The Cacophony Interviews: July 2007Peter Birt, Pastor et.al.

On a Wednesday in the middle of May, Peter Birt – pastor, runner, football fan – and my uncle – was diagnosed with bowel cancer. The following Friday, he went in for surgery and came out fitted with a colostomy bag. I spoke to him in early June – the day after he left hospital – about the journey so far. Here are some highlights of that conversation...

PB: Yeah, so...you go to hospital, and suddenly you’re an invalid. And you’ve got nurses saying ‘you will need to be shaved’ and it’s embarrassing, you know, and you’re just this helpless...invalid. And I was really grateful for some Scripture that I’d memorized...out of 1 Corinthians that says,

I care very little how you judge me – or any human court. Indeed I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

And I found that concept incredible helpful when you’re going through all the indignities...You say, I care very little, it matters very little, it is the Lord who judges me, my worth and value and sense of identity come from him. So I found myself going over that Scripture while they’re snipping away, doing all that stuff. Which helped, I guess, to cope with embarrassment and indignity.
Prior to it all...there was another verse that I memorized the previous week or two weeks before, 2 Peter 1:3 that says,

His divine power has given us everything we need for life – and I gather the word means an abundance of life – and for godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us according to his own goodness and glory.

And it just struck me, those two things, life and godliness. His power is available for whatever life throws up but then it’s available for godliness which I took as being a God-centered, Christ honouring response to what was happening. So when I became more conscious [following the surgery], I just went over and over those Scriptures and other stuff...because I knew I just had to keep my mind...focused I suppose or renewed by truth...I just found that incredibly helpful and I’m so grateful that I had a whole lot of Scripture...

C: The spiritual disciplines have been a big part of your life for a while now…It sounds like they were really helpful?

PB:Absolutely helpful. One of the things I found most reassuring out of all this is that that stuff matters...There’s so many days over the course of a long walk with Jesus that you don’t particularly feel like reading Scripture, or you don’t particularly feel like praying or, for many years I made fasting part of my practices and you don’t feel like it, your stomach gnaws away. But what I found was just this overwhelming sense that it was worth it, it really counted for something. When the tough time hits, I’m not starting from scratch...You do the training off the spot so that on the spot, you instinctively do it.

I think some people kind of expect that you will fall to pieces, and I was always aware that that could happen; I’ve got great capacity to do that. It may yet happen, I don’t know. But when I look at the Scriptures and see things like Psalm 16,

I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand I will not be shaken.

You know there’s some reality there that seemed to become...
[Peter’s eldest granddaughter arrived. Peter really loves his grandkids…]

Yeah, so I want to shout to young people in particular, the disciplines matter, hanging out with Jesus matters, consciously doing it, being intentional. You might not feel like anything is happening but it is, and you cannot overestimate miles walked or kilometers walked with Him, intentionally, seeking to live in His presence, setting Him consciously before you. It matters. And you reap the benefits of it. It’s like there’s a reservoir that has something in it, as opposed to just trying to face it on empty, which I can’t imagine how hard that must be.

C:I know your family have been really important through this. What about other people? Has there been any interaction or impact?

PB: Yeah, huge. I’m so grateful, I got so many cards and emails and messages and people sending us, a couple of people sent us cheques... One totally anonymous one just blew us out of the water, we’ve got no idea where it came from, there’s been all of that, tremendous support, people who are praying. Then, I think at one stage there were about six people a day who would come through, and that’s even with our own home church being banned from coming because we didn’t want an influx. And just the conversations around the bed have been amazing, talking in depth about stuff.

...I was really encouraged, I eventually discovered two of [the nurses] were Christians and they would just drop in for social visits after a while and we had some fantastic conversations...

[In this situation] I’m just a normal person and my role as a pastor means absolutely nothing, I’m just this old fella lying in this bed... I began to think about what does it mean for the Kingdom of God to come in this body as it now will be? Or what does it mean for the Kingdom of God to come to this bed? And then I expanded that to what does it mean for the Kingdom of God to come to this room? And I thought about how if the Kingdom of God came to a location then there would be beauty, and so I was really thrilled that people had sent flowers and I was thinking, ‘Yeah, that’s what it would be like if the Kingdom of God had come’. And then Jill had had a birthday on the Monday and so she’d brought some balloons in that someone had given her for her birthday, and I thought, ‘I’m so glad that these balloons are in my room, in a somewhat sterile surrounding, they add a bit of life’. And I thought, you know, if the Kingdom of God came, there would be life in the midst of what’s happening.

And then I thought, there would be meaningful conversations if the Kingdom of God came, and so I made it a point of praying, ‘Lord, I don’t know what today holds, but if there’s anything, any way that my life can be an open book for other people, then I’m available, I’ll talk with them.’ So I’d quietly pray for the nurses.
And then with these two nurses… I’d talk with them and say, ‘this is how I’m wrestling with what it means to live in the Kingdom in my circumstances, how do you guys do it?’ And we had great conversations...

