Lessons from Stan and Ollie: Betrayal Forgiveness, Friendship and Love

It’s funny the things that you grow up with and love, the things that you remember. It’s always the heartwarming things or the distressingly painful ones, that stay with you. For some reason a couple of cultural ones from my mum and former step dad have been floating around in my consciousness. The first is a Drifters Album of my mum’s “Saturday Night at the Movies”. I have over the last year spent many Friday nights at the movies and just like the Drifters sang

“Saturday night at the movies

Who cares what picture you see

When you're hugging with your baby

Last row in the balcony?”

I have enjoyed some wonderful films and some less so, and shared some heart filling experiences.

We have seen quite a variety of films and recently went to see something that takes both of us back to our childhoods, as well as our parents and grandparents childhoods. By the way it also links to my nieces and nephews as I know my brother's children share in this love, a love for “Laurel and Hardy”. Sue and I recently went to see “Stan and Ollie”. It was truly wonderful. Now I do have a tenuous family link to Stan Laurel. A lady known as auntie Nancy, she was actually my mum’s husband’s Godmother,  her mother was Stan Laurel’s cousin. She helped with the research on the book “Laurel before Hardy” about Stan’s early life, some of which was spent in my home town of Batley. and I know that my mum helped Stan’s daughter Lois do some family research a few years ago, she helped her solve a family mystery. My mum is a family history detective, an expert genealogist.

The film got me in all the places one would hope it could. It was funny and beautifully moving and enabled me to connect heart to heart with so many people I have known and loved, it brought back some beautiful memories. It was a true love story, a very human story too and funny with it. It is a love story in so many ways, a story about philia love. The ancient Greeks saw this kind of love, that between friends, as one of the highest, certainly higher than Eros.

Now the film is not your classic biopic. It focuses on a tour they both made to Britain when they had fallen on hard times and were both not in the best of health. Ollie was seriously ill with a heart condition. It was an attempt to relaunch their film careers, which never happened. It beautifully portrayed their loving partnership and how they struggled on. There is obviously a deep love between them, the wives are brilliant too. There is an interesting aspect to film that caught my attention. It looked at betrayal. Stan felt betrayed by Ollie as he had made a film “Zenobia” with another actor in 1939, this was due to them having separate contacts and Stan being out of contract at the time. Stan believed that this was what put them in the predicament they were in during the 1950's, struggling playing small venues in Britain. During the tour resentment rises to the surface: “I loved us,” Stan claims. “But you never loved me,” replies Ollie. Stan, the brains and the workaholic, loved the double act, but for Ollie life is more about real people and real relationships.

There is a scene later in the film where they have an almighty public fall out, although those present thought that they were acting. A few days later Ollie has a heart attack and is told he can no longer perform. Despite this being the end of their working dreams the two men make up as the love they have for each other is stronger than the resentment they feel. Stan is about to go on stage with another character but finds he cannot do so and then Ollie decides he can’t break up the partnership and they go together to Ireland to a heroes welcome. They both return to America and Ollie dies within three years, Stan lives a few years longer continuing to write material for Laurel and Hardy until the day he died.

It is a beautiful and moving story about friendship, about love. The love for one another and the power of that love to touch hearts when things work together. It’s also a story about betrayal and forgiveness too. How love is the most important and powerful emotion there is.

I loved the film, it touched my heart deeply and connected me to so many deep memories. It helped me to re-feel so much love for the people I have loved and still love in my life, many no longer here. Many who at some point I have let down and even betrayed and who have done the same to me and those I love too. It is a beautiful human story about the power of love, family and community, past, present and future. I laughed and I cried and felt so alive.

I think the key component for long term relationships, of any kind, is love and the capacity to forgive. For the truth is that if you spend enough time with anybody, no matter how deep the love they will at some point or another let you down, even betray you in some way or another, as you will them. They may not mean to, but they will all the same. I have heard it said that when you meet someone, if you want to develop a deep bond its best to get the disappointment out of the way quickly and move on, because it is going to come sooner or later.

