As Christmas approaches, you meet the most amazing people around the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, including clergy colleagues from in and around the Claremont and Upland corridor, aka deanery VI, whom their dean, the Very Rev. Keith Yamamoto, and I hosted for our annual Advent lunch at Pilgrim Place after a moving service offered by the resident eucharistic circle…volunteers and staff of the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union, at a festive St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park dinner organized by longtime chair Dan Valdez…Fr. Greg Boyle, spotted during a meeting at St. Paul’s of his legendary Homeboy Industries…the Rt. Rev. Naudal Alves Gomes, for our monthly chat about his leadership among fellow leaders of Spanish-speaking congregations…staff colleagues at our annual gift exchange at St. Paul’s and a Christmas party that Kathy and I hosted at The Church of Our Saviour…and my fellow Harvard Westake board member, physican and film producer Eric Esrailian, who told me about his work with the Armenian Apostolic Church, including the restoration of historic Etchmiadzin Cathedral, considered by many the oldest in the world.