But then a whole bunch of other people came in, and generally speaking, the level of conversation was below the surface. There were a couple of instances where it was surface stuff, but generally it went down underneath, and we talked about what it means to walk with Jesus in these kind of circumstances. And in that sense, it was absolutely rich and life-giving and soul-replenishing.

C: I know you’ve talked about it as an ‘apprehensive adventure with Jesus’. What does that mean for you?

PB:Initially, it meant: I was apprehensive – I don’t like pain, I don’t like people fossicking around with my body, thank you very much – I’m somewhat private, by nature. I certainly didn’t know initially what the future would hold. So for example, I love running, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to run again. So there’s all sorts of apprehension – what else might I not be able to do that I can now do. How will I cope with the pain, how would I cope with the emotion, would I get depressed? Apprehension – don’t know.

On the other hand, adventure because: Years ago I memorized or adapted a little phrase that says,

Discipleship is walking with Jesus in the real world, having him teach me moment by moment what it means to live life his way.

And that’s an adventure. So I thought; this is just a new adventure in knowing Him in circumstances I had never been in before. And I wonder what I’m going to learn about Him, I wonder what it’s going to be like to walk with Him through this phase of my life? Maybe he will rub some of the rough edges off that drive me nuts. Maybe I’ll get refined and I’ll end up looking a little bit more like him, maybe His love will become more real or present or be amazingly sustaining, I don’t know. It’s an adventure of getting to know Him in my real world that’s changing. That’s what was behind that concept.

I think out of that, came something that I hadn’t thought much about: That the formation of Christ in a person’s character; I had tended to think that that’s good for me, that Jesus will make me more like Him and so I will be more comfortable being me. What I came to see through my time in hospital was that the formation of Christ in me is for the sake of others. Yes, there’s a benefit for me, and ultimately it’s for Him, but there was a fresh sense that it’s for others, that what happens in others as a result of what he does in me is more important. And part of that meant being willing to open my life up, rather than shut it down, to be in the light, because people can’t see what Jesus is doing in you unless you’re in the light. So I deliberately chose that when people said, ‘What do we say to other people?’ I said, ‘Tell them that this is what is happening.’ I had no sense of keeping it a secret – this had to be in the light, or else I can’t see how Jesus can use it.

Which then led to some reflection on healing. I firmly believe that Jesus has the power to heal, and I was praying before I went in to the operation, with Jules and Brad and Jill, ‘Lord, if you want to, you could still heal and I would love you to do that.’ But the more I reflected on it later - I have a neighbour next door who has had two lots of cancer treatment, and another neighbour across the road who is currently going through a form of cancer treatment, and I thought, imagine if I come waltzing back saying, ‘Wow, they opened me up and miracle of miracles, I was healed! Woo! Isn’t God good?’ I’m not sure that that message would have as much capacity to glorify God as me coming back and saying, ‘Guys, this is new to me, what have you guys learnt? How are you coping?’ And then maybe, along the way, having the opportunity to say, ‘The support of people has been fantastic, blah blah blah, BUT, I also found that my relationship with God has deepened and that He’s sustained me.’ I just wonder whether that’s actually a little more powerful than just saying, ‘Wow, I’m healed, what happened to you?’ Which would be horrible...

In all of this, one of the things I’ve [been] wrestling with is the issue of whether I’m in denial. I’ve surprised myself...that I seem to have been fairly positive, and yet I know I’ve been depressed [in the past]. I know what the dark and melancholy side of life is. So I’ve been thinking, it might sound like I’m in denial, but it doesn’t feel like that. But, it’s always a possibility. Or maybe the issue is that you don’t know...

C:I pretty regularly get asked to pray for people who are in situations like this. There were a lot of people praying for you - did that make a difference for you?

PB:Oh, yeah. I felt, I think, I’ve been sustained because people have been praying. So in Phillippians it talks about, being in prison or whatever he’s been doing and he says, with the help of the Spirit and your prayers, and I go, ‘Yeah, I’ve experienced both of those’.

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed is, I have family members who aren’t followers of Jesus and it really struck me powerfully when I rang them to tell them. They’ve got nowhere to go with it, so they’re shattered, going, ‘Oh, I can’t imagine what that must be like.’ Yet when I tell a Christian, even though they may be not necessarily a burning hot Christian, they’ve got somewhere to go, and they’d say, ‘Oh, right,’ and they’ll be shattered, but they’ll say, ‘Well I’ll be praying for you.’

And so yeah, I felt incredibly supported and sustained by the prayers of God’s people. And really grateful to know that people were praying. If you were to ask me, what did I want them to pray? I would say, I want somehow Jesus, the reality of Jesus in me to somehow shine through whatever happens. Again it’s that wonderful thing, I think it’s John 12 where Jesus is wrestling with what the future holds for him and says,

So what shall I say, Father save me from this hour? No for this reason I have come. Father glorify your name.

