Calling the Next Dean: the search is on!

Dear friends,

Finally!

This week marks the culmination of an extraordinary amount of work by a large number of people.  Many of you participated in last fall's Cathedral Profile Survey and in the Stewardship receptions to give us feedback on your visions for the Cathedral.  The Profile Committee worked diligently to shape those results into a cohesive statement about who we are and what we do.  The statement then went to Chapter for review and was further refined and polished by the Cathedral Profile Review committee and many members of the Cathedral staff.  The Cathedral posted the CAT survey online and a huge number of you willingly filled it out.  While all this was going on, the Search Team was drafting and editing our job posting portfolio for the National Church's Office of Transitional Ministry (OTM) website. 

This week, the calling process for the fourth Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral officially began.  The OTM portfolio went "live" last Wednesday and our Cathedral's search page is up and running.  Visit the website and track our progress at:

www.stpaulcathedral.org/dean-search 

On the website you can read the Cathedral Profile, see the results of our various surveys, and track the entire process as it unfolds.  If you know someone who you think would make a great Dean, the application and nomination process are online - or you can just send their information to me and the Search committee will send them a letter inviting them to consider applying.

Please feel free to ask questions and send comments!  I look forward to hearing from you during what is bound to be a very exciting time for us all. 

Gratefully,

Laurie Gunn, Search Committee Chair

Creating Peace – The Language of Nonviolent Communication

Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D. writes at the beginning of his book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: 

“What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart. Believing that it is in our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner, I have been preoccupied most of my life with two questions. What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively? And conversely, what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature even under the most trying circumstances?” 

These are my questions as well and I have spent much of my life in pursuit of the answers. My last major paper in seminary was on the topic of violence in humanity, a topic chosen after witnessing an especially ugly church fight. Although we profess love, compassion and peace as core values, we are immersed in the cultural sea of domination and control. And because our humanity is uniquely expressed through language, it is language that often precedes and escalates violence.

Rosenberg tells his story and offers a different way, a more excellent way to express ourselves. He calls it nonviolent communication, a way of communicating from the heart. As Christians we believe the language of life came to us as the living Word, Jesus, Human Being, Savior, Christ. Our challenge is that we are fluent in the language of the culture but not the language of life.

I invite you to join me in a conversation about communication and to consider becoming fluent in a new language. On Sunday May 26 and Sunday June 2, I will host two forums at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral where we will begin to learn about this new language. Like any spiritual practice, it requires work, discipline and play. It is the way of Jesus who came and stood among the disciples and said, “Peace be with you.”

I hope to see you there!

The Very Rev. Rebecca McClain is the interim Dean of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego, California. For more information about this forum, please visit www.stpaulcathedral.org or call 619-298-7261.

The Spirit in Art: Meeting Van Gogh

 I remember meeting Vincent Van Gogh in person for the first time.

When I think of all the things which could have circumvented our meeting I thank God for the enormous effort put forth by Vincent and so many helpers to ensure our meeting.

Hoping his canvases would enlighten his viewers, Vincent endured a hard life of passionate work expressing his epiphanies only to be misunderstood and passed over. Faithfully he produced painting after painting. A few people who caught his passion were kind enough to take care of his paintings and hang them in places where others might pause to discover the ineffable.

L'église d'Auvers-sur-Oise (The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise)
by Vincent Van Gogh 1890
Oil on canvas, 94 x 74 cm (37 x 29 1/8 in);
Musee d'Orsay, Paris 

World events kept churning around the paintings, often threatening to destroy them. We will never know the full story of how they survived.

Vincent could never have guessed how we would meet, as I would come from a corner of a continent then known for cowboys on the other side of the globe and, unimaginably, would fly for hours to finally alight upon his continent, drive a vehicle without horses and walk to a building in Paris he knew as tennis courts.

But, there, in 1979, I walked into the Jeu de Paume where he and many of his contemporaries resided at the time. I was looking for him in the crowd and remember turning the corner almost colliding with Vincent. I stood back in surprise as he waited for me to acknowledge him.

I nodded, "Yes. Yes, I agree." We did not need words. We knew what each other felt and contemplated. I was astounded to be in kindred spirit with someone I admired so much, to be affirmed by this faithful hero.

Thirty-three years later I still resonated from our conversation and wrote a poem about it as follows.

