Heaven Board #19 - Bread of Friendship

A beautiful Sunday morning meditation on the deck allows me the blessing of reflecting on yesterday's celebration of life for Joe Ratterman -mentor, colleague, close friend for over 48 years.  Joe suffered from Parkinson's since 2009.  I loved what his family wrote in his obituary posted at Spring Grove Cemetery site -

My thoughts in his memorial tribute makes this a definite Heaven Board entry!

Joe Ratterman was a man of many hats – though more often than not, those hats took the literal form of a ball cap.  Even with all those hats, in 48 years of knowing Joe, I’m sure there were other hats invisible to me.

I knew Accenture Joe, Social Venture Partners Joe, Golfing Joe, Bengals Joe, Philosophy over a Lager Joe, Frugal Joe, Old Man Tuesday Movie Joe, Storytelling Joe, Hyde Park Country Club Joe, Haps Joe, Gorman Heritage Farmer Joe, BMW Joe, St. X Joe, Fort Scott Camp Joe, Family Joe.

But beneath all those hats were Listening Joe, Strong Willed Joe, Honest Joe, Practical Joe, Even Handed Joe, Joking Joe, Caring Joe, Giving Joe, Philosophical Joe, Loving Joe and the one hat that covered them all: Friendship Joe

Let me share a moment that’s stuck with me.  In 2016,  well after his Parkinson’s diagnosis, I asked Joe for his definition of a friend – it was for a presentation I was preparing.  Without missing a beat, he said

 “Someone I don’t have to talk to on a drive all the way to Chicago”. 

That was Joe – No fluff, No performance.  Just presence.  Even near the end, when words were fewer, his friendship remained unmistakable.

And Joe never kept his friendships to himself. – I lost count  of how many times someone approached him out of nowhere full of gratitude.  If you were a friend of Joe’s you were ushered into a web of warmth and mutual respect. This was just his nature: love that overflowed and expanded.

Joe and I often talked about life and philosophy over a beer or two. One day at Paxton’s Grill – a lyric drifted through the speakers that made both of us stop and listen.  It was Sturgill Simpson singing:

“But I swear that God is there…… every time I glare into the eyes of my best friend”.   

 It was, in a word, “a God wink”. A sacred interruption tucked into our normal after lunch tradition.

We had our ritual “Solving World Problems” we’d call it, half-jokingly.  But these talks often drifted into deep spiritual waters – life purpose, mortality and even heaven.   I remember one deep discussion about Peter Kreeft’s book Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing.  Joe pictured heaven as a place of golf and ease, but then his Jesuit training from St. X kicked in. He paused, got serious and reflected on Kreeft’s image of heaven;  “Where heaven is like an unborn child asking – where is the world. Earth is not outside heaven, it is heaven’s workshop, heaven’s womb. We are already a part of the heavenly body.” 

That conversation didn’t solve any world problems but its memory provides me some comfort now. Joe wasn’t just ready for this next step – he had thought about it, welcomed it, and met it with courage and wonder.   That was Joe once again leading the way for me.

Now, Joe could never quite get into C.S. Lewis despite all my best efforts – but I think he’d forgive me for taking a liberty here.  If I may paraphrase Lewis in Joe’s honor: 

“Joe’s Friendship reflects a glorious nearness to heaven itself where the multitude of the blessed increases the fruition which each of us has of our ultimate friend in God.  For every soul, seeing Him in his own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest.  The more we thus share in friendship -  the Heavenly Bread between us - the more we shall have.”

Joe – my friend - our friendship is now virtual – You don’t have to talk …. whether we’re on the road to Chicago or crossing into eternity.  Until we share the Bread of Friendship again, I’ll carry the memory