For me that...it’s not about being saved from it, that would be great, but bigger than that, it’s that Jesus life and presence and reality somehow shines through and impacts people. But yeah, greatly supported and consciously thought of that, I think people’s prayers have really counted.

C: Has God been teaching you anything about himself?

PB: Over the last few years I’ve been reading through the Psalms with one of the kids from youth group...I think every Psalm has at least one verse underlined – every psalm except one – and one day I read through the ones that I’d underlined, and again I was amazed at how God is a living, interacting, present God. That he’s this refuge and that he acts on behalf of those that trust him, that just came through. I kind of want to say to people who are going into hospital, you know, if it’s been your practice to set him before you, then you can expect that you won’t be shaken half as much as you might be, because he is a rock, and he’s present, and he’s powerful and sustaining, and you can expect that. Yeah it might be tough but you can expect that the unshakeable God will pour some of his unshakeableness into you...

One of the things that struck me really early in the piece was the mechanisms of walking with Jesus on the Wednesday of the week before I knew any of this were no different from the mechanisms of walking with Jesus on the day that I discovered I had cancer, or the day of the operation. That internally, it’s the same processes, that you wake up in the morning and talk to Jesus and say, here I am today. I surrender to you, I trust you with what happens today, whatever it might be, and then you walk with Him. And if life kicks you in the guts you tell him about it, you say, ‘Oh, this really hurts, I never expected this but thank you that you’re there and I give this over to you’. And if there’s some joy in your life you capture it and say, ‘Lord, talking to these people was such a joy-filled experience, thank you for allowing me to do that’. So the internal processes are exactly the same and if you’ve got them in place, then you know how to deal with what happens. Sure it’s a bit more significant perhaps, but the processes are the same.

C:How high is the horizon from here, how far out are you looking? Are you looking forward in time?

PB:Well, in two weeks time I’m talking to the surgeon who will put me onto an oncologist who will begin a process of chemo and radiation, and I have absolutely no idea how I will respond to that, I’ve heard stories of how some people say, ‘I don’t know what all the fuss was about,’ and breeze through. I’ve heard stories where people are absolutely wiped out and they can’t work and then all shades in between... My church where I work has been absolutely fantastic, they said to me, you’re a staff member, we want you as a staff member, if we see very little of you over the next six months that’s ok, if we don’t see you over the next six months that’s ok, if we see a lot of you over the next six months that’s ok, we’re there with you. That’s an amazing gift. So, in terms of looking life expectancy, I don’t know. I just want to live well in whatever the next little bit holds. And I want to learn, I want the adventure to continue. I suspect that this is going to be lot tougher than what I’ve been through. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have constant nausea, and I am a physically active kind of person, to not feel like being active. I don’t know what any of that’s going to mean. So I suspect that that might be a far bigger battle.

C:But the processes are the same?

PB:The processes are the same, yeah. They might be harder to do. But [for example], my practice is to journal, and yet in hospital, I went over a week without journaling and yet I survived richly. I didn’t open my bible, and yet, just to be able to pray through the Lord’s Prayer as an extended paraphrase was a wonderful thing because I’ve done it many times before and I could invent new tracks. Or a stupid little thing that I found incredibly value was just going through the alphabet and thinking of attributes of God. I’d think of some A’s, think of some B’s, and then sometimes link As and Bs together, Cs and Ds together, Es and F’s together, and sometimes do nouns, sometimes do verbs. And in utter weakness I could lie there and in my head do that. And it builds your soul up with God. And it was a way of setting Him before me in my utter weakness. And it was sustaining. So yeah, the processes are the same.

C:It’s a very affirming story of God’s power...

PB:Yeah, He’s real. I wrote about 10 points in my journal and one of them is - Jesus is real. For me personally, it’s been really reassuring that this stuff matters, and it comes home to roost. And it’s not just the processes that come home to roost, it’s the reality of the One that the processes are about. His sustaining, nourishing, replenishing, rock-like life, comes real. I remember lying in bed, I couldn’t get to sleep because the nurses had been in and out and just going, Oh, Lord, I love you so much because you love me, just overwhelmed by the sense of his loving presence. It was so real, palpable. Will that be there all the time? No – and it hasn’t been. If anything, I think earlier on it was heightened, and it’s a little bit more mundane now, but man, I’m convinced that you just keep on clocking up the miles...

Peter is currently undergoing his second round of chemotherapy and radiation. He preached last Sunday - you can find the podcast here.

A month later I'm still processing the things I learnt that afternoon...

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The Cacophony Interviews: June 2007 Darren Hanlon, Singer/Songwriter

A few weeks back, on a retreat at New Norcia, I woke on a Saturday morning to some animated voices not far from my door. A few blokes were talking about the Australian music industry. One of those blokes seemed to have a pretty good idea what he was talking about. In my semi-conscious state I remember taking some guesses as to who that was. It was obviously a recording artist who toured a fair bit, but beyond that I didn't have much to go by.

Later in the day, I discovered Darren Hanlon was the guy who had been doing the talking. Curiously, Abbot Placid was the one who told me that Darren was staying in the Monastery Guesthouse and further, he would be giving a short 'performance' to the parishioners after mass on Sunday morning.

