Words of our Worship: "Where am I?"

Do you know the name of the place where we gather for worship? Of course, the overall name of our church is The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, but each part of the church space has its own particular name, in the peculiar tradition of the Church that demands specialized words for every aspect of our worship (or liturgy). If you are sitting in a Pew (or bench) as you read this, you are in the Nave of the cathedral. This is the portion of the building that extends from the baptismal font to the altar rail. The Sanctuaryis the part of the church from the altar rail to the front (east) wall behind the altar. We also refer to that space as the Chancel. The area in the very back of the nave between the baptismal font and the doors is the Narthex.

Up against the back wall to the west is a structure of marble panels. This is our Columbarium, a word derived from the Latin for a dovecote, and it’s a place to house the ashes of the deceased. Each panel conceals a niche which holds up to four urns. Niches are available for advance purchase.

Behind the Altar (the table where we bless bread and wine) is a side table, where the elements for Communion are laid out for the service. This table is called the Credence.

Behind the organ console on the south side there is a bumped-out area known as the South Transept. The original plans for the Cathedral included a matching North Transept, creating a cross-shaped Chancel, but there is a long tradition of cathedrals never being finished! We plan to build an extension of the Columbarium in the South Transept.

The suite of rooms dedicated to the storage and preparation of vestments and apparatus for worship is called the Sacristy.

On the south wall of the Chapel of the Holy Family is a small cupboard. This is an Aumbry, a cupboard specially blessed and set aside to house the Reserved Sacrament, the blessed bread (and sometimes wine) of Holy Communion, saved for pastoral visits. If this cupboard were physically attached to the altar it would be called a Tabernacle. Indicating the presence of the Reserved Sacrament is the Sanctuary Lamp above the Aumbry. This light is extinguished on Maundy Thursday when the Aumbry is emptied and relit at the Easter Vigil when we consecrate and reserve the new Sacrament. The Chapel also houses a small Columbarium, for the ashes of the members of the Society of St. Paul, a religious order whose two remaining brothers are beloved members of our congregation.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of the Cathedral!

Your sister in Christ,

Penny

In the Nave

Mark Twain, having sat through a performance of a Wagner opera, quipped, “Wagner’s music is not as bad as it sounds.”

Sitting in the nave today with its abbreviated seating options, I felt much the same way. The photos made the space look as if we’d been robbed, leaving us bereft of our pews in the west end of the church. But once I sat down for today’s service, things didn’t seem so awful after all.

As Jim Witte pointed out to me, the now emptied space allow a better sense of the church’s very fine architecture, exposing more of its columns, and giving a more immediate view of the south windows. So, I was wrong about the absence of the pews ruining the esthetic of the nave. This admission may come as a shock to those who think I am an intractable curmudgeon.

My only concern now is what we will do with this space over the summer. All sorts of odd notions have already sprung up including a space for knitters (during Mass?) and a playground and a dance floor. Some have volunteered their cheery ideas that the space would have been better made by taking out the front pews instead. The word ‘cockamamie’ comes to mind as these and other brainstorms loom on the horizon of plausibility.

We hear of an art show appearing in the recovered space, but what other plans are in the offing that wouldn’t be spreading the marmalade of opportunity too thinly over the bread of sense and taste? New uses and projects will require care and judgment avoiding haste and careless choices. Faith rests in the deciders, and in this situation ‘the greatest of these’ is faith.

The summer gives us time to assess whether or not to replace the pews although we are assured that they will return (absolutely needed for seating for some major events at SPC). But by then we will see how things go with the uncovered floor. Contrary to popular belief, I am optimistic.

​--Robert Heylmun​


See this letter from Dean Penny about the summer experiment removing some pews

The Sunday Sermon: New Life is Here!

Easter 3B, April 15, 2018
St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego
Luke 24:36b-48

Christ is risen. “He is risen indeed. Alleluia!”

We proclaim this bold news each week during the season of Easter. You should know me well enough to know by now that I don’t believe in rote liturgy. I don’t believe in doing things just because we’ve always done them, although I love tradition when it draws us closer to each other and the source of love and new life. And because of that, I believe that saying “He is risen indeed, Alleluia” must mean something if we are to say it together this season.

