News from Northern California

This just in from the Diocese of Northern California via Press Release:

Episcopal Diocese of Northern California files lawsuit
to regain historic church property in Petaluma

The Episcopal Church Diocese of Northern California today filed a lawsuit in Sonoma County Superior Court seeking the return of historic church buildings that have been a part of the Episcopal Church for more than 150 years.

“We are not seeking to be punitive against any individuals in any way,” said the Rt. Rev. Barry Beisner, bishop of the Diocese. “We are simply seeking the return of property which, for a century and a half, has been held in trust for the mission of the Episcopal Church. Good stewardship and faithfulness to our mission necessitate this action.”

The Diocese of Northern California, with 70 missions and parishes, includes the territory from Sacramento north to the Oregon state line, east to Nevada, and west to the Pacific Ocean. The diocese does not include the San Francisco Bay Area.

The lawsuit was brought reluctantly after negotiations failed with a group calling itself “St. John’s Anglican,” which has been occupying the parish buildings since December 2006. The St. John’s Anglican group at that time filed documents with the California Secretary of State and Sonoma County asserting its ownership.

“We are challenging these actions in the only venue available to us, the legitimate civil courts, which are founded and guided by principles of equal justice in our democracy,” said Beisner.

The Most. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, based in New York, supports the lawsuit. Attorneys for the national church are expected to file court documents in support at a later date.
Bishop Beisner and other diocesan church leaders have met with the leaders of the Petaluma breakaway congregation and offered to settle without a lawsuit, but those offers have been rejected.

“Please let me underline that the former leaders of the parish took the first steps in bringing this into the legal system by filing to change the name and status of the parish with the State of California. We are calling upon legitimate civil authority to assist us in undoing the effect of a legal action already taken by fellow Christians, and taken in disregard for this Church’s willingness to seek reconciliation, with the help of God.”

Legal documents avaiilable online on the diocesan website.

Happy Super Monday!

So if yesterday was SUPER Bowl Sunday and tomorrow is SUPER Tuesday (work with me here ...) shouldn't today be:

SUPER MONDAY!!!

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Of course it should! So here's wishing all ya'll a "super Monday" ... and here are some Super Monday shout outs to some super blog bits & pieces:

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Integrity Fort Worth has launched a new blog ... leading today with this Chicago Tribune feature on just-consecrated-on-Saturday Bishop Jeffrey Lee that includes this snippet:

Wrapping up a five-day tour in honor of Jeffrey Lee, the new Chicago bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori declared that the American church will not stand alone in its support of gay clergy during an international meeting in July in Lambeth, England.

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"Many more [bishops] than you might expect are sympathetic," Jefferts Schori, the presiding Episcopal bishop, told parishioners at St. Nicholas Church in Elk Grove Village. "They are not, however, the loudest voices."

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Later in Chicago, Lee was seated at St. James Cathedral and reminded audience members of their call to ministry by virtue of their baptism, not their liberal or conservative interpretations of Scripture."
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That's one of the tragedies afflicting the church right now," he said. "So many of us seem to think that salvation depends on our theological correctness."

And let's get a big Super Monday AMEN to that!

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"In other news," Episcopal Cafe is reporting that the Archbishop of Canterbury is utilizing Facebook as a means to call the faithful to a Holy Lent. Now that's an interesting approach! Good for him!

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And here at All Saints yesterday Ed Bacon preached a kick-butt sermon ... "Obeying Our Inner Voice" ... a great way to end Epiphany and head into Lent.

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So wherever you're headed today, make it a Super Monday ... and stay tuned for Super Tuesday ... coming soon to a blog near you!!

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Luna wore herself out ...

... rooting for the Giants!

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WOO HOO!!

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(In case you missed it, the headline is:

Giants Beat Patriots 17-14 ...

with an 83-yard drive in the waning moments of the 4th quarter!)

Rejoice with us!

It was a beautiful day in the Los Angeles neighborhood ...



A great day to dedicate a new pro-cathedral for the mission and ministry of the Diocese of Los Angeles!
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Here's St. John's Episcopal Church, at the corner of Adams and Figueroa ...