For those who are strangers to Darren's work, here's a couple of clips to get you on the page:






And this link will get you to his MySpace.

Genres can be uncomfortable pigeon-holes, but there's plenty that's acoustic and folk-rock about Darren and you can fill in your own categories beyond that. If I was adding a pigeon-hole for Darren, it might be the 'quirky' hole. There's a intricate humour and rich tapestry to many of the word-pictures and stories that find there way in Darren's songs that are both endearing and self-deprecating (interesting how often one of those attributes triggers the other).

To give you some idea where Darren fits into the Australian music pantheon...the answer is: somewhere. Each of his 14 albums/EPs have racked up around 10,000 sales.

After dinner on Saturday night, Darren and I caught up for a two-and something hour conversation about a bunch of stuff that become the guts of this June edition of The Cacophony Interviews. Darren was happy to step up to the Cacophony plate and I was happy to do some pitching.

C: Right off the bat, what brings you to New Norcia?

DH: A bit of a whim really. I've been up to my ears in music administration gear for the last few months and I wanted to move from an admin head space to a writing head space. A change of location helps.

(complete with some dodgy details, here's how the Courier Mail reported it)

C: Sure, but New Norcia? You're from Gympie in Queensland aren't you?

DH: I grew up in Gympie, but I've been living in Sydney for a few years now. And New Norcia? Well, it's a bit of a story. My first choice was Prague but the money wasn't there to get that far away. A year or two back I was touring Australia with my band. When we got to Perth a friend gave me a call from Meekatharra. She's a teacher up there and she was hoping we might be able to come and sing for the kids. We obliged and headed for Meeka. On the way we drove through New Norcia. I remember thinking as we drove through that we'd just barged in on some movie set with all these Spanish buildings in the middle of the countryside. It stuck in my memory as a great place to come back to. And here I am...slightly more affordable than Prague.

C: Is there a spiritual context for you to be paying a visit to a Monastery?

DH: I grew up in Gympie as an altar boy. I was in church Saturday and Sunday morning. I don't go to church these days, but I love the tradition of it all. It brings back a whole lot of memories for me.

C: What stopped you?

DH: Well, I think I just stopped getting much out of it. I still go to church now and then. Often when I'm touring I'll go along to the church of the country town where I am. A while back the church I grew up in made some renovations to make it more modern. I didn't like that much. I thought that was missing the point thinking that a better building would draw a bigger crowd. I think I got a bit disenchanted with it all. I find I'm more spiritual away from the church then inside it.

Having said all that, I love liturgy. I find it quite hypnotic. I have to confess, I've got some great ideas for songs while being transported by the hypnotic effect of the liturgy!

C: How does Jesus fit into the picture?

DH: I think I regard him as more of a feeling than a person. There's often a spiritual theme or element within a lot of my songs, but I'm not hammering it at all.

C: What are the dominant stomping grounds for your lyrics?

DH: The usual stuff I guess. Girls...personal politics...Australiana and country towns, friends and incidents, tributes and encouragements.

C: Do you follow a rigorous process in your songwriting or is it more organic?

DH: It's not really a formula or necessarily a natural progression. I'll often develop a groove and work from there. I often write in multiples and can have a few songs going at any one time. Often, as I'm working on one, the framework, basis, or chorus for another can fall out. I think you the act of giving attention to the process of songwriting puts you in the path of more songs.

C: You seem to have a great affinity with country Australia. Fair call?

DH: For sure. I love escaping to towns and cities. There's a richness in the character of country towns and the folks that live in them that is often missed in the larger cities. A lot of my friends are envious that I come back from touring with such interesting stories or people I've met along the way. I think it's more that I tour in places where there are a whole lot of interesting people.

(Hanlon's most recent album, Fingertips and Mountaintops, features pianist and trumpeter Cory Gray as well as Shins drummer Jesse Sandoval. It was recorded almost entirely at the charming old Majestic Theatre in Pomona in rural Queensland.)

C: You don't just visit country towns either...you get around don't you?

DH: Yeah, we've played in lots of Eastern European countries. Estonia, Latvia...and some of your more traditional European cities.

C: Estonia? What do they think they're coming to?

DH: They're just mad keen Australian pop-music fans. To an extent they're coming because I'm from Australia but, over time, you get a following as well.

C: Are there many at the shows?

DH: We regularly play to 500+ in places around Estonia and Latvia so it's a fair crowd. There's a bunch of Aussie musos who now tour that circuit. We'll probably crowd out the market soon, but there's been a neat little niche for us all because of how many of us have toured around there.

C: Do you get recognised much around the place?

DH: Nah - a couple of times in places like Paris and London or New York, an Australian might recognise me but I'm really not that much of a big deal.

C: Are you ambitious?

DH: Yeah. Not in that I want to be famous and earn millions, but in that I love the exciting life of adventure that is touring, traveling and playing around the place.

