You meet the most amazing people around the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, including the Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, whose academic, policy, political, and spiritual gifts inform her work as executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace; on Monday, we had a bracing conversation about the crisis in Israel and Palestine … colleagues in the Los Angeles ecumenical and interfaith community at the annual Red Mass for the legal and judicial community, hosted Wednesday evening by Archbishop José H. Gomez and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles; it was a privilege to meet the eloquent closing speaker, Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero of the California Supreme Court … friends and colleagues from around St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park and IRIS Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Service, Los Angeles as we honored and thanked six of us for milestone anniversaries in their vocations … Martha Watson of Girls Friendly Society, Diocese of Los Angeles (GFS/LA), who invited me to join her on a video talking about GFS’s innovative grants program … the Rev. Jose Luis Garcia and the Rev. Canon Melissa McCarthy, to talk about Jose Luis’s rich ministry … and elder daughter Valerie Passarella and her colleagues at the Yorba Linda Cultural Arts Center, during a swing through Orange County.
