become more thoughtful. There are very few things that can be solved by a three-point sermon.’ Instead, Rob has been writing poetry.

‘What I’m feeling passionate about, and I’ve been writing poetry about it, is “the mad carpenter”. If only we could discover what the mad carpenter was really trying to say, our world and Christendom would look so, so different.’

Rob recalls one final story, of a woman who is truly living out the mad carpenter’s teachings: ‘I talked to a young Maori woman who grew up in the Mongrel Mob and had her first baby at 14, and has now set up an organisation to stop child abuse. She may not be a churchgoer, but she lives out the stuff so many of us just sing about and hope might happen one day. I think she’s stolen our stuff. She’s doing better than me.’

Rob recently celebrated his 60th birthday, and many of the people surrounding him at his celebrations were those whose stories he has told. Rob says that, now an official sexagenarian, he’s become an obsessive list maker—of favourite rock albums, Bruce Willis movies he’s seen, favourite movies in general. He’s in love with writing and reading ‘words well written’.

Rob is still busy teaching—he is often a visiting speaker at The Salvation Army’s Booth College of Mission, saying he is a ‘huge fan of the Sallies’—and is trying to follow the advice of his friend Erwin McManus to ‘get people into conversations with the Holy Spirit’.

On his next sunny day, Rob will be joining his brother on their Harley Davidsons and hitting the open road. ‘With a last name like Harley, we’re not going to be riding Yamahas,’ he quips. ‘It’s not like I’m trying to become a fake bad boy. But, perhaps, I am becoming a little more irreverent,’ he adds, with just a hint of a smile.

---

by Ingrid Barratt | (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 1 November 2014, pp5-7.
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.