You meet the most amazing people around the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, including Bishop-elect Antonio Gallardo L., at the latest of our periodic lunches in Pico Rivera at Norm’s; it never closes, and neither do we…Canon Andy Tomat, our spectacular former volunteer treasurer, who hosted Kathy and me for dinner at one of his favorite hangs, the University Club in Pasadena; one of our servers, Jordanne Dervaes, is co-founder and associate executive director of the Urban Homestead Institute (I told you I meet the most amazing people!)…Canon Gail Urquidi, who, with other members of the St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park staff, is assisting me in a sacramental redistribution of nine years of accumulated tchotchkes; this brass squirrel, a gift from our colleague Canon Serena Evans Beeks as part of our long-standing squirrel gag, will be repurposed as a squirrel feeder by Gail’s mother…at his home in Manhattan Beach, Canon David Eisen, with Kathy and his spouse and our fellow Holy Land pilgrim, Geri; my friend since college and the diocese’s outside legal counsel, David is battling cancer and showed he’s feeling better by asking us to bring him pastrami and fries from the Hat in Pasadena…at lunch in Echo Park with the Rev. Canon Rand Reasoner, retired rector of Prince of Peace Episcopal Church in Woodland Hills, who offered peerless retirement advice…the Rev. Joseph Ho of the Taiwan Episcopal Church 台灣聖公會, serving as visiting priest at St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church in Monterey Park…Grace, Julie, Carla, and Bob at a diocesan staff meeting…with the Rev. Dr. Francisco Garcia at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena; Jerusalem-born Florence Mattar, for a riveting conversation, over lunch in my office, about Israel and Palestine; Jason Weiss for lunch at Philippe the Original (he represents me on the St. Margaret’s Episcopal School board); and IRIS Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Service, Los Angeles executive director Hilda Sarkisians…friends and colleagues as we celebrated the life of our late chancellor, Canon John Shiner, at the Parish of St. Matthew in Pacific Palisades…and at my last annual dinner with members of the Commission on Ministry (co-chaired by the Rev. Lyn Cunninghame Crow and Cameron Johnson) and Standing Committee.
