You meet the most amazing people around the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, including at the Saints Alive lunch and speaker program at The Parish of St. Matthew – The Episcopal Church in Pacific Palisades, still meeting at St Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Santa Monica, though returning to their fire-remediated church building later this month; I was invited to offer a retrospective on my time as bishop…ditto with the clergy of the northern climbs of the diocese, aka Deanery I under the leadership of the Very Rev. Melissa Campbell Langdell, who gathered for lunch at St. Paul’s Episcopal and Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Santa Paula, where the Rev. Alene Campbell Langdell is priest in charge; in addition to my look back, we prayed, checked in, and enjoyed a delicious lunch hosted by St. Paul’s-Emmanuel — plus Esther and the Rev. Dr. Israel Anchan of Christ the King Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara brought homegrown produce for everyone…the splendid co-chairs of the bishop search committee, the Rev. KC Robertson and Thomas Diaz, at an August retreat for candidates…Ashley Hengst of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Altadena with her daughter, Ruth Ellen…the Rev. Jerry Sather, vicar of St John Chrysostom Church and School in Rancho Santa Margarita…and famed scholar (and my former editor at the Los Angeles Times Book Review) Jack Miles of Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Santa Ana, over a lunch in Pasadena where we talked about — actually, what didn’t we talk about, Jack?