For the disciples in the early church it meant belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus. They thought he would be back any day to pick them up and whisk them away. For those in the middle ages, it meant belief in Jesus so that we ourselves would live after death. But while the gospels do show that God is doing something new in Jesus, they also connect it to the ongoing work of God over the ages. Resurrection is not just something that happened long ago or something reserved for a distant and uncertain point in our future. Resurrection happens over and over again. And so when we shout “Alleluia!” during this season, for me it is infused with meaning, and hope, and love, and gratitude. Alleluia means we look for resurrection and new life even now.

The disciples in the gospel this morning are still reeling from the death of Jesus, the one who they thought was going to redeem Israel, to save them from Caesar, to free them from the occupying presence. They were expecting someone to boot Rome out of their country, but instead he died on a cross. They had no idea what to do.

And in our story this morning Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus and Joanna and other women have seen that the tomb is now empty and they’ve had this weird experience there, and they were scared and ran to tell the other disciples. The disciples know only that the one whom they thought was going to confront Rome is dead. So they are holed up in a room. Their hopes are gone, because the one whom they thought was going to save them from an occupying foreign power is dead. They thought the Messiah would use the power of empire to save them from empire and they had no framework to imagine otherwise.

And isn’t it so hard to see new life when it is in front of you because now in our text Jesus appears, and they can’t process it. When life the way you’ve known it suddenly changes, it is scary. And they are frightened. They think he is a ghost. And he goes through a litany of tests to prove he is real flesh and not a ghost; from letting them touch him to eating fish, because a ghost can’t do those things. He slowly and patiently works through their fear until their fear dissipates and they can begin to see what is standing before them.

And finally, they realize: new life is here! Alleluia!

Then and only then can they see: resurrection happens. This savior has won not because he would cast out the empire with the brute force of a new empire, but with a whole new way of life.

In the resurrection, God is doing what God has done all along and what God is even doing right now: restoring life from death. That is why we are reminded of all those stories at the vigil of Easter: God takes the enslaved people out of Egypt and gives them new life in the promised land even when the people want to return to pharaoh; God takes the valley of the dry bones and brings new life; God restores the people from Babylon and gives them new life bringing them home into Israel; God takes hearts of stone and turns them to flesh. Because God is love and God’s story is about life from death and that story is about abundant love in the face of despair and death. That story is about a love that breaks out of our world into a space that creates new possibilities, breaks free of the limits of the brokenness of oppression and destruction and death and of hatred and of fear.

And so I hope when you say “The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!” you know what you’re saying it for, church! Because God’s story didn’t stop at the Exodus, and it didn’t stop with the restoration of Israel, and it didn’t stop with Jesus’ resurrection. Resurrection happens, and it happens today. Alleluia!

Resurrection doesn’t just happen to individual disciples. As the stories of old relate, communities of faith go through death and new life too. Mark Trotter last week talked about the lack of new life in the church and how we sometimes get beat up for not acting like we actually believe in the things we say we do. It’s easy to throw stones at other corners of the church for that.

What would a church look like that is continually open to resurrection, that is open always to the voice of God appearing behind locked doors when we retreat in our fear of whatever is happening at the present moment?

So often the church looks to the past for hopes of restoration of its new life. We have a communion of saints that makes the past important. But resurrection and the promise of new life also means that the past has limits. How shall we be present to the risen Christ here and now, calling us continually into new life? How do we let go of what was to be present to what is becoming?

We are in a time where these are truly important questions for every community of faith, and especially for St. Paul’s. For some time now, our attendance has been in decline. While we have been able to make some significant improvements to our facilities thanks to some individual donors’ generosity, our general operating budget is running at a significant deficit. Our population within the cathedral is significantly out of step with the neighborhood around us. Within a three mile radius, 33% of the population is Hispanic and half are under 50. At the same time Cathedral membership is almost largely Anglo and almost entirely over 50. That means we have lots of opportunities for growth but may mean that the way we do ministry may not speak to the people who are in our neighborhood who aren’t here already.

