December 24, 2019 at 4:05 a.m.
Friendship still a special blessing
One of the great benefits of a long life — one of those blessings I count in the middle of the night when sleep can be hard to come by — is the friendships we form along the way.
Especially valuable are those friendships that take us out of our comfort zone. Friendships that share different vantage points, different ideas and — yes — different faiths.
My wife and I met Kathleen and Peter Coates more than 20 years ago when we were in Moldova. I was there on a Fulbright. Peter was working for the European Union. Both of us were trying to help that often dysfunctional impoverished country figure out a new future for itself.
It could be discouraging work, so maybe that’s why we gravitated together. It also helped that their son Alister was about the same age as our daughter Sally.
So dinners and long conversation at our favorite “Mexican” restaurant in Chisinau were highly valued.
Connie and I soon learned that Peter and Kathleen were no ordinary couple.
They’d met when Peter was a Methodist minister and Kathleen was in theological seminary. Peter was married. Kathleen was single. They fell in love. They had an affair. The church reacted with fury. Peter divorced. He and Kathleen married. They went through a bleak period when they rejected Christianity and religion in general.
And then they came back in a surprising way.
The couple, now with a son Alister, converted to Catholicism, the religion of Peter’s mother during his childhood.
And that’s where they were when our friendship was born.
Regardless of the back story, they blew us away with the intensity and conviction with which they tried to do what they believed to be “the Lord’s work” in that difficult environment.
They started cantinas to feed hungry children. They supported forgotten efforts to help the developmentally disabled in a country with no social safety net.
In a word, to know them was to be humbled.
That was more than 20 years ago, but we still keep in touch.
Peter sends an update at Christmas and at Easter, letting us know what they’re up to.
They are back in England now. Peter is a permanent deacon of the Catholic church, the most he can aspire to as a married man.
His health, a little iffy 20 years ago, has worsened. These days, in his 80s, he’s pretty much housebound except for visits to his doctor.
But he’s still working.
These days, he’s writing a monthly column for his diocese in the United Kingdom.
I figured, with Christmas upon us, you might like to know what he has to say.
So here’s a Christmas sampler:
•“The Feast of the Epiphany is loaded with symbolism which turns the world upside down. The Christ-child, born of a practising Jewish mother, is shown to some Gentile astrologers who not only recognise Him as King and Martyr but realise the dangerous position in which this immediately places Him and themselves. Next to nothing is known about these visitors but we must assume that they arrived sometime after Jesus’ birth. … The gospel changes everything. … This is true today. The gospel is offered to all. The good news that Jesus is risen and with His people is not a secret to be hidden but truth to be shouted from the rooftops, by each of us in the way God opens for us.”
•“When I was about eight, innocent and full of confidence, I told my mother that I had a vocation to be a missionary to the poor. Wisely she told me that I was too young and that I should talk with an experienced missionary before taking any drastic steps. Perhaps foolishly, I thought I had no time to waste so I went to the Cathedral and interrupted a priest meditating on the Stations and asked him how I could become a missionary. We talked for some time before he gently sent me away to learn as many languages as I could. Later I got the same advice from the Methodists!”
•“Are you honest when you pray? It is easy to be honest when you are asking for something or praying for someone else but what happens when you are hoping to come closer to the Lord? I find the most difficult time to be at Reconciliation. Is it true to say that we are really sorry? Is it true that we really don’t want to do it again? How close can we come to Jesus?”
More than 20 years later, my friend Peter can still astonish me, move me and make me think.
And encountering a friend like that can only be described as a blessing.
Especially valuable are those friendships that take us out of our comfort zone. Friendships that share different vantage points, different ideas and — yes — different faiths.
My wife and I met Kathleen and Peter Coates more than 20 years ago when we were in Moldova. I was there on a Fulbright. Peter was working for the European Union. Both of us were trying to help that often dysfunctional impoverished country figure out a new future for itself.
It could be discouraging work, so maybe that’s why we gravitated together. It also helped that their son Alister was about the same age as our daughter Sally.
So dinners and long conversation at our favorite “Mexican” restaurant in Chisinau were highly valued.
Connie and I soon learned that Peter and Kathleen were no ordinary couple.
They’d met when Peter was a Methodist minister and Kathleen was in theological seminary. Peter was married. Kathleen was single. They fell in love. They had an affair. The church reacted with fury. Peter divorced. He and Kathleen married. They went through a bleak period when they rejected Christianity and religion in general.
And then they came back in a surprising way.
The couple, now with a son Alister, converted to Catholicism, the religion of Peter’s mother during his childhood.
And that’s where they were when our friendship was born.
Regardless of the back story, they blew us away with the intensity and conviction with which they tried to do what they believed to be “the Lord’s work” in that difficult environment.
They started cantinas to feed hungry children. They supported forgotten efforts to help the developmentally disabled in a country with no social safety net.
In a word, to know them was to be humbled.
That was more than 20 years ago, but we still keep in touch.
Peter sends an update at Christmas and at Easter, letting us know what they’re up to.
They are back in England now. Peter is a permanent deacon of the Catholic church, the most he can aspire to as a married man.
His health, a little iffy 20 years ago, has worsened. These days, in his 80s, he’s pretty much housebound except for visits to his doctor.
But he’s still working.
These days, he’s writing a monthly column for his diocese in the United Kingdom.
I figured, with Christmas upon us, you might like to know what he has to say.
So here’s a Christmas sampler:
•“The Feast of the Epiphany is loaded with symbolism which turns the world upside down. The Christ-child, born of a practising Jewish mother, is shown to some Gentile astrologers who not only recognise Him as King and Martyr but realise the dangerous position in which this immediately places Him and themselves. Next to nothing is known about these visitors but we must assume that they arrived sometime after Jesus’ birth. … The gospel changes everything. … This is true today. The gospel is offered to all. The good news that Jesus is risen and with His people is not a secret to be hidden but truth to be shouted from the rooftops, by each of us in the way God opens for us.”
•“When I was about eight, innocent and full of confidence, I told my mother that I had a vocation to be a missionary to the poor. Wisely she told me that I was too young and that I should talk with an experienced missionary before taking any drastic steps. Perhaps foolishly, I thought I had no time to waste so I went to the Cathedral and interrupted a priest meditating on the Stations and asked him how I could become a missionary. We talked for some time before he gently sent me away to learn as many languages as I could. Later I got the same advice from the Methodists!”
•“Are you honest when you pray? It is easy to be honest when you are asking for something or praying for someone else but what happens when you are hoping to come closer to the Lord? I find the most difficult time to be at Reconciliation. Is it true to say that we are really sorry? Is it true that we really don’t want to do it again? How close can we come to Jesus?”
More than 20 years later, my friend Peter can still astonish me, move me and make me think.
And encountering a friend like that can only be described as a blessing.
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