On a friend’s death…

As everyone knows, we men aren’t all that great at making deep male friendships. Women go out for coffee together, talk on the phone together, go shopping together, even get up to go to the restroom together (I never have figured that out).  Typically, we men might have many friends, but fairly few deep, lasting friendships.  It’s true for me anyway.  I’ve been blessed with wonderful friends, both male and female, in every church I have served and every town I’ve lived in, but I can almost list on one hand the men whom I would consider really close. And I have lost several of them already.

Jimmy Carr was one of them.  A genuine Mississippi “good ‘ol boy”, Jimmy and I traveled the world together while we serve on the Board of Higher Education and Ministry.  We wrestled the denomination into a new order of ministry and learned to love each other in the process. When he died, I lost a dear colleague who blessed my life with his down-to-earth faith and warm heart.

    Gil Miller was about the only long-time male friend I’ve kept up with since college days.  It helps that we spent the last 40+ years as traveling preachers in the same Annual Conference, it helps our wives are good friends and that Gil’s wife Beth was part of my staff in Ann Arbor.  It helps we were both part of a wonderful circle of fellow clergy who met together annually for “retreats” which were primarily about laughter, food and soaking in hot tubs.  My last time to be with Gil was last fall on the top of Sundance in Utah where Gil had found a whole new ministry after retirement teaching “wounded warriors” and other disabled persons to downhill ski.  I am certainly not the only one who will miss Gil’s friendship–far from it.  I am sure Gil’s outrageous laughter will continue to ring in many hearts for years to come.

Ron Woodard was another.  Gentle, brilliant, warm, funny, one of the most caring men I ever met who died much too soon.  In his funeral I read from a hymn written by Charles Wesley after the death of his brother John.  It’s in the United Methodist hymnal as a poem without music….and maybe that is the best way to hear it:

If death my friend and me divide, thou dost not, Lord, my sorrow chide, nor frown my tears to see; 

Restrained from passionate excess, thou bidst me mourn in calm distress for them that rest in thee. 

I feel the strong immortal hope, which bears my mournful spirit up, beneath its mountain load;

Redeemed from death and grief and pain, I soon shall see my friend again within the arms of God.

Pass a few fleeting moments more and death the blessing shall restore which death has snatched away;

For me thou wilt the summons send and give me back my parted friend in that eternal day.

 My predecessor at Birmingham Bill Ritter was once asked, “Will we know our loved ones in heaven?” and he answered with a question, “Will it be heaven if we don’t?”

Thanks be to God for good friends and for the hope of glad reunion.

Jack Harnish