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Current music: Ben Harper – Widow of a Living Man

Uninvited input brings to life a friendship to be remembered

By: SPECIAL TO CITIZEN-TIMES

Posted: Dec. 12, 2003 5:31 p.m.

I rise early on Sunday mornings in order to prepare myself to meet an active, demanding day. I shower, quietly dress and head my car down the driveway, turning it toward McDonald’s. I usually get there early enough to get a place at a table far away from the breakfast crowd and the sounds of conversation.

I prefer to be somewhat inconspicuous, anonymous. I simply search for a cup of strong black coffee and a private time to prayerfully center my spirit.  It’s in these moments I glance over my sermon and pay attention to my internal critics.

This time alone is an invaluable part of my peculiar routine and I go out of my way not to disrupt it. However, this routine was altered some years ago when a winsome, senior-age man caught my attention.

His name was Len and he had seen me and asked if I were a minister and was I “working on my sermon.” I was reluctant to answer, wanting to be left alone.  He invited me to sit down and share my sermon with him. He seemed to genuinely care about the ideas inherent in my sermons and playfully questioned me about them.  He had a kind of Socratic sense about him and I learned to enjoy these breakfast meetings. He loved to talk about the political and social implications of my sermons and our conversations ran the gamut. This man was not your traditional church-goer; yet, he was deeply interested in spiritual/ethical matters. Sam Walter Foss may have been imaging a man like Len when he penned these famous words,

“Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.”

It hurts my heart to realize my friend from McDonald’s is no longer around to ask me questions about the larger issues of faith, justice and love. Leonard “Len” Colwell died recently, and I will profoundly miss hearing his Sunday morning mantra: “May I ask you a question?”

Every preacher needs someone outside the circle of traditional faith to stretch his/her perspectives and question spiritual assumptions. It wasn’t until well into our friendship that I learned he had once challenged the perspectives and social mores of the “Yankee elite” of Lexington, Mass.

If you should ever read J. Anthony Lukas’s book, “Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade In the Lives of Three American Families” (page 96), you will read about my retired, Realtor friend who risked doing the right thing trying to be a “friend to man.”

I truly miss Len. Now, when I go back to McDonald’s, I visualize him sitting at the booth nearest the coffee urns, urging me to sit down and answer a few of his questions. Though Len’s no longer with me, his inquiring spirit and playful banter are, having left lasting marks on this preacher and his mind.

Buddy Corbin is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Asheville.