I was along Sunday morning with the people of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, who since the destruction of their historic church in Altadena have been meeting at St. Barnabas in Eagle Rock. The Rev. Carri Patterson Grindon, the rector, presided graciously at the family-friendly first service and organized a light-drenched second service beginning outside in the garden. The Rev. Michael Mischler, director of Christian formation, offered a pitch-perfect sermon, illuminating the darkness of Renee Good’s killing in Minneapolis with the clarifying Epiphany light of the gospel. The Rev. Joseph Lane, assisting priest, unveiled a painting he had commissioned of the parish’s rescued bell being rung into the ruins.
Over at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, nearly 100 individuals and families lost their homes. The church was full Sunday evening for an exquisite diocesan Climate Evensong envisioned by Dr. Lucy Jones featuring original music, including by Lucy, and a choir comprising voices from our hardest hit congregations. Carri, who had a long day, was again celebrant, chanting magnificent collects composed for the occasion: “Give us courage to name the harm we have done to your world, to grieve with our children and sibling species, and to work for the flourishing of our whole planet.” St. Mark’s’ longtime friend, Cantor Emeritus Mark Saltzman of Congregation Kol Ami, chanted the “El Malei Rachamim” and the names of 29 of our neighbors who died in the fires.
As at St. Mark’s, I offered a few words about the wisdom that only comes from personal experience. I am sorry to say that no one knows more than thousands of our most impacted neighbors about surviving these catastrophic wildfires, which were especially hot and deadly because of climate change. Yet we see how experience, and especially suffering, make us pastors and prophets. Our government cynically scapegoats those whose experience most of us do not share, especially immigrant workers and their families and our trans and non-binary siblings. Whether lived or learned through intentional relationship, personal experience leads to empathy and self–sacrificial love. The most subversive, liberating thing we can do to stop the scapegoaters is learn one another’s narratives and, through our loss and love, find our unity.
