The news is beginning to get out about a new talk show called “Preachers” and, as usual, when dealing with anything concerning faith there’s a lot of peanut gallery discussions about it. Should it exist? Why these preachers? I don’t know why they picked them, nor do I frankly care. However, there is one host that makes me hope for the unparalleled success of the show even if I disagree with its assessments and commentary.
20 years ago, there was a friendship formed between two men that would survive through marriage, childbirth, divorce, and even death. The pair were so close that one asked that the other one would look after his children after he was gone from this life. Late 2015, one of the hosts called up his best friend telling him that he had an incredibly big deal in the works. The host promised his best friend that he would never forget him and that anything that was needed would be provided. The best friend, again, only asked that he took care of his children in his absence from this life.
The host would need to make good on that promise in January 2016. His best friend of 20 years died only 3 days after the host lost his mother and only two weeks before he would lost his sister.
The host is Pastor E. Dewey Smith and his best friend is my beloved Father. For the last several years of my father’s life, I watched the two of them talk on the phone for hours. Pastor Smith trusted my father’s counsel but more importantly, he loved him as a brother. Pastor Smith, in the midst of his own grief, fulfilled a promise he made to his best friend, my Dad, and eulogized him just one week after laying his mom to rest. He was and has been my Daddy’s brother in both life AND death.
So no, you won’t hear much criticism from me even when I disagree with what is said on the show. It’s deeper than that for me. I honor my father’s legacy and the love that he and Pastor Smith shared. I cannot think of a more deserving person than him for this opportunity. So, I wish him complete success in this endeavor and will be cheering him on from the sidelines.