You meet the most amazing people around the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, including Randall Heyn-Lamb, for a hallway conversation about the war in Gaza and Lebanon and the deep suffering being experienced throughout his network of contacts in The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem… Harvard-Westlake School president Rick Commons and colleagues at October’s meeting of the board of directors, on which I sit; Rick graciously invites me to offer an opening reflection…the Very Rev. Bill Dunn, dean of the diocese’s great out-east realms known as deanery VII as well as priest in charge at Trinity Episcopal Church in Redlands; Bill came in all the way in to Echo Park to talk to the Revs. Canon Melissa McCarthy and Thomas Quijada-Discavage and me about his busy ministry…Diocesan Commission on Schools chair the Rev. Canon Julian Bull, executive director the Rev. Ryan Douglas Newman, and our fellow commissioners at our fall meeting at St. Paul’s Commons, followed by Holy Eucharist for a larger group of school colleagues, where Ryan celebrated and I preached, and then lunch — all to mark The Episcopal Church‘s annual celebration of our schools, this year’s theme being “Let your light shine!”…and Associate Rabbi Aaron Leven, who with our St. Paul’s Commons co-tenants at Nefesh warmly welcomed Canon Bob Williams and me to Yom Kippur services on Saturday.
