Pastor’s Column
September 4, 2025
May we all have friendships, and may we all be friends who walk with others through the joys and challenges of life, reminding them of the presence of God.
Sincerely,
Pastor Cindy
September 7, 2025
My dear church family,
The most enduring friendship I know was the lifelong friendship between my mother and her childhood friend, Winnie Bates. Mom and Winnie grew up in a remote river valley in western Massachusetts. The families’ farms were about a mile apart on a dirt road, which the girls walked in order to play together. They rode the school bus the five miles to school each day where they joined a dozen other students in their class.
Winnie married soon after high school graduation, while my mom moved to the city to work. Despite the distance, they maintained their friendship, which became especially close again when my mom and dad and two children moved back to the small town where Winnie and her family lived. They remained friends, weathering the joys and challenges of life together. When my mom died at age 91, Winnie went to the cemetery with our family to inter my mom’s ashes. Winnie lived another four years beyond my mom and is now buried about 50 yards from my mom.
Friendship is a precious gift we give another. In the Thursday book study, we are reading a book by Joan Chittister called The Friendship of Women. Joan uses examples of women in the Bible to highlight various aspects of friendship. In her introduction, Joan wrote, “Friendship binds past and present and makes bearable the uncertainty of the future… It is a grasp at the ultimate, the quest for human understanding.” Joan compares our earthly friendships with our relationship with God. Isaiah 43 highlights that quality of friendship which we taste with human friends and experience with God,
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…
God understands us, and God is with us.
This Sunday I will preach Part II of the Gospel According to Peanuts. The illustration here defines some of the ways in which Snoopy is the perfect friend. Perhaps my favorite Peanuts cartoon is the comic strip I showed two weeks ago and will show again this week. Lucy is caught completely off-guard by her brother’s proclamation of love.
