Who Am We? Vicki Kelley

From my usual vantage point standing in the back of the church, I often see Vicki welcoming a friend from the park or putting a comforting hand on someone’s back. I’ve run into her at the Del Mar Fair as she pushed a woman in a wheelchair. She miraculously appeared one day while on her daily run and stopped to help a directionally challenged soul find where I was going.

Before moving to California, Vicki was a police officer in Toledo, Ohio. When she visited siblings living in the Golden State, she had to decide between going back to the snow or staying here.

We won.

Vicki grew up Roman Catholic. She felt neither accepted nor wanted by her church and walked away. But she still yearned for a spiritual home. A friend suggested St. Paul’s where she’s found what had been missing. She’s been a member here close to fifteen years.

Vicki’s heart has always had a special place for seniors and the homeless. She loves helping seniors through St. Paul’s Senior Services and the homeless through Outreach.

Everyday she walks through Balboa Park and sees “God’s amazing gifts” in nature and in her homeless friends. “I see Christ over and over again every day.” She feels her most important work at St. Paul’s is a privilege being there for the homeless.

Vicki says while some people rely on physical weapons for protection, her weapons are her heart and her words. In and with her experience, she is able to diffuse tense situations by being available and speaking in a way that lets people know someone cares about them.

“If you are able to step out of your comfort zone, you will find divine intervention.”

Vicki is an animal lover, a dedicated exerciser, and a reader. She reads daily meditations and mostly religiously-themed books. She’s is currently enjoying Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. Her all-time favorite book is Quantum Leap: How John Polkinghorne Found God in Science and Religion by Dean Nelson and Karl Giberson. The book deals with the relationship of science and religion—past conflicts and present collaborations.

When I asked her what she wanted the people of St. Paul’s to know about her, Vicki said, “I love and appreciate the people of St. Paul’s—the joy and sense of acceptance they’ve brought to my life—I want them to know I’m there for them.”

Judging from her smile, the love and appreciation bounce right back to her.

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 St. Paul’s member, Cindy Schuricht, would love to talk with you. Please let her know if you would like to be interviewed for the Who Am We? series.   Click here to read  how Who Am We? got started. Cindy has a member of St. Pauls’ for about ten years. She reviews children’s books in her blog www.hundredbookpileup.com

Who Am We? Chris Wells

Chris is a semi-retired Clinical Neuroscientist and Medical Software Engineer.

But his mind is still fully employed. Our conversation was wide-ranging, fun, and left me trying to remember which words to look up at home.

His faith journey started at his grandmother’s side. He described her as a nineteenth century Episcopalian who enlisted him as her church escort from the time he was five.

In his 20s, Chris studied Bushido (meaning the Warrior Way) Buddhism and embraced the concept of the Spiritual Warrior.

A move back to Los Angeles later in life, led to a crossroads. While escorting a friend’s schizophrenic son to and from treatment at UCLA, Chris devoured journals about clinical mental health. He was invited to join a NIMH research team.

Then one Saturday night before Palm Sunday, Chris’ deceased grandmother told him in a dream it was time for him to get back to church. Chris asked, “Which one?” She didn’t have an opinion as long as it was Episcopalian.

Chris’ first visit to St. Alban’s, Westwood was almost his last. (Ask him to tell you about it.) He stayed, and Chris says he turned away from military thinking, returned to Mother Church, and got involved in outreach to the homeless mentally ill, which he continued at St. Augustine-by-the-Sea in Santa Monica and here at St. Paul’s.

Two main themes emerged in our conversation. He said he’s “on a life quest to integrate science and religion” and like St. Augustine “to heal the division” between faith and reason.

The second theme, his ministry, is to reach out with discernment, which he also calls “spiritual security.” Chris views the church’s invitation and the security of our campus as forming a balanced outreach. His discernment process is based on relationships, his past experience, and principles from Listening Hearts.

Every Saturday evening, Chris bikes through Balboa Park and speaks with the homeless people he meets and befriends. (Also ask him about Patrol Partners.) He strives to listen with depth and to offer welcome to those with open hearts, calm to those with unquiet minds, and discernment and referral to those with troubled hearts.

I forgot which words to look up in the dictionary, but I did remember to reread Mark 5. Chris deepened my understanding of both the story and his vision by reminding me of the last three verses in the chapter.

While we talked, Jesus’ words came to mind:

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves:
so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16

When I wrote that to Chris, he replied it was his mission statement to St. Paul’s Cathedral.

