Tonight was the last time I hung out with my friend Rudy while we're still both single. Next week Saturday he's getting married. But this evening we got together and did what we've done for years now: share life, drink wine, and eat cheese!
We've had a really awesome friendship, since we met at church about a decade ago. Over the years we got to know each other very well, and we sure spent a lot of time hanging out, especially 1999-2001, and then also 2003-2006.
Here's a picture of us in 2005, when we travelled to Brasil, Paraguay, and Argentina. This picture was taken in Buenos Aires, poolside at the "Hotel Elevage."
Over the past few years we've become more distant. Partly I think I'm to blame, because I didn't make time for him during my "Regent" years. On the other hand, he got himself a hottie girlfriend, and for whatever reason, he prefered to spend time with her instead of me. Go figure.
On the topic of girlfriends, part of the reason we got along so well - besides both of us being raised German-Mennonite and then running away to the Anglican Church - was that we were both single, and to a substantial degree, disappointed to be so.
Of course, we did have some huge differences, which worked out very well for us: he always liked Caucasian women whereas I had eyes for the Asian or to a lesser extent, Latin American women. Come to think of it, maybe that was the key to our friendship: we never had to fight over women.
One of the things I'm most thankful for, however, was our biweekly prayer sessions. We got together to pray for each other about relational brokenness and disappointments. We could've called ourselves the "Commiseration Club", or better yet, the "Misery Club", that's how burdened we were at times. But, here we were, taking our pain to God in prayer. This probably sounds quite cheesy to most people, especially men, but I don't find anything embarrassing or cheesy about it whatsoever. If God is a God of community (Father, Son, and Spirit), in other words, if he's not only transcendant and "out there", but also immanent and "here" with us, making the Christ real to us in the Spirit, and wishing us to experience community and friendship with himself and one another, then, approaching him in prayer with a friend is the most natural and normal thing one could ever engage in.
Anyways, I digress. Only slightly though.
After our prayer sessions, we'd do what any God-honouring, self-respecting, Bible-reading Anglican does: drink port (sometimes lots of it), eat fancy cheeses, and smoke cigars. Such is the way we celebrated the goodness of God.
I miss those days. Those days shall be no more, or at least not in the same context. Next Saturday, my good friend Rudy is marrying the woman he loved before she even really knew him or took him seriously. In fact, he loved her, Joanne, and pursued her even while she was going out with another guy, and he did so with great integrity, I might add. Impressive.
Rudy won her over, he won her love, and now, two years later, he's ready - they're ready - for a new road, a new challenge: marriage. Many people think that this concept, this way of being together, is outdated and unnecessary, but in God's economy, nothing could be further from the truth.
Indeed, in God's way with the world, marriage is the top vocation a man and a woman could ever enter into. This, because it displays like nothing else, the nature of the love of God. Union between a man and a woman is the clearest picture of the nature of God's unceasing love: God and the World, God and Israel, Christ and the Church. These are all realities that martrimony points towards. It's a perfect picture, a perfect fit. Surely marriage is a sacrament of this love of God. Surely marriage is a tangible grace that we take a hold of in faith.
I'm grateful for such a good friend. I'm greatful that Rudy found Joanne. He will be a great husband, and hopefully even a better father. I'm grateful that God has answered his - our - prayer.
Here's to Rudy. Here's to Joanne. Prost! Salud! Salut! Cheers!
We've had a really awesome friendship, since we met at church about a decade ago. Over the years we got to know each other very well, and we sure spent a lot of time hanging out, especially 1999-2001, and then also 2003-2006.
Here's a picture of us in 2005, when we travelled to Brasil, Paraguay, and Argentina. This picture was taken in Buenos Aires, poolside at the "Hotel Elevage."
Over the past few years we've become more distant. Partly I think I'm to blame, because I didn't make time for him during my "Regent" years. On the other hand, he got himself a hottie girlfriend, and for whatever reason, he prefered to spend time with her instead of me. Go figure.
On the topic of girlfriends, part of the reason we got along so well - besides both of us being raised German-Mennonite and then running away to the Anglican Church - was that we were both single, and to a substantial degree, disappointed to be so.
Of course, we did have some huge differences, which worked out very well for us: he always liked Caucasian women whereas I had eyes for the Asian or to a lesser extent, Latin American women. Come to think of it, maybe that was the key to our friendship: we never had to fight over women.
One of the things I'm most thankful for, however, was our biweekly prayer sessions. We got together to pray for each other about relational brokenness and disappointments. We could've called ourselves the "Commiseration Club", or better yet, the "Misery Club", that's how burdened we were at times. But, here we were, taking our pain to God in prayer. This probably sounds quite cheesy to most people, especially men, but I don't find anything embarrassing or cheesy about it whatsoever. If God is a God of community (Father, Son, and Spirit), in other words, if he's not only transcendant and "out there", but also immanent and "here" with us, making the Christ real to us in the Spirit, and wishing us to experience community and friendship with himself and one another, then, approaching him in prayer with a friend is the most natural and normal thing one could ever engage in.
Anyways, I digress. Only slightly though.
After our prayer sessions, we'd do what any God-honouring, self-respecting, Bible-reading Anglican does: drink port (sometimes lots of it), eat fancy cheeses, and smoke cigars. Such is the way we celebrated the goodness of God.
I miss those days. Those days shall be no more, or at least not in the same context. Next Saturday, my good friend Rudy is marrying the woman he loved before she even really knew him or took him seriously. In fact, he loved her, Joanne, and pursued her even while she was going out with another guy, and he did so with great integrity, I might add. Impressive.
Rudy won her over, he won her love, and now, two years later, he's ready - they're ready - for a new road, a new challenge: marriage. Many people think that this concept, this way of being together, is outdated and unnecessary, but in God's economy, nothing could be further from the truth.
Indeed, in God's way with the world, marriage is the top vocation a man and a woman could ever enter into. This, because it displays like nothing else, the nature of the love of God. Union between a man and a woman is the clearest picture of the nature of God's unceasing love: God and the World, God and Israel, Christ and the Church. These are all realities that martrimony points towards. It's a perfect picture, a perfect fit. Surely marriage is a sacrament of this love of God. Surely marriage is a tangible grace that we take a hold of in faith.
I'm grateful for such a good friend. I'm greatful that Rudy found Joanne. He will be a great husband, and hopefully even a better father. I'm grateful that God has answered his - our - prayer.
Here's to Rudy. Here's to Joanne. Prost! Salud! Salut! Cheers!
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