Meeting the Light
Upon the canvas hanging here
At this moment the moment you
Communed with God so long ago,
Illuminates and trims my lamp;
I think you were not thanked enough
When, cloistered with your brush,
You lay upon the altar
Gladly suffering the vision
Beaming down on mind and soul
And pushed the yellow, white
And blue with green in ridges,
Oily wet arrangement,
Mimicking epiphany,
Holding forth for memory
That I may taste so far away
The revelation of that day.
Yet, canvas, stone, or pencil,
Pixel, smudge or pot
Sits a sign upon the Way,
Prophetic testament of Sight
Inexpressibly seen.
And I know no object
Sits so long that it will not
Be said again to tell the glory
When we see it from
The other side.

The artists in our midst are following variations of Vincent's example. Most of all we want to warm the souls who will pause long enough to catch the revelation of God in our offerings.

Each work carries a very real part of us, of our witness to God's being. We are so thankful for those who take care of us now, so that we can create these works, and through the years, so that people we can not imagine will receive our witness.

This is the first of a series of posts relating spirituality and the arts.
Mark Turner is an artist and writer active in St. Paul's Center for the Performing and Visual Arts. He and his wife, Donna Turner, direct the arts organization Horizon Gate. Mark's poetry and works of fiction are available online.

The Sunday Sermon: One?

Easter 7/Year C

Acts 16:16-34

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

John 17:20-26

About a year ago I saw a post on Facebook which said something like “Live Your Life in Such a Way the Westboro Baptist Church will Picket Your Funeral,” which I thought was pretty great so I shared it on my timeline.

For those of you not familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church, it is a family church whose primary message seems to be that God hates all LGBTQI persons and Muslims, as well as those who don’t hate them.  It claims actions such 9/11, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, as well as the Boston Marathon bombing are a result of God’s wrath.

They spread their message of homophobia and hate primarily by picketing the funerals of service members who have died in the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, or victims of violence or natural disasters, as well churches, universities and other high profile public events such as the Emmy’s.   They even picketed here many years ago.  I will not repeat what their signs say verbatim because they’re so offensive but generally they’re all about who they say God hates.  

Anyway, the response, as you might expect from people who are my “friends,” on Facebook was pretty enthusiastic—we all want to live our lives that way!    And for what it’s worth, I still do.

While personally I have never been in the presence of the Westboro Baptist Church picketing some event, I have been in similar situations.  We experience it every year when the Cathedral marches in the Pride Parade when we pass the area set aside for protesters.  The fact we are a church earns us particularly enthusiastic hostility.

But perhaps the most heartbreaking time I witnessed this kind of hate was on May 15, 2010 at the consecration service of Mary Glasspool and Diane Bruce as Bishops Suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles.   Mary Glasspool is lesbian and her election was opposed by conservative elements both inside, as well as outside the church.  

 On the day of the service, as expected there were picketers outside the Long Beach Convention Center where it was held, with the usual offensive signs.

However, after the service got underway and all the clergy had processed in along with Mary Glasspool, Diane Bruce, and Jon Bruno, the Diocesan Bishop of Los Angeles, a young boy, maybe around 7 years of age, stood up and started yelling homophobic slurs aimed at Mary.  He, and a man, presumably his father, were quickly removed from the Convention Hall, and while the disruption ultimately did not dampen the spirits of those present, it did leave a sad, lasting impression.

Last summer when Bishop Glasspool was with us at the Cathedral during Pride weekend, I had a chance to talk to her about it briefly.  When the boy first started shouting, she said she was riveted and sad—this was supposed to be a happy day.  And at the same time, she also felt she had the support of all around her.  But then she just wanted to cry out—how could someone teach this kind of hate to a young child?  That was the abomination.

That event, along with my general feelings, in all honesty, of enmity towards those who spread any message of hate, but certainly of homophobia, has haunted me over the last week or so as I have been thinking about my sermon and the Gospel reading from John.  How am I to reconcile my thoughts and feelings with Jesus’ words?

 “I ask only not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me . . . and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

I don’t want to be “one” with these people.   In fact I want to do everything I can to contradict their message, to contradict them—so they will picket my funeral.    The image of Jesus which emerges from the Gospels seems very clear: following him has nothing to do with hate and absolutely everything to do with love.

How are we to be “one” with people who profess to be Christian and yet preach a message of hate?

