Prima Verba – Part 11

For some strange reason, one of the things I remember most about lunch with Keith is that we both had matured to the point of needing reading glasses. Time had definitely marched on since we’d last been part of each other’s lives!

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

I wrote previously about reconnecting with my old friend Keith Nester (emphasis on old for both of us!) and setting up a lunch meeting. That’s what I’m going to write about here.

Keith and I live about an hour and a half apart, so we picked a halfway point and met at a Mexican restaurant. I can’t really explain it, but lunch meetings at Mexican restaurants are becoming a thing for me. You might reasonably assume it’s related to my last name, but it’s actually Spanish/Portuguese in origin. Besides, I’m more Dutch than anything else.

Anyway, back to the restaurant…

It was May 4, 2023. How do I remember that specific date, you ask? Well, it’s not because it marks a milestone in my journey (even though it does). No, it’s simply because I have a fairly significant nerd streak in me. And if you don’t get the connection between that date and me being a nerd, just search ‘may 4 star wars’ and you’ll understand. So, yeah, it’s an easy date for a guy like me to remember.

Anyway, back to the restaurant…

Actually, I really should revisit some important context that I mentioned last time. By the time Keith and I met for lunch, the first and second waves of burnout were in my rearview mirror, though their effects still lingered. The third wave had calmed down a bit for two reasons. First, we had finally found an equilibrium regarding Cami’s guardianship of her sister. Second, Cami’s mother was reasonably stable and getting along well in the nursing home. The fourth wave, however, was still fresh, as I was only a couple of months past the point where I crashed.

All right, third time’s a charm. Back to the restaurant…

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I arrived first and took a seat facing the door, as is my custom. Early spring in Iowa always reminds me of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. But on this day, she actually let him kick it, and it was gorgeous outside. So, I wasn’t surprised to see Keith walk in wearing a leather jacket and carrying a motorcycle helmet.

Pleasantries were exchanged, we caught up a little, and we ordered our meals (relying on our reading glasses, of course, as we perused the menu). But before the conversation went anywhere else, there was something I wanted to say. Needed to say. I told him I wasn’t interested in rehashing old arguments or revisiting the Catholic/Protestant debate at all. I said that all I wanted to do was reconnect as old friends.

Now, I had no idea until very recently that he had come prepared to debate all the Catholic stuff—Mary, the sacraments, the saints, the pope… You name it. If you want to hear it in his own words, go to the 40:30 mark of this interview I did with him. So, at the time, I had no idea how surprised he was by my opening salvo.

With that comment, I had set the tone for our whole conversation, and it proved to be a good tone. We had a great time. We updated each other on our wives, our kids, our work, and the music we’d been listening to lately. I also told him that I had been sensing and desiring a call out of pastoral ministry, and that I was waiting on the Lord to confirm this and make the path forward clear.

I think we were there for nearly two hours, and we left knowing this wouldn’t be our last get-together. On the drive home, I found myself thinking about some of the things he had told me about his life and ministry, and I was struck by how foreign it all seemed to me. He understood my world as a pastor and as a Protestant, but there was a great deal I didn’t understand about his world as a Catholic. And I realized that if he and I were really going to reconnect, I owed it to him to at least try to understand his Catholic world from his perspective. Even if a lot of it was bonkers.

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Now, whether it was before we met for lunch or after, I can’t remember; but it was right around this time that I heard him say in one of his videos that if a person really wanted to know what the Catholic Church believed, he should read the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). And he held one up as he said it.

I had recognized it immediately, because I had one in my office at church. Someone had given me a bunch of books at some point, and among them was a copy of the Catechism. I had kept it because I thought it would be a good resource for refuting Catholicism. But at that point, I had never even opened it.

So, my reflections on my drive home merged with his comments about the Catechism and became a challenge that I decided to accept. I would read the CCC—not to convince someone not to be Catholic, but to better understand a friend.

And that’s all it was. It was largely academic, but it was also relational. I was going to read the CCC in order to better understand the Catholic Church and, in turn, to better understand Keith. Because that’s what a friend should do.

Now, the process I used while reading the CCC has drawn some attention online, but I didn’t actually set out to do it this way. I just realized early on that I was going to need some way to keep track of what I agreed with and what I disagreed with, as well as what I didn’t fully understand. So, I came up with a system.

And I’ll go into detail about that system, and include some pictures, in Part 12

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Grace and peace to you all! I hope your Advent is filled with hope, faith, joy, and love, and that you will have a truly blessed Christmas!

Thank you for your continued interest and support. You are appreciated and prayed for. Part 12 may be ready before Christmas, but if not, I’ll publish it by December 31. Also, I plan to publish occasional supporter-only articles in the New Year.

May the Lord bless and keep you all.

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Aaron