FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE Volume 67 Number 1
JANUARY 2017
The Episcopal Church of Saint Michael & All Angels Pacific View Drive at Marguerite
Corona del Mar
California 92625
...From the Desk of the Rector
BELOVEDS IN CHRIST “Why do you address us as ‘Beloveds...’?” one of you asked. Here is a more thorough response than I was able to give in that moment to your good question: Belovedness is the core message of the Christian faith, the simplest, and in many ways the wildest assertion of all: That for reasons we can’t begin to fathom, every one of us is beloved by the Heart of Reality. The deepest truth of the world is Original Blessing, a world that God creates in gladness and calls beloved. Yes, of course there is much about our lives as human beings that saddens and even angers God -- our self-absorption and entitledness, our lack of compassion for the suffering of the world. But the God we see in Jesus is nevertheless not a God of bitterness and rejection, but of relentless compassion and eagerness to forgive and start again. “Beloved” is the word Jesus heard in the Gospel we will hear here on January 8 when we celebrate The Baptism Of Our Lord: The First Sunday After The Epiphany. Matthew says that when Jesus came up from the Jordan River water the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God and heard “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is all vivid language to describe reality beyond words -- that Jesus experienced himself as delighted in, believed in, embraced by the one he called Abba/ “Daddy.” And that awareness was so overwhelming that Jesus spent the rest of his short life among us trying to get others to discover it for themselves; and it was in the rough and tumble of dusty, raucous crowds that he experienced God’s belovedness, as well as on a remote mountain and off by a beautiful lake. My guess is that most of us spend a good deal of our lives searching for a sense of belovedness. Therapists tell us that the search for belovedness is at the bottom of most of our human struggles. Raymond Carver, one of the finest writers of our time, died at age 50 in 1988 after living a hard life including divorce and alcoholism. In his final decade, he found the love of his life and pulled things together; then lung cancer hit. Just before he died, Carver wrote a fragment of a poem that goes like this: And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. Continued on page 3
949.644.0463
stmikescdm.ladiocese.org
TAYLOR ELECTED BISHOP COADJUTOR
T
he Rev. John Taylor was elected bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Los Angeles on Dec. 3 by delegates at the 121st annual meeting of the diocese at the Ontario Convention Center. Taylor, 62, has served as vicar of St. John Chrysostom Church and School in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, since 2004. He was elected by 122 votes in the clergy order and 194 votes in the lay order. The election culminated a nearly two-year search process. Los Angeles Bishop J. Jon Bruno announced during his address to convention that he will retire at the beginning of Diocesan Convention 2017. A lifelong Episcopalian, Taylor was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1954, the son of journalists, and formerly served as chief of staff to former President Richard M. Nixon and later as the executive director of the Nixon Library. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Divinity degree at the Claremont School of Theology and Bloy House. He is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. He was ordained a priest in January 2004 and also served as curate at the Church of St. Andrew the Apostle in Fullerton. Taylor has written two novels, “Patterns of Abuse” and “Jackson Place,” numerous newspaper and magazine articles and a blog, “The Episcoponixonian.” Taylor married Kathleen Hannigan O’Connor in 2002; he has two daughters, Valerie and Lindsay, and two stepchildren, Daniel and Meaghan. Pending the required consent of a majority of the Episcopal Church’s diocesan standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction, Taylor will be ordained and consecrated as bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of LosAngeles on July 8, 2017, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center in Los Angeles.
BUILDING OUR F AITH: L OVING CHRIST AND SER VING OUR COMMUNITY FAITH: LO SERVING