It’s been roughly two years since I lost my best friend, Brother Martin Gonzales. Martin had been my closest friend for over 21 years, which was 43% of my life at the time he died—so a lot of my life. We met in 2000 at the reception desk of the Trappist monastery in Lafayette, Oregon where he had been a monk since 1950. To me, Martin was like a conduit of Divine love at a time when I doubted that love; and he continued to remind me of it on a regular basis. He also told me often I was a gift to him. Early in our relationship, I could never quite understand this, because I had a low opinion of myself. But it was like he’d been waiting decades for my friendship, and when I came along, he recognized me. Shortly after I met him, and following a retreat at the abbey, I showed him a painting I’d made and he teared up. “You are full of spirit!” he gushed. And it was the beginning of a long unraveling of my perennial self-doubt… {Read the remainder of this article on Patheos HERE.}
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Beautifully said. We truly have the power to make others feel either good or bad about themselves.