As Mark mentioned last week, young people aren’t connected to the community of faith in the same way prior generations have been. Increasingly a lot of the rest of the world isn’t either. The Church doesn’t enjoy a privileged claim in society that it once did. In many ways, the Church today is pushed to the margins the way it was before the Roman empire claimed Christianity.

But while we may be in decline, we either believe new life is offered, or we don’t. We either stay locked in the room refusing to believe what we see, or we ask some questions and become open to the new life offered in front of us.

That means the community of faith has decisions to make. What are we here for? We may have once served as social clubs, putting on events for fun and enjoyment without much connection to our Christian story. I hope whatever the future church looks like we will always have fun doing it, but fun is not enough to hold the community of faith together because we are Easter people, and to get to Easter you have to go through Good Friday, which isn’t much fun. Our 20s and 30s group is growing and organizes around small group discussion of faith. They have fun. They don’t relate much to our worship. Is there an offering of new life here?

When the church was a social club we had a large enough following that worship could be a consumer offering- entertainment for those in the pews. But in a world where most people don’t identify as Christian, those that do come to church are looking for something in particular. How does worship inspire new life? Liturgy means “the work of the people” - so how does worship involve every person in the pews to offer up their gifts and remind each follower of Christ that they are part of something bigger as they offer themselves to the body, the community?

St. Paul’s has a jump on new life. We are already in a shift. While it is natural to focus on the numbers at the back of the church during worship, the trend nationally is for worship to become less and less important a part of the life of the community of faith, especially when it is as formal as ours is.

But at St. Paul’s we have more ministry happening then ever before. We have more people engaged than ever before. We are just wrapping up a census of all volunteers engaged in every ministry and while the numbers aren’t final yet it appears that we have over 320 volunteers engaged in over 70 ministries. That is significant. That is a big shift from a few years ago.

I believe we have work to do. But I do think there is new life here already.

So I am asking you to look for the new life that is already beginning. It is hard to grieve a change in our common life. I am not asking you to give up worship, I love worship. But I am asking you to recognize that the world around us is changing, and I hope that as a community we can begin to let go of what was so that we can begin to consider whatever new life God is offering in front of us.

So have eyes to see, church! And reach out, and touch, and feel, the bones and flesh of the body of the Christ around you that offers new life. It is frightening to let go of old life. But I hope this season when we say “The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!” I pray that we will mean it, with all our hearts, looking not for old life, but for new. Because new life is abundant, and if we have the courage to trust and enter the new life freely offered, we are given the opportunity to co-create with God in offering new life and love to the entire world!

The Rev. Canon Jeff Martinhauk

---

Sources Consulted:
Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2. Ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 2010.  

It's all in the details

A photoessay exploring some of the details in our Cathedral!

The CAT Scan is here!

Thank you to the over 200 members who participated in the Congregational Assessment Tool this past spring.  The Congregational Assessment Tool, or CAT, is a congregation-wide survey to take the temperature of the congregation, highlight where we hope to go and where our opportunities lie.

The results are attached in this blog.  Scott Crispell, a former bishop’s warden of the cathedral and a diocesan CAT interpreter, presented the results to the congregation at the forum last week.  You can find the video of that presentation here:

Several reports are available to you now:

1) An executive summary of the findings (one page) which gives a high-level overview of the results.
2) The full results of the core survey (many pages).
3) Supplemental Questions – a few pages containing answers to questions that we worded specifically for our congregation.

The results of the survey were very strong: we have an energized and vital congregation with strengths related to inclusion and advocacy.

Please review these findings and bring your questions, comments, hopes and concerns to the forum this Sunday as the Dean leads us in a town hall conversation to discuss the results.  We will journey into conversation together to discuss things like: why did we answer the way we answered?  What is behind the data?  Where is the opportunity for us to do something with what the data tells us?

Join us Sunday at 9:00 in the Great Hall.  This forum will also be recorded and available on the web site.

Lighting up the Cathedral!

We lit up the Cathedral last night to kick off Pride week!  The story was picked up by CBS-8 news. 

Dean Penny received many commendations, including from Councilmember Todd Gloria.  The Imperial Court and others were also very generous, with substantial donations to Showers of Blessings (our homeless outreach project).

More photos are here. 

