The week so far ...

So I just spent 2 1/2 days with my bishops and clergy colleagues in beautiful Long Beach exercising parts of my brain that haven't been out for a walk since seminary. It was frankly exhuasting -- and sometimes overwhelming -- but I'm so very grateful to be part of a diocese that encourages us to "stretch" in the service of doing our best to proclaim the Gospel, the Year of the Lord's Favor and the Good News of God in Christ Jesus.
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We had two keynoters for the conference. The first was Dr. Stuart Hameroff, Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Study at the University of Arizona in Tucson ... and frankly the very tippy-top of my brain occasionally brushed the bottom of what he was talking about as he "unwrapped" quantum physics toward finding connections between science and the soul.
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Facinating stuff ... in theory. And I was really, really grateful that I seem to have some really smart colleagues who were doing a better job than I was at integrating what he had to say.
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Then there was Joan Roughgarden, a professor of biological sciences and geophysics at Stanford University, who led us through an exploration of biology and theology and what turn out to be some facinating connections between what the Bible tells us about the "whys" of creation and what Biology theorizes about the "hows." (I even bought her book ... Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist ... so I'll be smarter about this part pretty soon!)

Then some of the aforementioned smart-colleagues offered some panel conversations about implications for the church which were well attended and well received. We also had the usual stuff-of-clergy-conferences ... introducing new clergy, clapping up those retiring soon, having a Q&A time with our bishops.

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Of course "what happens next with the Communion" was part of our dialogue and -- at least for our four bishops -- there is not an ounce of interest in doing anything other than staying the course set in Camp Allen and moving the church forward without, as +Jon put it in his own inimitable style, "throwing anybody under the bus."

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No news there!

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But there WAS some fun news to "report out" -- first the news that +Chet Talton ... our dearly loved and deeply respected Bishop Suffragan ...

... is getting married at the end of the month!! Blessing upon them both -- and wishes for many, many years of happily ever after!

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The other news was that there had been an appointment of a new Provost for our Cathedral Center (we don't have a Cathedral so no Dean) to replace Ernesto Medina who has moved to Omaha. The new provost?

The Reverend Michael Battle -- currently Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at VTS and a long time friend of this diocese. We are just thrilled to be welcoming him "home" to Los Angeles and look forward to the opportunity to work with him, particularly around areas of peacemaking and nonviolence.

All in all a very satisfactory first-half-of-a-week ... and now I "board up" to get ready to fly out tomorrow for meetings in Ft. Worth for the rest of the week. The CTB (Claiming the Blessing) Steering Committee will be meeting in that fair city this week and prayers are invited for safe travel for our committee members and for the work we will do together in the days ahead!