... which became St. John's Cathedral today, in a service that began with the Vestry and Clergy of St. John's welcoming the bishop with these words:

Jon, Bishop in the Church of God, and our Bishop, we welcome you, and on behalf of our Vestry and People of this Church, we accept this vocation to open our doors to you and all people of this Diocese. We welcome all who will come to this house as one body from far and wide; men, women, children, rich and poor, straight and gay, people from many nations. We ask you now to dedicate this place as a house of prayer for all people and as the Cathedral Church for our whole Diocese and our city, the symbol of your pastoral, liturgical and teaching ministry.

And then the bishop prayed: Lord Jesus Christ, make this temple of your presence a house of prayer for all people. Be always near us when we seek you in this place. Draw us toyou, when we come alone and when we come with others, to find comfort and wisdom, to be supported and strengthened, to rejoice and give thanks. May it be here, Lord Christ, that we are made one with you and with one another, so that our lives are sustained and sanctified for your service. Now, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit, sanctify this place; For everything in heaven and on earth is yours. Amen.

[blurry photo credit: Susan Russell]

From the bishop's sermon: A NEW HORIZON OF HOPE

• May we do liturgy in such a way that the Word comes alive as we celebrate the love of Jesus.
• May we be a community based in a commitment to gospel justice -- a place where we risk being a leadership people.
  
• And then it was time to gather at the altar ...
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And I remembered other celebrations -- the "ghosts of liturgies past."


• I remembered singing in the choir at St. John's when my friend Scott Richardson was ordained priest (he's now the Dean of San Diego's St. Paul's Cathedral.)
• I remembered when +Chet Talton was consecrated bishop suffragan at Lake Avenue Congregational Church -- the first time I encountered pickets outside an Episcopal service and the first time I received communion from a woman: +Barbara Harris, the preacher du jour.
• I remembered when the new Dean of St. John's (Mark Kowalewski) was priested at All Saints, Pasadena -- and I remembered what a privilege it was to be the litanist at that service and looking out to see Mark with Jon Bruno -- one of his presenters for ordination.
• I remembered Cursillo weekends +Jon and I worked together with liturgies VERY different than the celebration we shared today at St. John's.
• I remembered my OWN ordination there in the sanctuary at St. John's -- ten years ago last month. And I remembered that morning there was a protest of some sort down the street and there were mounted police in riot gear assembling in the parking lot next to the church. And my 12-year old told his grandmother reassuringly, "those guys are here to make sure my mom gets ordained!"
• And I remembered all the other ordinations and confirmations and consecrations and celebrations that have been part of the warp and weave of the fabric of the liturgical life of this Diocese of Los Angeles.
  

So rejoice with us. Rejoice in the dedication of this historic church to serve as we move together into God's future -- as we glimpse this "new horizon of hope" the bishop preached about and as we risk being "a leadership people" committed to living out gospel justice in the City of Angels!
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A Martini for Miss Lydia!

Miss Lydia turned 104 on January 17th and the party is still going on! Pictured below with my son, Brian when he was home for Thanksgiving weekend...
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... Lydia was the subject of a feature article in today's Pasadena Star News (also posted below.) And tomorrow, at All Saints Church, we will premiere an anthem of the 104th Psalm, written in her honor by composer in residence Bill Cunliffe.

So here's to Miss Lydia

Long may she thrive!

(And I happen to know

She is ALREADY planning

Party One Hundred and Five!)

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Pasadena woman celebrates her 104th birthday

PASADENA - When Lydia Wilkins was born Jan. 17, 1904, women didn't have the vote and voting was difficult or impossible for most black men. Now, at 104, Wilkins is getting ready to cast her ballot for a woman or a black man for president of the United States in the November elections. "I didn't think I'd live that long - I think it's wonderful," she said of candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. "But I think I'll vote for Obama. Yes, why not?"

As Black History Month begins this month, Wilkins is a living link to a century of hard-fought change in race relations. "I have lived in some terrible times," she said, sitting in the tidy bungalow she and her late husband, the Rev. William Alfred Wilkins, retired to more than 30 years ago. "People were still black and white. It made a difference."

Growing up in East Orange, N.J., Wilkins said she was spared much of the overt racism experienced by blacks in the South and elsewhere. She graduated from a racially mixed high school. "New Jersey didn't have strict segregation," she said. "No one at school was allowed to call names, and most of the children did a lot to fight segregation. The boys played football, and they played so well they were always on the team."

