In his letter to the Romans, Paul teaches that, if we are in Christ, we are members of one another. I don’t know what my late buddy Ed Simons would’ve thought about that. We didn’t talk much about religion. We met in 1974 as underperforming undergraduates at UC San Diego. He thought Blue Öyster Cult was the best band in history. I tried unsuccessfully to persuade him that Jackson Browne rocked pretty good when inspired.
Ed wrote a column for the campus paper, which I ended up editing, called “Low Blows and Cheap Shots.” One day he loaded me into his 1966 Chevy Nova, aka the Colonel, and took me to the Denny’s near the Del Mar race track and taught me how to drink black coffee. A bottomless cup cost $.29. I’ve loved Denny’s and coffee ever since. I’ve never known anyone who talked as much about his family as Ed. He was so proud of his sisters and brother, his mom, Aurora, and his father, Clarence, who played stand-up bass in jazz bands and and ran his musicians’ union local back in Georgia. Aurora was also an officer. That was their meet cute and the Simons family creation story. Clarence finished his career as the coolest band teacher in Norwalk.
Here’s where the filigree of human connection begins to manifest. One of Ed’s sisters, Cecille Simons-Araya, turned out to be a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Long Beach. I preached at Ed’s funeral, which he would’ve found amusing, and, at Cecille’s invitation, buried Aurora and Clarence. Cecille and Cisco’s kids, Emma and Isaac, are denizens of Camp Stevens, where Isaac is still on staff and they and my daughter Lindsay became friends. The Potential Lunatics, their two-piece punk band, reunited earlier this month for Fullerton Pride. Video exists of Lindsay strumming along on a green Stratocaster. She doesn’t really play, but neither did Bill and Ted at first.
When I was in Fullerton this afternoon, I dropped by to see Lindsay, on vacation from her work as a 1:1 special educational aide. She was dyeing some trousers while listening to “Too Scary; Didn’t Watch,” a podcast cohosted by Henley Cox for those who are curious about what happens in horror movies but don’t want to see. Someone might do something like that for church services. Lindsay and I had another Holy Spirit moment recently when we realized that her Henley is also our Henley, the former TV executive who is the spouse of the Rev. Tim Hamlin, formed for the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, now serving in Connecticut. Six years ago, Henley and Tim named their first child Silas. Lindsay’s sister, Valerie, and her spouse, Mark, coincidentally chose the same name for their son.
For my church vocation, I owe all thanks, besides to Jesus Christ, to another Fullertonian, the Rev. Canon Mark Shier, retired rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. I was also in Orange County today to take him and his spouse, retired church organist Duane Steadman, to lunch. As I told Mark, I don’t know where I’d be if he hadn’t been where he was. In the nineties he counseled me through a series of professional and personal challenges and affirmed my call to ordained ministry.
Lindsay first learned about Camp Stevens, where she worked five years, because we’d gone to St. Andrew’s family camp. Mark baptized Valerie and Lindsay and married Kathy and me. Mark’s Fullerton residency was also the result of ineffable human connection. He was living in Santa Monica and working at the UCLA medical library when a friend introduced him to St Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. Like mine, Mark’s formation occurred at St. Andrew’s under the wing of a longtime rector, in his case the late Charles Weidemann. Ordained a priest in January 1977, Mark learned four months later that Chuck was going to be rector at Malibu. Mark was his first choice as successor. The Fullerton congregation quickly agreed.
Chuck’s English spouse, May, with whom I became friends, died in 2024 at the age of 105. As a young U.S. soldier, Chuck met May at a tea dance during World War II. She was aboard one of the six 1946 voyages of the Queen Mary, which ferried thousands of so-called war brides and their children to New York. The Weidemann family has no doubt pondered all the miracles that flowed from Chuck and May happening to meet of an enchanted English evening.
We rarely think of such things at the time. Always in the moment we are, Yoda would say; never thinking of the richness of possibility ignited when two or more are gathered. Over coffee with Ed at Denny’s, I couldn’t have imagined my sacramental connection 35 years later to the family he loved so devotedly. When I was looking for a church to attend with my daughters, I didn’t think about the consequences — including becoming bishop, deacon, and priest, not to mention finding my way again — of depending on the judgment of the late Nancy Guthrie, Mark Shier’s church secretary, when I called one day in 1995, feeling considerably vulnerable, and asked about the church. She said she was sure that I would love it and Fr. Mark, and I chose to trust her. Something is always cooking if we say yes, if we cradle and cherish the delicate filagree of human connection, all of us indeed members of one another, whether we believe it or not. (Photos: Lindsay; and with Mark and Duane)