Now I wish I could tell you I have a simple answer to this question but I don’t.  It’s easy enough to say they’re not really Christian, which they certainly say about us, but I’m not going to go there.  As much as I would like to, it is not for me to determine who is a real Christian and who isn’t.

Rather, it seems like the real work for us is to be as authentically Christian as we can, given our understanding and let our actions show the world a different way of being, one based in the unconditional, deep love God has for all people.

But perhaps God’s love is as good a starting point as any for how we are one.  The Rev. Dr. David Lose, a professor at Luther Seminary, wrote the following about this particular passage from John:        
He prays for his disciples. He senses their anxiety, confusion, and fear, and so he prays for them . . . And as he does, and whether or not they understand everything he says, he tells them that they do not have to do everything or even understand everything. He tells them that he is there to support them, that they are not alone, and that they are valued and loved.

It’s a powerful moment. And one of the amazing things about this passage is that Jesus doesn’t do this only for them, but also for us. As Jesus prays, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word…” And that includes us! We are the latest in a long line of persons who have been inspired and encouraged to believe because of the words and lives of those original disciples.

And what does Jesus pray for? “That they may be one.” That we may be one – one with each other, one with Jesus and the Father, one with ourselves. And that being one, we may have peace.

But having peace is not the same thing as passively standing by in the face of injustice, hate, homophobia, racism, sexism, or any of the long list of terrible things human beings do to each other.  In fact, when we look at Jesus’ actions in the face of such things, it appears we are called to do just the opposite.  He certainly wasn’t one to remain silent when something needed to be said or done.

And at the same time, we are called to recognize God love for all people.   Jesus prays for us all, even today, and with God’s help, for it is the only way we can do this, we are to remain open to the movement of the Spirit, even when it confounds us.  Which it often will.  Following Jesus is not about easy answers but rather living our lives with love, hope, and courage.      

So what can this look like in real life? One story in particular repeatedly came back to me over the week.  Back in 2008 prior to the passage of Proposition 8, Scott Richardson, our previous dean met with Jim Garlow, head pastor of Skyline Church, and Miles McPherson, head pastor of The Rock Church.  Both men were in the forefront of the Yes on 8 campaign and have been, to put it mildly, unsupportive of gay rights.

Scott’s reason for meeting with them was not in the hope he could somehow change their minds, but rather to talk about the nature of the rhetoric being used on both sides of the campaign, and as religious leaders perhaps they could help tone it down, keep it respectful.

And as expected, no minds were changed, but at least the meeting itself was respectful.  At some point during the conversation Jim shared his wife Carol was very sick with cancer and the doctors had basically run out of options.

Scott told Jim he would not only pray for Carol himself but the people of the Cathedral would pray for her as well.  And we have ever since and will today as we mourn her death with the Garlow family.  Grief is something all people share.

Frankly, most of the time Jesus’ hopes and expectations for us, are quite a bit higher than our hopes and expectations for ourselves.  But today we are reminded not to let the actions or limitations of others, or our own actions or limitations, stop us from striving to follow him.  We are reminded we are one because Jesus loves and prays for us all.  And we are invited to deeply take in his love and prayer for us, and then allow them to take us to places we can’t even begin to imagine, even in our hearts.  

The Rev. Canon Allisyn Thomas
12 April 2013
             

Ministry Spotlight: Listening Hearts

MINISTRY SPOTLIGHT is a new feature. Please feel free to contact Vicki about a ministry you are involved in. Remember ministries are not only through the Cathedral--you may be sharing your spiritual gifts with ministries outside the Cathedral, (such as Hands Up Food Pantry or Uptown Faith). To Spotlight your ministry email Vicki Hoppenrath at hoppenrathv@stpaulcathedral.org.


Ministry Spotlight: LISTENING HEARTS Volunteer: Richard Bonacci 

Describe your ministry: Trained listeners prayerfully assist a person in their discernment process. The person has the opportunity to share with three trained discerners an issue in their life about which they would like more clarity. It might focus on significant changes in their life or a possible calling to ordained ministry.

What have you learned about yourself through your ministry? I’ve learned that I am a good and compassionate listener, that I can see connections that might not be immediately obvious to others, and that I empathize with people who may find discernment particularly challenging.

Have you seen Jesus through your ministry? The small group of discerners surrounding and supporting the person in discernment is a microcosm of the “body of Christ”. I am often keenly aware of the Spirit of God, working through the interactions in the Listening Hearts sessions and in my private periods of prayer.

