My Friend Has Died

On Tuesday, May 2, 2006 Louis Rukeyser passed from this life. I believe he was 73. He succumbed to cancer.

I never met him.

At least not in person. But he and I were guests in my dad’s den on Friday nights at 7:30 for a number of years in the 1980’s.

You may or may not know who Louis Rukeyser was. He had a show on PBS called Wall Street Week. For a few years, Dad and I spent thirty minutes most every Friday night watching it. Though the subject matter was different, Lou’s monologue to open the show was better than even the great Carson. Rukeyser gave investment counsel to the “average” investor, though I suppose no investor considers himself or herself to be “average.” It’s “their” money, after all. But as a Christian, we know that all money, along with everything else, really belongs to the Lord.

Dad and I would watch with great interest as Lou would talk of bulls and bears…and even elves. He was a voice of steadiness when the fickle market would rise sharply or plummet precipitously. Lou was always entertaining, enlightening, and reassuring. Times and fortunes change over the years. I hadn’t watched Louis Rukeyser’s show in a quite a while until a couple of years ago I caught his new show on CNBC a few times. He had aged obviously. But he was the same ol’ Lou that Dad and I had come to know, respect, and love.

Louis Rukeyser was a link of sorts to my dad. I guess he would make a twosome with Walter Cronkite who was a regular Monday through Friday night at 5:30 staple in that same den (though that would have been in the sixties when I was a teenager). Dad was my best friend. He died in 1999. When I learned that Lou had died, it was like another little piece of Dad went with him. Walter survives yet.

Lest I put you to sleep with my reminiscences, I’ll come to the Christian application of all this. I look back on a fond time earlier in my life. There is a story of a man in Luke 16 who looked back on a fond time in his life. Our stories diverge there, because the man in Luke 16 was dead. In his prior life he had had it good. I guess he would have been a Wall Street Week regular. He’s even called the “rich man” in the story. You may recall his acquaintance, Lazarus.

The rich man got it all right with his money, but got it all wrong with his life. There is no indication in the Bible text that he engaged in criminal or immoral behavior. But he was selfish, he wouldn’t share – and he went to hell for it.

He waited till it was too late to do something about his life. If you’re reading this (and I’m writing it, I guess) then it’s not too late for us. The rich man invested in himself. That investment went south. He lost everything.

God wants us to invest in others, by investing in His cause. Let’s put our time, our abilities, our opportunities, and our money – in the Christian Life. Then we won’t have to worry about Wall Street, we’ll be looking forward to a street of gold.