C: Is there a dream?

DH: This is it really. The whole moving from town to town and city to city playing my music. You can keep the whole music admin thing - that's not part of the dream - but the regular rhythm of playing gigs and interesting places, that's more like it.

C: I read somewhere that you're a fellow fan of the Moleskine...

DH: A huge fan. I'm a notebook geek. I just like carrying them around. Sometimes I find them too sacred to write in so I use Spirex notebooks for lyrics and lists and stuff. But Moleskines, they're beautiful.

(What proceeded was a homage to the Moleskine Notebook...but you've heard it all before on this site so I'll spare you.)

C: I heard you talking this morning about your friend who has sold a bunch of records and her experiences in the music industry.

DH: We were talking about staying independent or going to the big label. From my point of view, being independent is a great way to go. I live with a girl called Sarah Blasko who's on a major label, so it's good to see the differences. She's doing amazingly well - she's got a really good deal. But I'm friends with a lot of people on other labels and basically they're not seeing any money and it's very hard to make a living because, from what I've heard, the record company will charge you for everything and it's a difficult road to take. Then again, you become famous instantly. Whereas if you're independent, you own everything and one of the great things is that you don't owe anyone any money. So even though I don't have the money to make a $30,000 video clip or spend a lot of money on recording, at the end of the day if I sell cds, the money's mine and I don't owe any big label. The other good thing about Australia is that a lot of our big bands are independent. John Butler, The Whitlams and The Waifs are all independent and have all got where they are from hard work.

I've just got all my stuff up on iTunes too.

C: How does that work?

DH: I'm still working it out really. I used to be with an indie label called Candle Records but they've recently folded - hence all the admin. Apple just have the normal royalty deal - it's simply another avenue for getting your music out there. I've got a whole heap of papers I need to sign and stuff. Admin...

C: Has coming New Norcia helped you get away from all that?

DH: Pretty much. The internet connection in the Guesthouse Library has been a Godsend. With a tour coming up, there's a constant need for communication for locking in dates and gigs around the place. I actually got an email tonight from a mate who's touring around Europe when I'll be there and wants me to do some supports with him. It's been good to have that internet lifeline here to keep the ball rolling.

C: Out of interest, how do you go with vocal health?

DH: Hmmm...not too bad. I got pretty sick - actually, really sick just before my last tour and had to cancel the whole tour.

C: What happened?

DH: I started getting these fevers and pains in the chest. I just wrote it off to start with, but they got worse and worse. One night, while I was at home with my folks in Gympie, it just started to get worse. I'm not one to make much of a deal but I said to parents that I thought I'd better get to a hospital—the pain was unbearable. We went to the hospital in Lismore and they sent me on to Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. I still remember being wheeled in to the hospital and the nurses seeming more interested in whether I was the Darren Hanlon who sung 'Punk's not dead' than whether or not I was staying alive. It was a blessing that Prince Charles is one of the foremost coronary care hospitals in the country because the doctors said that I was not long off a serious/fatal heart attack.

C: What was it?

DH: They did a bunch of tests without finding out too much. It's some form of auto-immune disease and it absolutely wiped me out. It wiped out a tour and it delayed the recording of the album in a big way. I remember in May 06 I was back into Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney because I had fluid on my lungs as a result of the condition. I'd been pretty lousy and had been in a hospital bed for 3-4 days. Problem was, I was supporting Lior at the Enmore Theatre and I couldn't cancel - I really needed the money from that gig to survive. It was a good paying gig. I told the doctors I had to do the gig. They thought I was crazy but said if I left for the soundcheck/gig and came straight back to my bed, they'd look the other way. When I got there I told them to turn off the smoke machines because I couldn't breathe with them on. I survived the soundcheck but just before I was about to go on some friends came out the back where I was struggling to get up to tell me that there was heaps of smoke machine action. I went ballistic at them and told them (not so gently) they'd be get them off or they were going to have a dead guy on their hands. I survived the gig (just), got back to hospital and got paid.

C: How is it now?

DH: Well, after a while they tried steroids which had some pretty bizarre side effects. I was awake for about three days and had one of my most prolific stretches of songwriting ever, but I wanted to get off them as soon as I could. They certainly helped though. Along the way, a natropath told me going of pretty much all sugar would be a big help as well. They were right, so it's no beer for me anymore (which is a bugger, 'cause I love beer). Laura Imbruglia told me around the same time that Daniel Johns had got a lot of benefit for his reactive arthritis condition by getting heaps of Omega-3 from fish. I now eat plenty of tuna and different fish and it seems to be keeping it under control. It's an ongoing thing though...

C: So, with the health pretty much under control a cliché question: where do you see yourself five years from now?

DH: Hopefully making records of integrity or doing something creative. Most likely doing what I'm doing today.

C: Thanks for talking mate. You've got a big gig tomorrow. Better get a good night's sleep.

DH: Yeah - it's a bit weird. It's certainly my first gig in a monastery. I'm a bit nervous. What do I play?