What is the biggest secret about your ministry? Most people would benefit from availing themselves of this ministry. We all have questions nagging at us, some we are better able to verbalize than others, but discussing them in community will most often provide greater clarity, whether that comes immediately or only after a longer period of reflection.

Why would you recommend your ministry to another person? This ministry builds upon skills and personality traits not usually sought out or fully developed in more active ministries, particularly the ability to prayerfully listen, to sit in silence, and the need to keep in check your own opinions and expectations while focusing on the concerns and priorities of another. Each of these is a real gift.

What is the time commitment? Listening Hearts requires a training of a day and a half, which occurs on a weekend. A Listening Hearts session lasts for three hours.

If you are interested in volunteering for Listening Hearts, please contact Susan Ward at susanward961@sbcglobal.net.

What to do?

This poem was shared by Patrick, a reader in Rhode Island.  Words can hurt.

What to do on a day like this?
What to do when you hear the whispers?
Hear your name buzz uncomfortably through the halls
Do you listen ?
Or do you choose to ignore the lies and rumors that slowly dishevel ones esteem?
We are fragile people
Though some may come across jagged and hard
Those are the ones that are shattered and empty
Those words that we try to deflect sink deep into our bodies like a wound that has scarred.
Each scar we obtain leaves a reminder of a fault or flaw.

Psalm 23 for busy people

Aloha kakou [Hello/Love to us all]

In the “Taming the Wilderness: A Lenten Forum Series” forum facilitator Christine D’Amico mentioned that one of the limits that could keep us from God and Mission is time. After the forum I read to her a paraphrased Psalm 23 that was featured in a 2010 workshop at the Cathedral Church of St. Andrew in Honolulu. It is still timely:

Psalm 23 for Busy People
By Toki Miyashina

The Lord is my Pace Setter, I shall not rush,
He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals,
He provides me with images of stillness,
Which restore my serenity.
He leads me in ways of efficiency,
through calmness of mind; and his guidance is peace.
Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day,
I will not fret, for his presence is here.
His timelessness, his all-importance will keep me in balance.
He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity,
by anointing my head with his oils of tranquility,
My cup of joyous energy overflows.
Surely harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruit of my hours,
For I shall walk in the pace of my Lord,
and dwell in his house for ever.

Aloha Ke Akua [God is Love]
Nani Chang

The Sunday Sermon: sitting on the bench

Easter 5/Year C 

 Acts 11:1-18 

 Revelation 21:1-6 

 John 13:31-35 

 It has continued to be a difficult week in the news. With the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, along with news footage of the funerals of those killed, and those injured, along with the pictures, good Lord the pictures, from the Boston Marathon bombings, many of us remain compulsively glued to the unfolding story, even if there really isn’t that much new news from day to day. The bombings and their aftermath, are so horrific, they remain seared in our memories and incomprehensible.

We want to make sense of it, figure out how this could have happened. Assuming they are responsible, what in the world were the Tsarnaev brothers thinking? What so turned their heads and hearts around they could not only plan but witness such carnage with detachment and apparently no remorse? How did hate and anger obliterate their compassion and care for the innocent victims?

And the reality is, we will never fully know. Even if Dzhokhar answers every question asked him, certain things will never be revealed—some matters of the soul will only be revealed to God, about which us mere mortals can only speculate. So what are we to do with this?

Last week Rebecca addressed that question and the feelings surrounding it, head on. As the body of Christ, we are to be people of healing and reconciliation. Not to let hate and fear rule our hearts and minds but rather pray for grace, wisdom, and strength; to see beyond and go beyond our own abilities and be Jesus to a world sorely in need of good news.

And as she said, it’s hard. It is very hard. We want to punish. We want revenge. We want to blame. We want to ridicule. We want to despise. We want to draw in and fence ourselves off for those we fear or are suspicious of.

So we grapple with trying to find an appropriate Christian response we can at least live with. However, today we are once again confronted with the fact, our response is to be one we very well may not want, or even think we can live with.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Sure Jesus. Did you see the picture on Friday of the woman who lost both her legs in the bombing and her daughter who lost one? We are to love the people responsible for this? On one level it feels like cheap grace to even consider such a thing. This act of carnage demands justice, not unconditional love.