The forgiveness and the healing that comes is about the power of the relationship, it is never an individual act. It is about something greater than merely ourselves. For Stan and Ollie is was about their partnership and what it gave to them and so many other people, this was greater than their individual resentments and disappointments. There is so much more power in reconciliation than resentment. It builds bridges, it builds community, it certainly beats walls and separation.

This brings to mind a wonderful story in Jack Kornfield’s “The Art of Forgiveness, Loving kindness, and Peace”. He writes:

"In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe."

For the Babemba it seems that healing and reconciliation is far more important than individual wrong doing.

Wow can you imagine what things could be like if we all lived this way. Sadly though, too often, we live with resentment and seek revenge. Too often folk want pay back. An eye for an eye, which as Gandhi pointed out, leaves everyone blind. Now interestingly even an eye for an eye doesn’t mean exactly what we might think. When Hammarubi came up with this code is was actually an attempt to limit punishment and revenge. He wasn’t so much recommending that we take and eye for an eye, instead he was suggesting take that much, but no more. Then came a more radical idea. If you are injured do not seek revenge, instead offer forgiveness. Just think of the prayer that Jesus taught “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” A radical idea even now, but an acknowledgement of our shared humanity, because in the end we all let someone down at some point and forgiveness is about connection, it’s about building bridges, not those walls of separation. It’s about seeing the other as ourselves and not as someone separate and or different.

No one person is truly a single separate human being, we are who we are in community, we are part of one family, the human one. This brings to mind Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu’s thoughts on the African term “Ubuntu”. He said:

" 'We say a person is a person through other persons. We don't come fully formed into the world. We learn how to think, how to walk, how to speak, how to behave, indeed how to be human from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. We are made for togetherness, we are made for family, for fellowship, to exist in a tender network of interdependence.”

Tutu devoted his life to reconciliation, having grown up under the horrors of Apartheid, a system that saw some people as being less than others, due to the colour of their skin.

This speaks powerfully of Jesus teachings on love, perfectly exemplified in forgiveness. Put simply in the Golden Rule of Compassion, the basic teaching of virtually every religious tradition that has ever existed. He said 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength . . . (and) you shall love your neighbor as yourself' (Mk. 12:30-31).

Sounds simple hey, well yes but it aint easy. I know that. The truth is though it is vital. Our world so desperately needs more love, needs more bridges and reconciliation and less walls of separation.

There is a love that can come to life in this world; a love that is in all of us; a love that so desperately needs our bodily experience to live and breath through. It comes to life when we begin to see that we are not so different; that we are all made form the same stuff; that we all need, community and companionship. A simple love that is so wonderfully exemplified in the charming humour of Stan and Ollie, two every men, two seeming losers, but ones that had an ability to tap into something simple and beautiful in each and every one of us. A love that lives on long after they have gone and a love that connects so many generations. When I think of Stan and Ollie I think of both of my grandfather’s and I also think of my niece Scarlett and so many other people I love and have loved deeply, people who I have let down and who have let me down too. As I think of them I laugh and I cry, I live and one day I know we will all die. That said I also know that when we die, the love that we shared will live on,beyond our bodily mortality.

There are tears of laughter too

Last Friday I attended the funeral of Sheila Jones at the crematorium at Southern Cemetery Manchester. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the place so full. It was a deeply moving service that spoke powerfully of the woman that she was.

 I first got to know Sheila properly when I was a student minister and over the years we have had many deep and meaningful conversations, shared our personal struggles and tragedies and shared so much of our personal experiences. We also laughed many times together at the absurdities of life, both our own and that of others. Sheila was the last, of a long list of people, who have touched my life in so many ways who died last year.

Now during the service they read these beautiful words from Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 3 vv 1-8

3For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.


Words that whenever I hear them, more than when I read them, always touch that special place deep in the soul of me. They are words that are fitting for any season and any emotion and speak powerfully to me of the year that has passed and no doubt every year that I will be fortunate enough to experience in the future. Ecclesiastes speaks that truth of truths that whatever we are feeling or experiencing at the moment is always fleeting and that “this too shall pass” that nothing is permanent in life, it is forever changing and however you feel about a situation right now, you will feel differently soon. This is both good and bad news, well actually it is just reality.

