Friendship: Filling lonely spaces

With his wife suffering from Alzheimer's disease, John Breckinridge longed for conversation. So he asked Peggy Hall, an ELCA pastor with Immanuel Health Systems, Omaha, Neb., if she'd be his friend.

Hall agreed, stipulating that the friendship would be platonic. Every couple of weeks, the two talk over tea "of things that matter; things that help us pay attention to God's movement," Hall says. "Where others might shy away from religion, sex or politics, that is precisely where our friendship dares to trod. ... It comes so naturally I continue to be surprised."