C: Whatever you want!

DH: Do you even know where I'm playing?

C: No, but I'm sure it'll be fun

(Darren played to a packed room of about 30 people; curious on-lookers, bewildered monks and a couple of people who occasionally tapped their feet. It was fun for sure.)

Darren's Touching Elbows Tour comes to Mojos (237 Queen Victoria St, North Fremantle) this Saturday, June 16. You can buy your tickets right here.

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A footnote: I read in the music press over the weekend that Darren plans to record his next album at New Norcia based on his experience at the monastery.

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The Cacophony Interviews: May 2007 Michael Dunjey, Everest Climber

In the early hours of Friday morning, May 11, Michael Dunjey re-entered Australian airspace having spent the better part of two months on Mount Everest. His ascent ended at the oxygen-rare height of 7300m when he was forced to retreat to Base Camp or put his team (and the future of his fingers) in jeopardy. Over lunch and a couple of short macs, Simon Elliott and Brad Birt caught up with him to check out his hands, to talk everything from the mountain, to bowel movements, to the future, and kick off The Cacophony Interview Series.

C: Welcome home mate, it's good to see you in one piece. It looks as though you've left a few kilograms on the mountain...

MD: Yeah, about 8 kilograms. I went up 84kg, right now I'm 76kg. Interestingly, mountain climbing at altitude is the only form of exercise where you lose muscle before fat. I've still got some handles to hold on to.

C: What's great about being back at sea-level?

MD: Well, for starters, that's where Aimee (MD's wife) lives. But there's plenty more besides: breathing easily, getting your appetite back, eating multiple breakfast lunch and dinners, and enjoying simple pleasure like going to the toilet and having a shower. And, in time, it will be fun catching up with friends and family.

C: How often did you shower on the mountain?

MD: About once a week. And changed underwear at similar intervals. Obviously you can explore all the configurations of a single set of underwear before you've really got a problem.

C: And bowel movements on the mountain?!

MD: Well, at Base Camp it's reasonably civil. There's a small tent. It's smells feral but it's warm...and on Everest, anything warm is pretty good. Once you're getting further up the mountain it becomes a little trickier. You don't want to expose anything for too long (and at some temperatures it's not all that easy to locate through 6 inches of insulation). Exposure is a serious problem. We use a pee-bottle at night and for the weightier offerings zip-lock bags come in handy—these get jettisoned on the mountain the next day. Our climbing gear has easy access backsuits so it's not too hard although a few climbers have been known to make deposits in their hoods in error.

C: Yikes.

MD: Not me mind you.

C: Sure. What's the view like at 7300m?

MD: Well the summit looks incredibly close (although in reality it's 18 hours away). It's quite incredible really. For so many years I've looked at photos of every passage of Everest and studied it closely, so in someways nothing comes as a surprise...except that you're actually ON the mountain. Probably one of the most common phrases that got swapped between team members was 'hey guys, we're climbing Everest'. For all of us this was a dream that had been coming a long, long time and being there was almost surreal at times.

From 6500m you can see the summit really clearly and from there you really just want to get on with it. You find yourself being continually reminded by the magnitude of the moment...and the sheer and absolute exhaustion it brings.

C: What was the toughest part?

MD: Without doubt it was the first climb half way up the Khumbu Icefall. While we all knew this was about acclimatisation, nothing could have prepared us for this. We came down that day shattered, exhausted and demoralised. We'd gone through severe 'mountain shock' which our guide told us was quite typical. In some ways it was reassuring to know that many before us (and all of us on the team) felt as distraught. I've never been so exhausted.

C: Tell us more about the team...

MD: For starters, I was the only member who hadn't run a marathon. All the others had run marathons and ultra-marathons. Two had completed the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon and another a 1000km bike race. They were super-fit.

C: Did they have any understanding of your eclectic musical tastes?

MD: I kept it reasonably hidden. I told them of my passion for Celine but, to be honest, I'm pretty sure they thought I was joking.

C: And how did they regard the physical aspect of the climb?

MD: Without exception, everyone who had run a marathon likened each climbing day past Base Camp to the intensity of a marathon. Even the easiest of days was compared to a marathon—similar exertion, similar side-effects, less oxygen. Most mountain-climbers peak around 45-60 years old. Chuck, probably the strongest on our team, was also the old guy. At 63, Chuck could climb like a ridiculously accomplished 30 year old. There were many like him, but none stronger or fitter. He was astounding.

C: How dangerous was it?

MD: We all knew it was dangerous. We'd all heard of people whose life was taken on the mountain. Every Everest season there's casualties. In a way though, you hear about it so much that you become numb to the risks. That all changed when we saw it firsthand.

C: Tell us about it.

MD: In short, one of the sherpas for another team hiked past us while we were climbing between Camp One and Camp Two. He was on his way from Base Camp to Camp Two (the sherpas typically, and super-humanly, take two camps at a time). Four hours later we saw him carried down the mountain. He was killed by a chunk of ice hitting his head. We were radioed ahead to let us know he had been killed and then radioed again to let us know that the body was only 10 minutes away. He was quite a legend of the mountain it seemed as 20 grieving sherpas carried him—wrapped in sleeping bags and on a stretcher—back down the mountain. It was a reminder to our whole team how dangerous this mountain could be.

