Just a few of the wonderful faces from my wonderful weekend around the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Saturday morning and afternoon, the Very Rev. Kay Sylvester, Adelle Yeaton, and the Ven. Laura Eustis Siriani were among 25 of us meeting at St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park with postulants on the way to candidacy for Holy Orders. That evening, Kathy Hannigan O’Connor and I went to the annual Hillsides fundraiser and were pleased to hang out with longtime Hillside supporters Canon Steve Nishibayashi and Mary Dee Hacker and board chair John S. Gong. Sunday morning I took the most beautiful drive imaginable up to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church Ojai, where Dr. Ewan Russell was my devoted chaplain, the Rev. Canon Anthony Guillen assisted, and the priest in charge, the Rev. Bill Knutson, saw to every detail. Sunday evening at Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Inglewood, the Rev. Margaret Hudley McCauley was our bracing preacher and Canon Suzanne Edwards-Acton co-organizer at a moving service in thanksgiving for the life and witness of Absalom Jones, ordained in 1802 as the first African American priest in The Episcopal Church, making him the first person of African descent ordained in a major U.S. denomination.