Last week was the first anniversary of my granddad’s death. His was the first of so many losses last year. In a couple of weeks it will be the first anniversary of my brother, our Allen’s death. I shed my tears last week as I remembered the old lad and re-felt the pain of his loss, I also spoke with a few folk and remembered the man that he was and all that he meant to me, the gifts he had given me. My granddad had a wonderful sense of humour and could find the funniness in most situations, no matter how difficult. He was very funny, sometimes inappropriately so, but my word was he funny. Such a sharp wit, with little quips. Never told jokes, but never needed to, really funny people don’t need to tell jokes. He still had the capacity to make me laugh, just days before he died as he lay there in the hospice and all I could do was weep. He wasn’t trying to keep his spirits up, he was doing it for me and today I understand why. That is a true act of love. He was more concerned about how I felt in that situation than himself. He had accepted that his life was ending and was at peace with it.

“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.” And the seasons turn and pass and come again. Last year one line “A time to weep and a time to laugh” took on a whole new and deeper meaning. Last year I wept more than I have ever done and by the same token I suspect I laughed more than I have ever done. I know for a fact I felt more than I ever done. I have never been more alive. I lived with an un-defended heart and saw the truth that this truly is the only way to live. I felt every breath, I did not turn away. I have never felt the presence of God more deeply.

Now I’ve not always been the kind of man who was easily moved to tears. I was as a boy, but not always as a man. There have been seasons of my life where there were few if any tears, those times when nothing touched me. I can hardly remember those seasons sadly, sometimes trying to remember those soulless days can bring tears to my eyes today.

The seasons of my life that I remember by heart and not merely head are the ones in which I have shed tears. Whether they were tears of joy; tears of sorrow; tears of awe; tears of pain; tears of frustration; tears of relief; tears of laughter. These are the thick seasons when the most profound experiences of life have occurred and deeper understanding has usually followed. During these moments I have learnt what it means to be alive. These moments have shaped my soul and built my character.

I wonder what this season will bring? Let’s not wish it away.

When I was a younger man one thing that always disturbed me about funerals was how much laughter I would hear at them. At that time in my life it was something I didn’t really understand. In those days all I could feel was the sadness. Now while I may not fully understand it today, I do experience it. I understand that just like tears laughter is a communal experience, just as we bind together in our tears and suffering we are also bound together in our joy and laughter. When people laugh together there is nothing more beautiful, it can be infectious too.

Now I’m not talking about the kind of laughter and humour that is simply mocking, especially of those weaker in society, I’m not sure this is humour at all. It certainly isn’t inspired by joyousness, more cynicism, which no one is immune from,

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Spiritual freedom brings with it the ability to laugh and not to take yourself too seriously, but it’s not about picking at other people’s perceived faults and inadequacies. This does not bring people together it just aids a sense of superiority at the expense of another. There is nothing liberating or freeing in this.

Now religion and spirituality are not often arenas where humour is obviously found and yet I have come to know that the more spiritually liberated I have become, and the more religious in its truest sense I have become, the more I have discovered my own funny bones. When I saw life as a tragedy I never felt more alone and yet when I began to see life more as kind of divine comedy with tragic elements I began to feel a part of life once more.

The ancient Greeks understood this. From their religious rituals grew two forms of theatre. One was tragedy and the other was comedy, the rituals of Dionysius incorporated both elements. The tragedies motto was “woe is me”, they portrayed situations in which the people, due to their natures, were fated to focus on their own suffering. Whereas the comedies motto was “Get over yourself”, they too expressed situations that included suffering but in these tales the people were enabled to discover ways out of these situations.