Photo essay: Window tour

The stained glass windows at St Paul's were created by a famous glass studio, Judson Studios of Pasadena. There's a handy booklet with photos, describing each window, which you can pick up in the porch.  It's worth a walk round with a pair of binoculars to take a look (and don't forget the windows in the chapel, the spectacular window in the south transept, and the clerestory.)  Dean Penny took a group round this morning, particularly focussing on the Pauline windows in the nave that highlight events in the life of St Paul, accompanied by relevant readings from Acts.

Here are some photos.

Checking out the windows on the North side, at the beginning of Paul's journey

Meeting a rather grim King

Taking a closer look--there are scripture citations under most medallions 

Paul makes it to Greece

Dean Penny reads the relevant scripture

On the South aisle, Paul has a visit from the Holy Spirit

Looking at the details

That's Elizabeth I and Thomas Cranmer up in the clerestory

Crane your neck back to take a look at the saints along the clerestory at the top of the nave

Color blast

The walls of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, San Diego are bathed in blue, purple and red bursts and swirls. Shimmering jello-colors wash the gothic window thicknesses and the round rose window projects a fuzzy, traveling oval. When I am a docent at the cathedral, often alone, the sun’s movement causes an ever-changing color display. The kaleidoscopic effects change minute by minute throughout the day. They reach their most dramatic moment late in the afternoon, when the golden sun streams in at a horizontal angle.

From childhood I was fascinated with colored light passing over worshiper’s faces, momentarily creating purple noses and blue hair.

“Mommy, look at that ladies face. It was blue, now it’s red!” I uttered during morning pray to her shushes.

This otherworldly sensation was just what the builders of medieval cathedrals intended. Not only did the windows depict biblical stories for the illiterate, but the church interiors were designed to give a taste of heaven’s magnificence.

Great painters have manipulated our perception of depth and internal light with their skilled use of perspective and pigments. Theatre lighting designers create a perception of day and night, interior and exterior, through the use of artificial light sources and color. The medieval masons produced heavenly illumination through the contrast of brilliant hues filtered through dark grids of lead and stone. At night much of the magic of gothic churches is absent.

Daily these light shows takes place in the nave of St. Paul’s, as it does in churches all over the world. I am confident that these light shows happen when no one is there to experience them? Why wouldn’t they?

Todd Muffatti

Cathedral Redevelopment Plan (“Master Plan”) Update

Escrow Closes on Nutmeg Lot

For more than ten years, St. Paul’s has been in the process of developing two parcels of land adjacent to the Cathedral in order to improve our campus and neighborhood and to support our mission and ministry. North of the Cathedral is the “Olive” property, which includes the Park Chateau apartments, a small parking lot, and the existing Cathedral administration building. South of the Cathedral is the vacant “Nutmeg” lot. To facilitate this long term project, the “Nutmeg and Olive LLC” was formed to oversee the development and sale of the properties. Goals of the project, frequently referred to as the “Master Plan,” include expanded office and program space, additional parking, redeveloped campus and courtyard, and a financial endowment for mission and ministry.

The LLC is pleased to announce that last month, escrow closed on the "Nutmeg” lot. After ten years of working with several developers and obtaining development entitlements, the successful sale has enabled the LLC to pay off all indebtedness incurred during the entitlement process. Work continues on some tax and accounting issues, so it is still premature to announce a figure for the net profit from the sale. We are also happy to report that the LLC has repaid the initial contribution of $100,000 made to it from Cathedral enduring funds at the outset of the project. Watch this space for more information about the progress of the Master Plan as the LLC continues to work with the Dean and Chapter regarding next steps. We plan to present a forum sometime this summer to bring everyone up to date on this vitally important project. We also want to thank the members and friends of St. Paul’s who joined us at so many meetings in support of this effort; without you we would not have reached this point.

For more information or questions, please contact Ken Tranbarger, President of Nutmeg and Olive LLC, at ktranbarger@mac.com

Cathedral Chapel to be Remodeled thanks to Generous Gift

 Dear Ones,

On my first visit to St. Paul’s in January of this year, we toured the Cathedral and then entered the Chapel of the Holy Family.  I was taken with the exquisite architecture, the proportions of length, width and height so expressive of a sacred geometry that shapes one’s experience of peace and serenity.  This was my first thought: What a wonderful place to sit quietly and pray.  But then, on closer inspection, it was also clear that this space was in need of restoration and repair.  I shrugged and thought, it’s not going to happen on my watch.