C: Have their been many lives lost so far this season?

MD: Only two that I know of, but May is the month for Everest fatalities because it's when everyone is at the dangerous altitudes.

C: Recount the story that lead to you coming back to Base Camp.

MD: I was leading the team on that day. Until that point the attempt was flawless. The previous few days my hands had been cold but when you're climbing Everest it's quite expected. On this day one of the guides told me I needed to prepare to use some equipment on my bag for the next part of the climb. After fumbling around for a few minutes I realised that I couldn't open my bag—my hands weren't working. The guide asked me to take off my gloves and show him. My fingers were already turning black. He told me I'd need to head back to Base Camp.

C: What are some of the thoughts that went through your head when you realised that summiting was no longer a possibility?

MD: I think I had 60 seconds of complete denial before I realised that it was a pragmatic and objective decision. I couldn't operate my equipment. It became an easy call. In all our preparations we had it drilled into us: don't leave flesh on the mountain—the mountain will still be there, your body parts will be gone forever. The decision was simple. I would have endangered my self and my team.

C: What if you'd kept on going?

MD: Well, for a start i would have lost a number of fingers. It would have meant trying to hide it from the others and that would have been irresponsible...it would have put the whole expedition in jeopardy.

C: If you'd have been at 8800m (50 metres from the summit), what would you have done?

MD: Gone for it! But I wasn't, I was 18 hours away and while in the context of an 8 week trip I had completed the toughest sections of the mountain and the lion's share of it, we still had a way to go.

C: In retrospect, is there anything you could have done differently?

MD: Frustratingly, yes. While I was wearing two layers of gloves, I could have been wearing the third, high-altitude mitt. This glove restricts a lot of function and is simply thumb and mitt. Had I put this on an hour before (or three days before) things may have been different. To put them on though would have meant stopping the pack that I was leading and unpacking to retrieve these gloves. I didn't want to hold up the team...and I obviously didn't know the extent of my problems.

C: What was the reaction of the team to you having to abort the summit attempt?

MD: They didn't actually find out until they came back down to Base Camp. The group is near each other on the climbs but still stretched out a fair bit. So you're not really aware of all the tales of the day's climb until you're back at the camp. They were great about it though. They had a Celebration Dinner for me which was great of them. Climbers know how quickly fortunes can change on the mountain. Everything needs to go right on each climbing day for you to successfully summit. It's like the Olympic marathon winner—they may not be the best athlete in the field, but they're the athlete that it all came together for on the day. Realistically, I was probably in the top quartile of the climbers in our team...but anything can happen.

C: What was it like back down the mountain?

MD: A bit funny really. You're holed up in one of three 5-star hotels that are filled up with 400 climbers who have all had to succumb to the mountain. We called each other the 'Everest-Rejects'. 600 try the mountain each year; if it was that easy these hotels wouldn't be full of limping climbers with bodies in various stages of disrepair.

C: How are your hands now?

MD: As I came down the mountain, I had stop at 15 minute intervals and put my hands under the armpits of my guide to preserve them. It might sound nasty, but I'd rather have my hands. All ten fingers were dead white and wooden or glassy to the touch and well on their way to freezing. We were just below Camp 3 but to spend the night at that height and in the cold conditions would have been stupid with my hands in that condition.

My guide accompanied me back to Camp 2. I was placed on bottled oxygen immediately. This aids directly in returning circulation to the extremities. My hands were placed in a warm bath of water for the next hour. Who knows how bad my fingers may have got. But I feel with the immediate action that was taken in getting me back down, the oxygen etc, that at least three of my fingers were saved from the chop.

The second, third and fourth fingers on my right hand still have no sensation, but this should return over the next 3-9 months.

Interestingly, I can scratch my ear and feel nothing...yet my itch is sated. Nice!

C: So many of your decisions over the last decade or so have been based on a tilt at Everest. Is it too early talk about the future?

MD: It's an interesting question. Until now everything has been a stepping stone towards a much larger goal: Everest. In many ways I feel that I've done it. Have I climbed Everest? Yes. Have I summited Everest? No. Yet, I've conquered the toughest parts of Everest. I've climbed the Khumbu Icefall four times. I've been to Camp 3. I've climbed to 7300m on one of the world's toughest mountains. For the moment, my Everest itch is largely satiated.

C: Do you want to go back up the mountain?

MD: As I said, I feel no need to go again...at the moment. But in many ways it's 'once a climber always a climber'. The guides said to us all before we went up the mountain: 'whatever you do, don't sell your gear when you come back down in some reaction to what went on up the mountain. It's temporary...and you'll end up having to buy all your gear back. I sold nothing other than some oxygen tanks. So, I think I'll always be climbing in some form.