Comedy is there in the Abrahamic faiths too. There is a rich tradition of humour in Judaism, but humour is also a part of both Christian and Islamic traditions. Mulla Nasrudin is the archetype of the holy fool. found in virtually every tradition. The early Christian Desert Father’s found humour within their spirituality too. You will also find humour in the parables and stories from the eastern traditions as well. You can find many of these tales in "Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart: Parables of the Spiritual Path from round the Word" edited by Christina Fieldman and Jack Kornfield It saddens me that in the modern age so much of this seems to have got lost as the poe faced and more puritanical factions have become the dominant elements in religion. And yet as Karl Barth has claimed “laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.” "

“laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.”

Why is this you might well ask? Well because laughter brings us together, it takes us beyond the confines of our narrow selves. It takes us beyond the confines of our own thinking minds, it helps not to take ourselves too seriously and opens our hearts beyond the confines of our own egos, there is a reason that it is said to be the best medicine. As J.B. Priestly claimed “There is in happiness an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable you are intensely conscious of yourself, you are a solid little lump of ego weighing a ton.”

There is a place for silliness, especially in the most difficult of times. Last week as I was leaving what they called the “get together” after Sheila’s funeral I spoke to one of my favourite and naturally funny people Peter Sampson, I acted the goat and then for some reason apologised for being silly. Peter just smiled and laughed and then rather lovingly said you weren’t being silly, you were being you. I walked away smiling and chuckling to myself. It was one of those lovely moments of connection that lifted both of us up in what was a rather difficult time.

It brought to mind some rather lovely words by the Bendictine nun and author Joan Chittister, that a friend recently posted on facebook

“Humor gives a people dignity in situations that denigrate them. Laughter gives us relief from the burden of dailiness. No amount of coercion can break an unbreakable spirit, humor teaches us.. . . Humor cuts oppressors down to size, takes their sting away, renders them powerless to destroy us. Don't give in to what diminishes you. Learn to laugh at it and reduce its power over you.”

Now these words led me to the following by the great pre-war American theologian Harry Emerson Fosdick, he wrote “Happiness at its deepest and best is not the portion of a cushioned life which never struggled,...bore hardships, or adventured in sacrifice for costly aims. A heart of joy is never found in luxuriously coddled lives, but in men and women who achieve and dare, who have tried their powers against antagonisms, who have met even sickness and bereavement and have tempered their souls in fire…”

An undefended heart is one that both gives and receives laughter.

As John O’Donohue claimed "I think that laughter is one of the really vital dimensions of the divine presence that has been totally neglected.

I often feel when the Divine One beholds us obsessed in our intricate maze of anxiety and planning and intentionality, that She can’t stop laughing.

It’s great for people, actually, to laugh, too. I love a sense of humour in a person. It’s one of my favorite things, because I think when somebody laughs, they break out of every system that they’re in.

There’s something really subversive in laughter and in the smile on the human face. It’s lovely and infectious to be in the company of someone who can smile deeply.

I think a smile comes from the soul. And I also love its transitive kind of nature—that if you’re in the presence of someone who has a happiness and a laughter about them, it’ll affect you and it’ll call that out in you as well.

Your body relaxes completely when you’re having fun. I think one of the things that religion has often prevented us from doing is having really great fun. To be here, in a way—despite the sadness and difficulty and awkwardness of individual identity—is to be permanently invited to the festival of great laughter."

In the face of the difficulties that we all face it is laughter and the sharing of it that helps us to stay open hearted and fully engaged. Laughter can hold us together when all around us can appear to be falling apart and it can also connect us once again when we are tempted to retreat back into ourselves. Laughter is the greatest medicine and maybe it truly is the closest thing to the grace of God.

None of us knows what this season will bring. There will be tears, but not always of sorrow, there will be joy and laughter too, if we can but stay open hearted and refuse to retreat back into those shells of self-protection. Let’s not be afraid of our tears, for there are tears of laughter too. Let’s enjoy this season for none of us know how many seasons we have left; let’s not forget, in the words of Conrad Hyers "The first and last word belong to God and therefore not to death but life, not to sorrow but joy, not to weeping but laughter. For surely it is God who has the last laugh."