Kathy Hannigan O’Connor’s and my friend for nearly 40 years, the Rev. Jonathan Aitken (second from right), is a British politician turned priest in the Church of England who’s spending the next few days in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles – preaching Sunday at All Saints Episcopal Church Pasadena, meeting with our diocesan chaplains Monday at St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park, and visiting Men’s Central Jail on Tuesday thanks to Sharon Matsushige Crandall, co-director of Prism Restorative Justice.
Jonathan is visiting us together with Peter McDonald, president of the McDonald Agape Foundation, which funds Christian ethics programs at dozens of colleges and universities. Peter’s father, Alonzo, worked in the Carter White House. Jonathan is a biographer of our old boss Richard Nixon. So the conversation Kathy and I shared with them over dinner this evening in Pasadena shifted smoothy back and forth between religion and politics – including Alonzo and Richard’s spiritual journeys.