There are other alluring mountains too. Aconcagua in Argentina is the highest outside of the Himalayas and I'm keen to climb it one day. The thing about climbing as I said earlier is that you peak anywhere from 45-60 so I have plenty of time ahead of me.

C: So, what's next?

MD: On the non-climbing front, I'm really looking forward to the next chapter. Aimee and I are keen to start a family sooner than later. I'm keen to sink my teeth (or feet) back into podiatry and continue to build the property portfolio that I've started. I'm also wanting to explore the Life Coaching/Personal Coaching area. I'm continually fascinated by the difference that effective goal setting can make to a person's life and would love to be part of that journey with a host of people.

On the climbing front, I have a great desire to take small groups of people to do interesting, eye-opening treks to places like Argentina. I've had brief discussions with Wesley College about such a trip and the idea really excites me. I love the sub-continent, the thrill of adventure, the physical challenge of it all and the opportunities to explore yourself that come through physical exertion. I'd love to be part of helping people learn more of themselves through that kind of adventure.

C: Do you think everyone needs to climb a mountain?

MD: Depends whether you're talking metaphorically or physically. In some ways the answer is yes to both, but I understand that some people simply don't enjoy climbing. I absolutely believe that physical exertion, suffering and a plain old hard days' work can change your mental attitude...which flows on to the rest of your life. You see on these poxy shows like 'Biggest Loser'...some guy gets mentally broken through physical exertion, yet it becomes a breakthrough for him. They get broken, but discover another dimension on the other side of all of that.

I think we all need to challenge ourselves to gain perspective by broadening our horizons. I look around Perth and I see a whole lot of people that are obsessed by nothing more than lowering their mortgages. There's so much more of life to take in. Get out of the rut. Climb a mountain. Go on a short term mission trip. Don't make the micro-culture your whole world. Be bold enough to see beyond it. In that whole process, quite aside from the thrill of adventure, you'll gain a fresh perspective on the priority you're giving to a whole lot of other things.

C: Nice work. Tell me about the spiritual dimension of climbing Everest.

I think it's in the extremes of life that we hold on to God the hardest. For me, it's in the heights and in the depths. When things are brilliant, I want to yell out my thanks for all that's brilliant. And in the depths, I want to cry out for help.

In many ways, Everest doesn't feel like earth; it's the domain of absolute extremes. Extreme pain, extreme fatigue, extreme cold and extremely low oxygen. You discover more of God in these extremes. You appreciate more joy when you've gone through the pain.

Our team was really interesting. Probably half or more of the team had a really strong faith in Jesus. Dave from Colorado, the guy I roomed and tented with, was a deacon in his Presbyterian church back at home. The difference it made to be able to unpack the highs and lows of a day on the mountain in the context of our faith journey was huge. It was such a provision.

C: Are there leadership lessons from the mountain?

MD: Absolutely. There's a bunch of leadership and team lessons. A mountain like Everest is all about team and leadership under the most extreme conditions imaginable. What you observe is that as the altitude increases the guides switch on and become increasingly intentional about their leadership, their need to provide certainty and the conviction of their instructions. They know what it takes to succeed and survive on this mountain. Most of these guides lecture in MBA schools around the world because of the amount of leadership lessons that can be gleaned from the pressure cooker that is Everest.

In many ways it's the litmus test of leadership: leadership under pressure. My personal challenge was with diet; the guides wanted me to be eating constantly. I remember one stretch when the guide stopped the team to observe whether or not I was eating. I didn't want to slow the team down to get more food. The guide said: eat now! The team waited for me to get supplies. The guides had identified the greatest needs of each of the climbers and were holding each of us accountable to the things that would give us the greatest chance of success. Food was the big one for me.

There was little, if an, hierarchy within the team itself. It was without doubt one of the best teams I have ever had the privilege of being a part of. Aside from having a huge sense of humour (essential for this kind of expedition) each person was always looking out for everyone else. We genuinely desired success for everyone else on the team. Back in Perth now, I'm still following the journeys of everyone from my team, hoping that each of them summit the mountain.

C: A tough question maybe...was there any sense of dread coming back home knowing the hopes of so many for your success?

MD: No, not really. A mate of mine, Ed Bradley, attempted Everest a few years back and had to turn back only 100metres from the summit when inclement weather closed in. He told me that for the first fortnight after he got back it was all about how it felt to get so close. From then on he's been 'the guy who climbed Everest'. Just like me, that's true. We've both been up the mountain and we've both experienced the harshest of what it has to offer. I went to Everest and I didn't summit, but I conquered the lion's share. As I said earlier, I'm really satisfied. Occasionally frustrated—that's human—but really satisfied.

C: Mate, thanks for talking to us. I speak for a whole lot who read Cacophony and a whole lot beyond when I say we're incredibly proud of what you did up on the mountain, what you've achieved, the character you've demonstrated and the perspective you bring.

MD: Cheers. Thanks for the opportunity to answer a few questions a few people might be wondering about.

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