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 St. Paul’s member, Cindy Schuricht, would love to talk with you. Please let her know if you would like to be interviewed for the Who Am We? series.   Click here to read  how Who Am We? got started. Cindy has a member of St. Pauls’ for about ten years. She reviews children’s books in her blog www.hundredbookpileup.com

Who Am We? Claire Carpenter

 As a new interviewer, I thought my first interviewee should also be new. I met Claire about two months ago. She’s a third-generation cradle Episcopalian and, since October, a regular at St. Paul’s. Prior to moving to the neighborhood, the music enticed her to Evensong services here.

Once living near, the music and opportunities for involvement led her to membership.

Claire is a soft-spoken woman whose actions do the talking. She’s already serving on the Altar Guild, debuted as a lector on Valentine’s Day this year, and is a participant in Women Together. From my perspective, she’s doing a bang-up job recovering from the end of a thirty-year marriage.

Currently Claire works as a music teacher and is adding new students. Has piano, but will travel (if a student provides the piano). She also is a substitute teacher in elementary school and is interested in writing for children. Her own three children are grown.

When asked about the times she has been most aware of God’s presence in her life, Claire refers to the hard times in her marriage with the struggle to determine how to handle some situations and decisions about work. She told me two stories.

The remnant of a small music box that belonged to one of her children was stowed in the bottom of her purse. One Sunday morning, as she walked and pondered, the box spontaneously played “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.”

Claire got the message. She said she then knew she wasn’t alone. She didn’t expect everything to resolve neatly as in a Broadway musical, but she knew she had love and support on her journey through the valley.

Claire wrote, “I believe the Lord is a great Guide in the path of Life. He looks out for me and I reflect on his goodness during Compline, which I read at the end of the day.”

Claire trusts. She’d like to know what’s ahead, but trusts her Guide. I got the image of God’s light as a flashlight revealing one stepping stone at a time as beautiful music calls her in the right direction.

Oh, and you can ask her about the second story when you meet her.

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 St. Paul’s member, Cindy Schuricht, would love to talk with you. Please let her know if you would like to be interviewed for the Who Am We? series.   Click here to read  how Who Am We? got started. Cindy has a member of St. Pauls’ for about ten years. She reviews children’s books in her blog www.hundredbookpileup.com

Who *Am We? An Occasional Series

We are a congregation of individuals who together form one parish. Do we know who sits in the pew next to us or two rows back? Probably both people we know and ones we don’t. Colin Mathewson has an idea to help us have a better idea of who we are at St. Paul’s. Finding out who we are will help us know who we am.

Did you see the “Seven Billion Others” show at the Museum of Photographic Arts? The goal was to make a video “portrait” of humanity—a mosaic of people from all over the world to show what it means to be human in all its facets.

Colin hopes we can make a St. Paul’s portrait by telling our individual stories and thus create a more detailed portrait of *our collective self.

Sounds good. Leads me to think about why we need stories and why we need to tell them, which leads to . . . well, a story, a story I heard from Tsonakwa, an Abenaki storyteller who came to San Diego years ago. This story stuck with me.

A man who walked the Good Red Road left his peaceful village to hunt and was gone for many years. When he returned, his village no longer walked the Road and no longer lived in harmony. Everyday the man went out to talk about love and peace.

No one paid him any mind.

One day a young man approached and said, “Old man, why do you do this everyday? No one listens. No one will change. Go home.”

The old man responded, “I don’t do it to change them. I do it so I will remember.”

We’ll tell our stories so we don’t forget who we are and who we belong to: stories of our journeys of faith leading to St. Paul’s, stories about trust in God and the thin places in our lives

where we’ve experienced God’s presence and message to us, stories about how our collective and individual lives touch others.

Like Elijah, we probably often find that presence in the still small voice rather than in the mighty wind.

Now for the scary part (for me)—I’ll be forced to slip out of my introvert persona and will be looking for people to interview. Or you can rescue my shy self and offer to tell me your story. You’re invited to share your tale of blustery days or gentle breezes; fantastic journeys or baby steps; the trials and blessings that provide a glimpse of the presence of God.

And I, for one, can’t wait to get to know you better as we discover who we are and who we am as God’s own.

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Cindy Schuricht has been a member of St. Paul’s for about ten years. She reviews children’s books in her blog www.hundredbookpileup.com .