As 14-year-old pianist Qien Joseph Hu performed Saturday evening at St. John’s Cathedral, I didn’t recognize the piece. As it turned out, almost no one did, except perhaps his pastor mother, Charity. The Prelude and Trio Op. 25, No. 1 was Joseph’s own composition.
Serves me right. Dutch uncle style, knowing he studies piano, whenever I see Joseph at The Church of Our Saviour in San Gabriel, where he serves as a lay minister, I ask him if he’s practicing. Next time, I’ll ask if he’s finished writing his first symphony.
Organized by Canon Suzanne Edwards-Acton and the Rev. Guy Leemhuis, the purpose of Saturday’s astonishing event was to thank me for supporting multicultural ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. As I said in my closing remarks, I accepted the accolades as primus inter pares. Our ministry has been a collective effort of the Rev. Canon Melissa McCarthy, other members of the diocesan staff, and me, working with the program groups on Black Ministry (on whose behalf Guy and Suzanne presented us with a copy of painter the Rev. Canon Warner R Traynham’s legendary “Black Jesus”), Chinese Ministry (for whom the Rev. Dr. Fennie Hsin-Fen Chang spoke), Hispanic Ministry (the Rev. Carlos Ruvalcaba), and Native American Ministry (the Rev. Dr. Mary Crist) and the Commission on LGBTQ+ Ministry (the Rev. Canon Susan Russell). The H. Belfield Hannibal Union of Black Episcopalians joined the program groups as event co-sponsor.
And yet it was Canon Kathy Hannigan O’Connor and I who took home a copy of Joseph’s manuscript, Warner’s painting, and other precious gifts from our colleagues, none greater than the memory of the evening, especially everyone’s generous comments, a delicious home-cooked meal, and magnificent music and dancing.
Members of the First Women Gather Around the Fire Talking Circle got us started with a prayer that took us around the world. Canon Charles Cheatham flew in from Atlanta so he could conduct the Episcopal Chorale (joined by the Rev. Susan Anderson-Smith on guitar). At St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hacienda Heights, Wayne Choo took up harmonica to pass the time during the pandemic. On Saturday, he and pianist Gigi Kwok poignantly offered us Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”
As the St. Stephen’s Hollywood rector, the Rev. Canon Jaime Edwards-Acton, beamed from the audience, La Banda de Los Rejuntados, young musicians from St. Stephen’s’ Oaxacan community, offered three numbers, with the front line of four b-flat clarinets taking the melody just as God ordained (said the former clarinetist). The Revs. Joy and Sam Magala brought the brilliant Praise Dancers from their Ugandan Community Church in Van Nuys. We left the cathedral (where the Very Rev. Anne Sawyer and her colleagues were, as always, peerless hosts) singing John Lennon’s “All You Need Is Love.”
As we spoke after festivities had concluded, Fr. Sam told me that the mosaic gleaming in the cathedral ceiling matched a youthful inner vision that had first called him to the priesthood. The whole evening left me thinking about the ideal vs. the real — God’s invitation to love and light, and our failure to RSVP. To close the program, spoken word artist Sebastian Gonzalez had offered a bracing reading, supported by members of Guy’s and Gabriel Gonzalez’s Enchanted Rain Forest Band, about how far we fall short of God’s vision of love and justice. What the church calls multicultural ministry is just us trying to get back to the garden, to catch up with the heart and the gospel of Jesus Christ, in whom there is no east or west, north or south, no walls, no prejudice, no hate, just one body, together at the foot of the holy mountain, dancing, singing, and feasting, suffering and healing, forgiving and forbearing.
