Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

By Greg O’Brien

Photo, left to right: George Pakenham, Marble Church Pastor Michael Bos, church deacon Ted Gregory.  (photo by permission of Marble Church)

“The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.”

Proverbs 11:25

The best of humanity can be found in the worst of times. We see this today on the front lines of the Coronavirus pandemic—acts of noble kindness, often found in unexpected places. At a time when we are told to separate, compassion is bringing us closer together. Let us hope this is the new normal—the bottling of benevolence. 

George Pakenham is a case in point, one of many ahead of his time—a time when Corona was just stocked on shelves.

At first glance, Ted Gregory and Pakenham, both New Yorkers, have little in common. 

Gregory, 68, an African American, former first team All-Ivy football defensive back at Columbia, inducted into the Columbia Hall of Fame, was raised in Middletown, Ohio, a rural, working class community in the Southwestern part of the state. Pakenham, 70, as white as snow, grew up in affluent Westfield, New Jersey, graduated from University of Arizona where both of us hung out at Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the SAE fraternity. George has the look of the lanky Ichabod Crane in Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a bit of a stretch perhaps, but you get the word picture. They are different.

Yet they bonded in the Book of Proverbs, refreshing one another, on the brink of an abyss. 

To say that Ted and George were on parallel tracks in life is to say a zigzag is a straight line. 

This is a story of two individuals, as diverse as possible, who found each other in their moment of need.

After graduating from Columbia, Ted received an offer to play in the newly created USFL and was also invited to the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills training camps. He declined the offers after consulting with his father, William, a gifted a mechanical engineer and former college football player himself. “My dad is the smartest person I know,” says Ted. “He counseled me then, saying: ‘You go to a school like Columbia, you use your mind!’” 

And so, Ted did, working in the investment banking field for 20 years with firms like Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers and Bank of America. “There weren’t a lot of brothers there, if you know what I mean,” recalls Ted, who is back working now at Columbia as Director of Diversity Initiatives and Talent Retention. His daughter, Jessica, the pride of his life, graduated from nearby Barnard College, the world-class private women’s college. 

George, meanwhile, sold all his possessions after college, and battling a stuttering ailment became a tour guide at Glacier National Park in Montana, which helped conquer his impediment. He then traveled the world for seven months on a Norwegian passenger ship, and then for the next year explored the Middle East, Africa and Asia as a vagabond, living on pennies a day. 

Afterwards, he moved to New York on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Over time, while embarking on a marketing career, George created six short films, two full-length documentary films, and wrote a children’s book. Recently, he formed a non-profit called Verdansa, which supports ecological and humanitarian efforts, based on the success of his documentary film, Idle Threat, Man on Emission. The film documents dangerous and illegal automobile and truck idling in New York City, causing as much smog-forming pollution as nine million large trucks driving from Hunts Point in the Bronx to Staten Island each year. Exhaust from idling inflames asthma, lung disease, other serious respiratory illnesses, as well as heart disease.  

The tangent in the lives of Ted and George—as eclectic as it—crossed paths at historic Marble Church, founded in 1628 and located at 272 Fifth Avenue at the corner of West 29th Street. The first church elder was Gov. Peter Minuit, who purchased Manhattan island from Native Americans. Minuit and church elder Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of New Amsterdam, a 17th century Dutch settlement at the southern tip of Manhattan, co-opted worshippers to Sunday service, dispensing fines to those who didn’t attend. So there’s some his history here…

Ted, a church deacon, sings in the choir at Marble Church, and George, with a tin ear, had heard Ted’s voice in the core of his soul. But even with faith comes challenge. In 2007, Ted was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and four years later, he was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a serious cancer that depletes the immune system in fighting off infections. The treatment required stem cell surgery and heavy doses chemo, which can damage kidneys. Coronavirus is a concern for him today.

Then came word three years ago that Ted was in grave need of a kidney transplant, and was on kidney dialysis three days a week. The revelation was delivered at Marble Church one Sunday. George was in the congregation, and was stirred by Ted’s courage. 

“If I can help you, I will,” he told Ted, offering to donate a kidney, if possible. Ted was overcome with emotion as George prepared for the rigorous four-month process of medical procedures to determine if he was a match. The tests proved positive. George, was indeed, a perfect match. Amen!

“I never felt fear,” says George, “just an opportunity to help someone. Ted was down, and I was eager to help.”

In the meantime, spring of 2019, doctors determined that Ted had 99 percent blockage of a major heart artery; he was on the lip of a heart attack, requiring a stent and two-to-three months of recuperation, as the CBS News affiliate in New York initially reported. First cancer, then Myeloma, now this! 

Paradoxically, George was on a parallel path as Ted, though had no footing on this journey. In follow up tests for a kidney donation, doctors discerned that George also had serious heart blockage, requiring six stents, and a lead-tight verdict from doctors that he could not be a transplant prospect.

“Broke my heart,” says George. “One of the toughest days of my life was delivering the news to Ted.”

But Ted took the news in faithful stride and consoled George. “He was so distressed about not being able to donate,” says Ted, “but in the process of trying to save my life, George ultimately saved his own.”

Proverbs 11:25 in real time.

And so George went before the Marble Church congregation at a Sunday service last November,   with Ted and Senior Pastor Michael Bos by his side and spoke to about 700 church members in attendance and a thousand others on a service broadcast. He told the tangled story, and sought another donor for Ted.   

“Ted is an indominable spirit,” says Pastor Bos. “No matter what is thrown his way, he walks in faith, searching and finding the positives. George demonstrates the bond of friendship that crosses all lines. Together, it was a God thing.”

Ted is still on dialysis, awaiting a match. For information about kidney transplants, please call Columbia University Medical Center, 212-342-0840. 

As we stare down the demon Coronavirus in weeks and months ahead, there is great peace in looking to past acts of kindness and in humanity today in the hopes they are as contagious—the antidote to fears.