Ah, but what does “justice” mean in the context of our faith? Is it to be devoid of love? Think for a moment, there is nothing in Jesus’ statement that says actions shouldn’t have consequences. In fact, we if look at the image of Jesus which emerges from the Gospels I think it is safe to say he makes the point time and time again, actions do have consequences. Evil is not to be tolerated but confronted head on. We are to name it and do something about it.

But, and there is almost always a “but” for those of us who follow this enigmatic carpenter, we are also to love one another, for that is one way people will know we are his disciples. People who point to a different way of being in world.

But to love someone capable of brutal, inhumane action is hard. It is so very hard. If most of us are honest with ourselves, we don’t want to love that person at all. We want to find as many ways as possible to distinguish or distance ourselves from him or her—heart, mind, body, and soul.

However, this is not what we are commanded to do.

It helps somewhat to remember the call to love each other is not the same thing as liking each other. Or excusing each other. Or even being around each other. But there is not getting around we are asked to adopt the mind of Peter who in today’s reading from Acts in essence told those listening to him, it is not for us to determine who, or what, God will find unclean or beyond the reach of God.

Which once again does not mean there shouldn’t be consequences for perpetuating evil. To ignore evil or attempt to excuse it does not bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. Rather, the kind of love we are commanded to have for one another is not some kind of soft or sentimental feeling but rather a way of being in the world in which we acknowledge all people have the spark of the divine in them—even if it is so dim it appears to be all but extinguished.

So what can this look like as we seek to love, comfort, and take care of those who have been wounded so grievously while at the same time love the ones who caused such pain? It seems impossible. But last week I was given a glimpse of what it could look like in a small tender way. At our weekly staff meeting the Brothers, Canons Andrew Rank and Barnabus Hunt shared a story of an experience they had in the 1980s while they were going through the Diocesan process to be ordained as priests.

Under the canons, the church laws, all persons seeking ordination must obtain the approval of the Standing Committee, which is like the Diocesan Board of Directors, prior to Ordination.

On the afternoon they were each to meet with the Standing Committee, another person, the first woman to potentially be ordained in the Diocese was also scheduled to come before them. The three sat on a bench on the 6th Avenue Courtyard, outside the Guild Room here at the Cathedral, waiting to be interviewed. Andrew and Barnabus were each called in and the interviews were fairly perfunctory. However, following their interviews, the woman was not called in, so they decided to wait with her on the bench.

And they waited, and then waited some more. The afternoon turned into the evening and it started getting cold but the three of them remained on the bench. Finally someone on the Standing Committee came and invited the woman in. Wisely assuming there might be some kind of problem, Andrew and Barnabus remained there on the bench.

Their instincts were correct. When she came out, the woman reported the interview had been brutal.

While a majority of the Standing Committee members ultimately approved her ordination, those who didn’t made it abundantly clear they did not approve of ordaining women, and treated her very unkindly.

In recounting the story, the Brothers were full of compassion for the woman, and at the same time, clearly didn’t approve of the behavior of those particular people. The behavior was wrong—boorish, and frankly unchristian. Nonetheless, in the telling of the story, the Brothers didn’t show any hostility towards them. Righteous anger yes, but hostility, no.

In reflecting on it later, as I remained fixated at the stories coming out of Boston, two important truths emerged for me on what Jesus meant when he commanded us to love one another.

The first. Sometimes the best thing we can do for anyone is to simply sit on the bench with him or her. Be there as the day turns to night and the air becomes chilly. In thinking of all those affected by the bombings in Boston, or the plant explosion in West, Texas, or just people we know who are ailing for any reason, we are to remain on the bench with them as long as necessary, long after the news cameras have left, or the immediate crisis has passed. To not forget them.

Second. With God’s help, because I think it may be the only way we can do this, we are not to let the hate, anger, prejudice, fear, or just plain evil of others stop us from following Jesus’ command to love. It is hard. It is very hard. But it is not those people we follow, but Jesus. And in him we are given, and shown, the reality of God’s love for us which will sufficiently empower and embolden us to be the disciples Jesus calls us to be.

Thanks be to God.

The Rev. Canon Allisyn Thomas
28 April 2013

St George's Evensong (Slideshow)

Bishop Gene Robinson on the Colbert Report (Video)

Bishop Gene Robinson and Stephen Colbert discuss how the church got it wrong about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people--and how the Episcopal Church is working to get it right. And listen to the cheers of the crowd!