On this Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, it is especially appropriate to remember his prayer at the Church of San Damiano when he heard Christ speak to him saying, “Francis, repair my church.”  We know there was more at stake than the physical space, but space does matter.  And in the economy of God, who knew that a way would open for the restoration of our chapel.

In late July, the Rev. Canon Barnabas Hunt and the Rev. Canon Andrew Rank came to talk to me about the Chapel of the Holy Family.  They were prepared to make a significant gift to repair and restore the chapel.  As we discussed the project and walked through the chapel space, it became clear that this was something within our capacity to manage.  The problems in the chapel were mostly cosmetic and functional.  We were not looking at large architectural fees or structural challenges.
In addition, a long term need of the Society of St. Paul’s was expressed and discussed.  Here is an excerpt from Canon’s Hunt’s letter:

The Rev. Canons Andrew Rank
and Barnabas Hunt , SSP

Ever since Andrew and I moved to the Cathedral as our place of ministry and spiritual home, in 2001, we have had a unique problem. Namely, a final resting place for the ashes of our departed brothers and ourselves when we depart this life. Our desire is a distinctive location for a new columbarium in which to inter eight single urns, six of which already exist. It is customary for religious who are set apart by their vows to be buried together in a community cemetery or columbarium.

The time has come for us to put our house in order and we would be relieved of a great burden if you can assist us in resolving this matter.  Like Moses in the book of Exodus we have a need to lay the bones of our tribe to rest. 

And so we began taking those first few steps, beginning with a consultation with a construction firm.  They did not know the size of the gift but when their bid came in right on target, our dream became reality.  The project was discussed and reviewed at the August meeting of Chapter and a scope of work was developed.  A timeframe was established and worked with our own liturgical rhythm.

On Wednesday, October 2, the work began.  Demolition first, a clearing of the space, getting ready to refurbish the plaster on the walls and redo the floor.  The altar platform has been removed and the whole chapel will now be on one level, eliminating the steps.  Cathedral chairs will replace the pews, allowing for a much more flexible and creative use of the chapel space.  Chairs can be easily repositioned for small concerts, overflow crowds and more intimate services.

This renovation will be complete in just a few weeks.  There is more to come but in the meantime, I would like to thank Canon Hunt and Canon Rank and the Society of St. Paul for their vision and generosity to make all things new!            

Blessings, Rebecca
The Very Rev. Rebecca McClain

Check out the pictures below for a closer look at the work! 

The Word of the Lord

Have you attended church somewhere and had to put up with some bombastic reader, emoting his way through the day’s Old Testament lesson? Or, on the other hand, have you ever strained to hear what a reader is saying up there in the pulpit, guarding the words, and parceling them out sparingly as if they were some secret?

If you have experienced anything like that, you haven’t been to St. Paul’s Cathedral to hear The Word of God spoken to the people of God. We have without a doubt, the best lector corps in the world, and I say that without reservation because I’ve heard a lot of what other congregations have to put up with every Sunday. How very blessed we are to have developed our wonderful group of lectors.

 In some ways, they are the unsung heroes of The Word of God section of the Sunday Eucharist. What they do often goes by fairly fast as that part of the service speeds on toward its culminating event, the homily. Sunday after Sunday, service after service, our lectors rise to the pulpit, confident and prepared, to read holy scripture to the congregation. They sometimes get a word of praise afterwards during coffee in the courtyard, often not and their efforts are taken for granted.          

 In a way, being taken for granted is exactly what St. Paul’s Cathedral lectors strive for.  They don’t stand out, they don’t dramatize, and they don’t grandstand once they are up there reading, and as the person who schedules them, I am proud of their devoted effort to expound scriptures in a way that does not feature the reader.