Her mother and grandmother were strict, and neighbors were always on the watch for misbehavior, she recalled. "My parents were right on their toes," she said, smiling. "The least thing that happened at school and they were right there. We didn't have all this killing when I was growing up."

But she still remembers dropping out of Temple University in Philadelphia because of swimming class. "That's why I didn't finish college," she said. "They encouraged the girls to get out of the pool if I got in. It was terrible. Boys aren't as bad as girls, are they? When they did that, I wouldn't go back and that's what they wanted."

But she did meet her husband at Temple. The couple came to Pasadena in 1933, when her husband became vicar of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church on North Fair Oaks Avenue. They and their two daughters stayed until 1942, when he became a World War II Army chaplain, and they retired here after he had headed churches in Texas and North Carolina.

In 1982, the couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at All Saints Episcopal Church, where Wilkins still attends services every Sunday and goes for lunch across the street at McCormick and Schmick. "It's one of the highlights of her Sundays," said Barbara Jackson, who has helped "Miss Lydia" since July - and is the beneficiary of her advice on etiquette, table-settings, grammar and the proper way to clean silver.

Wilkins is still "sharp as a tack," said her daughter, Marjorie Jones, 74, who lives in Vallejo and visits often. "Nothing gets by her." Her mother was always politically active, Jones said, and her father was "very much involved in the NAACP."

"Dinnertime conversation was always political, and she didn't go a day without reading the paper and having something to discuss," Jones said. "She always goes to vote, and she won't do an absentee - she has to go there."

Until she was about 101, Wilkins drove herself to the polls. "When she turned 100, she went out and purchased a brand new car," said Andre Vaughn, her next-door neighbor. "She gave it up when she was involved in an accident. She wasn't at fault; someone ran a red light." Vaughn recalled a police officer coming to his door. "He asked, `Is she really 100?' and when I said yes, he was flabbergasted."

Wilkins doesn't dwell on the past, Vaughn said. "She's always in the here and now. Once in a while she'll reminisce, tell some funny thing, something bad she did as a little girl," he said. She spends her day watching television - "Dr. Phil, he's my favorite," she said - and being out and about, regularly getting her nails and hair done.

Her secret to a long life, she says, is that she's never had a cola drink. "My grandmother said it wasn't good for me." Jones said her mother has a few other secrets for longevity, too.

"She still likes her martini," Jones said, laughing. "What's interesting to me is for breakfast she likes half a grapefruit, all the sections cut out, sprinkled with sugar - and then rum."

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A New Bishop for Rochester

Congratulations to the Diocese of Rochester on the 2nd ballot election of the Rev Dr. Prince Singh as the next Bishop of Rochester.



O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Agents of Change

Who ever thought we'd live this long?
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Maybe it's just me, but as a child of the 60's the very IDEA that THIS would be the picture of the two last Survivors on the Presidential Primary Island as we head into "Super Tuesday" is totally something to rejoice and be glad in.

And yes, "Miles To Go Before We Rest" only begins to describe where we are on the journey toward overcoming the twin sins of racism and sexism in this country, but I figure if I forget to pause along the way to express a little wonder, awe and appreciation for how far we HAVE come then I'm forgetting that "joy and wonder" part of the baptismal prayers.

ANYWAY, today's a "day off" and so I mailed off my vote-by-mail ballot (after a jaunt to the dog park) for Tuesday's SUPER Primary and was just struck with how grateful I am to have been faced with the difficult choice between two gifted, smart, forward-thinking progressive voices for change who just HAPPEN to be an African American man and an Outspoken American Woman! (AND I really, really, REALLY liked John Edwards and hope he ends up doing something fabulously influential in the new adminstration!)

The tone and timbre of the debate last night left me encouraged that we can unite around issues AND unite the country around a new direction and I am SO READY for the next 353 days (8 hours and some-odd moments as I write this!) to be behind us and with them the failed adminstration of this feckless president.

So here's to Change AND Experience ... and here's to celebrating the experience of enough change in the last 40 years of my paying-attention-to-politics-life (I was a precocious politico! :) that a Clinton/Obama race is not only a possiblity but a reality!!
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PS -- Check out what Ellen Snortland had to say in her "Unite and conquer" piece in the Pasadena Weekly ... I particularly loved this quote from Flo Kennedy:

“There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody.”

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