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive

A new look at St George

The Rev. Canon Andrew Rank shares with us:

Leave it to Louie Crew, a retired professor from Rutgers and founder of Integrity, the LGBT organization of the Episcopal Church, that things aren’t always as they seem. This posting of his on Facebook page tells us something about good old St. George that probably few of us knew and perhaps why next year is the 50th anniversary of this celebration at our beloved Cathedral. Thanks and a pull of the dragon’s tail to Louie, one of our church’s great contemporary leaders from New Jersey.

St George the Dragon Slayer (click the link to read the whole thing!)

I’ve always been somewhat amused by the idea that St George, with no discernible link to this country, known primarily for an obviously mythical reputation as a dragon slayer, should have been adopted as patron saint of England... 

That he should have a claim to a status as a gay icon increases the appeal. To cement the deal, the nature of his claim, to a mystical experience in which he is described as the "bridegroom of Christ" pretty closely resembles the central experience of the most intense retreat of my own life. 

I think I should change my middle name to "George". 

Now, consider the dragon. The value of plainly mythical beasts lies in their potential as symbols. If we use the dragon image to represent ignorance, homophobia and the institutional hostility from heterosexual theology, can we all march under his banner?
I’d like to think so.

People's Warden Report

As the People’s Warden of St. Paul’s Cathedral, I am on the Cathedral’s Chapter (Board of Directors, if you will) which primarily oversees the finances as well as the buildings and grounds of the Cathedral. I serve on the Endowment and Finance Committees as well as the Board of Directors of Saint Paul’s Senior Homes and Services. Yet as the People’s Warden, I envision myself primarily as representing the interests of the people of our congregation and as such I will continue to keep you up to date on what the Chapter is doing.

In lieu of our monthly meeting in March, we had our annual Chapter Retreat at All Souls Episcopal Church on March 16th. The Profile Committee was profoundly thanked for their intensive and diligent work on developing the draft Cathedral Profile Report. A great portion of this meeting was focused on the Church Assessment Tool (CAT). The video production incorporated 409 responses from the congregation and the results were simply wonderful: we have a great church, a great staff and a great congregation! If you were unable to attend the Forum on April 21st to view this video, it will be on our web site soon and I encourage you to visit it and, for those of us who have seen it, to revisit it again! Thank you, Rebecca McClain, for bring this CAT report to us and thank you to our congregation who so graciously participated in this survey.

At our April 10th Chapter meeting, the Search Committee has met four times with the Interim Dean covering a variety of practical matters in the search for a new Dean. They were officially commissioned at the 10:30 a.m. service on April 21st. And they are: Laurie Gunn, Chair, Christie Fleming, Chaplain, Ana Garcia Diocesan Representative, Brad Lovelace, Jeff Bates, Guin Kerstetter, Bart Smoot, John Walsh, Paula Peeling, Helena Chan and Margaret Hernandez.

The Finance Committee is developing a compensation package recommendation for use when the Search Committee negotiates with prospective Deans. Bart Smoot presented a financial report for the cathedral in a new format of which has been simplified for clarity. Christine Spalding reported the Cathedral heating system is now functioning (for the offices; continue to wear warm winter clothing at Cathedral services!) and that Trepte Construction approved our policies concerning safely hanging objects on the Cathedral interior walls.

Our Dean’s Warden, Mark Lester, received the approval from Chapter to form a subcommittee to refine the Profile Report and members include Mark, Susan Hulbert, Helena Chan and the Rev. Allisyn Thomas. As your People’s Warden, I continue to attend the Misa services which I find very beautiful in spite of my very limited Spanish. Father Bjorn is a jewel as are the folks who attend this service. At the April 28th Misa, we will be celebrating the children complete with a Piñata. If you have children, bring them and enjoy a special Misa.

The Very Rev. Allisyn Thomas reported excellent Easter Week attendance. Brooks Mason was ordained to the Vocational Diaconate the 10:30 a.m. service on Sunday, April 7th. Colin and Laurel Mathewson were ordained to the Transitional Diaconate on Saturday, April 20th.

And the Very Rev. Rebecca McClain reported she has enjoyed very much serving at the Cathedral and I would venture to say we all consider her a blessing to have her with us.

As always, I encourage you to talk to me during coffee hour after the 10:30pm or 1:00p.m. services or contact me at jmoore405@att.net if you have any thoughts or concerns.

Blessings and joy to all of you.

Judy Moore