We take our ministry seriously. We are there to read for everyone what scripture has to teach us, and our lectors don’t just pop up out of nowhere to do their job. They study what they are about to read beforehand, noting everything in the reading including commas, and they do their best to have the passage come across as clearly and thoughtfully as possible.

Our lectors are a select group who have prayerfully thought about what gifts they have to give, following the precepts of St. Paul who said that everyone is called to service depending on their talents. Not everyone who gets the itch to read in church has the God-given talent and predisposition for doing so. Our lectors are keenly aware that when readers become actors, the Word of God is no longer coming across, and what is coming across is the reader. We deplore such self-aggrandizing displays, and instead  we realize that we are the means of expression for God’s word, and not the expression itself.

 We have lector ‘tune-ups’ from time to time, sessions in which we read for each other and gain the constructive advice of our peers as to how we might read even better. Each week, the readings are sent out to the assigned lector who then studies his or her reading, and thoroughly prepares to read in a way that displays their endowment for being a lector. Currently we need lectors for the 8AM Sunday service, for Evensong, and for the Daily Office (8:30 and 5PM daily). Please see me if you're interested in reading at these services.

Thanks be to God, we don’t have actors reading in church at St. Paul’s. Our lectors are one of God’s manifold blessings, and if while milling around during coffee hour, you get a chance to tell a lector that you appreciated their reading that morning , please do. They’ll greatly value your kind words.

Robert Heylmun would be happy to hear from any aspiring lectors!  Look  for him at church to learn more about this essential ministry.

We wish farewell to Scott and Mary

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
The sun shine warm upon your face
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

The New Cathedral Garden

I want to thank everyone who helped out on my Eagle Scout project to replace the garden of grass and other plants at St. Paul's along Nutmeg St. and 6th Avenue into a drought tolerant garden. The project had some challenges but overall went well. It was very satisfying to get all the work done and see the finished garden.

Raising money was the first challenge. Although the plans were donated by a landscape architect (who also helped out), I was still responsible for buying plants, boulders and decomposed granite so the project estimate was high ($7000). No one in the history of troop 295 ever had to raise so much money for a project, and some people doubted that it could be done.

Thanks to the generosity of a lot of people at St. Paul's and friends and family from all over the country and beyond (I even received a donation from Singapore!), I was able to raise almost all the funds needed. I sent a lot of letters and passed out flyers and talked about the project after church and at group meetings. Some things cost more than expected, but thanks to Miramar Nursery, plants were affordable.

The first Saturday we cleared all the old plantings and prepared the site. The work went fast because we had trucks to move the old material to a dumpster across the street. We had over 50 people working and we finished early, even though we had a great lunch break BBQ. We thought we might finish early on the next weekend, but we didn't, even though 50 people came the second Saturday too. 


We had some unexpected challenges. These included dealing with a pipe that burst when someone hit it with a tool, an incomplete order of plants from the nursery that required an extra trip to pick them up, and difficulty matching the plants we bought with the plants on the plans.  Additionally, the decomposed granite was delivered in a pile right where we needed to plant, so we had to move it with shovels and wheelbarrows. The project required an extra day of work beyond the two we originally planned. Even though it was the last minute, we still had 25 volunteers on the third day! We finished the garden on Sunday at 8 pm, just in time for Dean Scott Richardson to see it before he left.

I could never have done this project without Bob Oslie and Christine Spalding, who helped me plan and execute the project starting in November. Also it could not have been done without many generous donations from people in the Cathedral and others from all around. And finally the garden would not have been finished without the hard work of so many volunteers from the Cathedral and my scout troop, my school, my parents' co-workers, and the community.

I have been in Boy Scouts since I was 6 years old. At times it has been challenge to continue because I disagree with some Boy Scout policies, which conflict with my beliefs about equality for all. But I was happy to do this project. Not only did this help out St. Paul's and improve our community, but importantly, I was able to bring together diverse groups with differing views to work together towards a common purpose.

This Sunday the garden will be blessed by the Bishop. I hope everyone will attend. Thank you everyone for your help!

-Gabe Hulbert

A transition at St Paul's

Dear Friends in Christ,

I am writing to you today because I have accepted a call to serve as the next rector of the Episcopal Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in San Francisco. Our final Sunday at Saint Paul's will be on June 24th and our last active day at the Cathedral will be Saturday, June 30th. We will then take some vacation time before moving to San Francisco in early August, with the intention of beginning there on August 15th.

