The first time I met Mike Enzi, the recently-retired Senator who died in a bike accident earlier this week, was at an intimate dinner hosted by my friends Andy and Peg Walton. Andy was the pastor of the church Mike and his wife Diana attended, and that we did as well. Appropriately enough, given our political views, the Enzis sat on the right side of Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church, and we sat on the left.
As we got to know Mike and Diana, we came to admire their commitment to our small congregation, especially since the politics of most of its members were very different from their own. Over time, I concluded that they instinctively focused on areas of agreement, not disagreement. That tendency guided our many conversations during coffee hour after Sunday services.
On the first evening when we met, I was a bit frazzled from my job running Grameen Foundation, an international nonprofit organization, so I didn’t quite catch his name or figure out who he was, at least initially. When he said he had been “working on the Senate floor” with Ted Kennedy on health care earlier in the day, I wondered if he was some senior advisor to a senator.
He mentioned something else over dinner. Earlier that week, Grameen Foundation had delivered copies of Muhammad Yunus’ memoir Banker to the Poor to every member of Congress, as he had recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When I said I was the foundation’s CEO, he immediately connected the dots and said that the book was sitting on his desk and that he had just started reading it. He was a small state senator who paid attention to details and was intensely curious.
His involvement with Grameen Foundation would grow. He met Yunus, worked to defend him against scurrilous attacks in his home country, and was the most eloquent and unscripted speaker of either party at the ceremony where Yunus was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
He had my wife and I over for a charming, home-cooked dinner, where we discussed issues that united rather than divided us, in a natural and pleasant way. For instance, they described their humanitarian trips to Africa, and we talked about our own experiences on that continent. The Enzis were clearly interested in our insights, as they might inform their own future work there.
Later, I made one of my very few contributions to a Republican candidate for office when he faced a brief primary challenge. For his part, Mike gave my wife and I tickets to President Obama’s inauguration. (We guessed there weren’t too many of his constituents who wanted to make the trip from Wyoming to Washington to celebrate that transfer of power.)
In the wake of Yunus’ Nobel Prize, my publisher came out with a new edition of my book on him and his work. Mike agreed to contribute an endorsement quote for the back cover. I drafted something but instead of using that, he read the book in its entirety and wrote his own charming blurb. That process repeated itself in 2019 when I published my own memoir, Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind. He was still a sitting senator, but he somehow found time to read the 300-page book and write something nice about it.
When the first printing of Changing the World came out, my publisher listed him as Senator Mike Enzi, Republican Senator from Wyoming. That didn’t feel right. While he was a Republican, and a mostly conservative one at that, he was a pragmatic problem-solver first and foremost – and to me, a grandfatherly friend. He did not let his political views serve as blinders, nor did he let those of anyone else dictate whom he collaborated, dined, or worshipped with.
He was a throwback to an earlier era. Today’s politicians of both parties would do well to channel their inner Mike Enzi. He will be missed.