While it is hard to leave this community we have come to love, we do so to take up an exciting new ministry opportunity in the city that formed both of us as children. As many of you know, Mary grew up in Santa Clara and I came of age in the East Bay. We will soon be reuniting with family members and old friends. This, I expect, will be the last place of full-time ministry for me, the place from which I retire in the years to come.

We leave Saint Paul's with a sense of tremendous gratitude for the wonderful support we've enjoyed while here. This is a very special place and our hearts have been deeply touched by the love you have shared with us and with one another. We will miss you terribly and we are confident that the leadership team in place will serve you well as you search for your next Dean. I have absolute confidence in and profound gratitude for the Cathedral Staff and the Chapter - I have never worked with a group of people who so skillfully weave together such broad competence and holiness of purpose.

A word about the transition: Bishop Mathes will be working closely with your Wardens, the Executive Staff, and the Chapter. After we move, an Interim Dean will be appointed to help steer the ship while the search process proceeds. In time, your next Dean will arrive with all the energy, vision, and love needed to take Saint Paul's to the next level, by the grace of God.

Our work now has to do with saying thank you and good-bye. Let us all take this important step seriously - healthy partings are a sign of a healthy church. I have asked Judy MacDonald to set thirty minute appointments with anyone who would like to touch base or clean up unfinished business or say a more personal farewell. You can give her a call at 619.298.7261 to set that up. This will be our primary focus in the weeks ahead as it would now be unhelpful for Mary or me to be involved in any deliberation having to do with the future of the Cathedral.

In this same vein, please know that after leaving we will be unable to be with you for pastoral or sacramental purposes, not because we don't care but because it is necessary to make space for the Interim Dean and then, in time, for the fourth Dean of this great Cathedral. But we will always cherish your friendship and keep you in our prayers.

May the Lord of all be with all, this day and in the days ahead.

(TVR) Scott Richardson, Dean

Help Gabe Hulbert re-landscape at St Paul's!

Dear SPC Friends,

I’m Gabriel Hulbert, a member of St Paul’s Cathedral and a Boy Scout in San Diego Troop 295. I am seeking the highest rank in Boy Scouts, Eagle Scout. This requires completion of an Eagle Scout project, which I plan to perform at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral.  But I need your support.

My Eagle Scout project seeks to assist our church community by replacing the grass and other plants at St. Paul’s with drought tolerant plants, in areas on Nutmeg St. and 5th and 6th Avenues (see the picture at right). By putting these plants in place, the water bill at St. Paul’s will be significantly lower than its current rate, the Cathedral will use fewer pesticides, we will occupy a smaller carbon footprint, and we will serve as an example of water wise gardening to our community (especially for adjacent Balboa Park).

You can see what we plan in the second photo. In 2009, the parking lot beds of the Cathedral were planted with drought tolerant plants but St. Paul’s did not have sufficient funds to continue around the church. My project will complete the installation.

I have scheduled the project to be completed on June 16th and June 23rd but I need your help! Many of the plants I plan to install are expensive, and to implement the project I must raise all the funds, estimated at over $7000.

I am writing this letter to ask you to donate any amount of money you can in order to help achieve this goal so that we can install this garden. Any donations to this project of any amount are greatly appreciated; as economic times are tough for many of us, no donation is too small. And any donation you make is tax deductible.

Here’s how to help: you can make a check out to St. Paul’s Cathedral or BSA Troop 295, Please put Gabe Hulbert Eagle Project in the note area of the check.

You can mail your check to: St. Paul’s Cathedral, 2728 6th Ave., San Diego, CA 92103 Attn: B. Oslie/C. Spalding, or to me at 6772 Elmore St., San Diego, CA 92111.

Donations of time are also welcome.  If you are in San Diego June 16th or June 23rd, I'd be grateful if you could come to St. Paul’s and volunteer to help complete the project!

If you have any questions feel free to contact me at gabe4padres@yahoo.com.

Thanks for your help!

-Gabe Hulbert