A National State of Emergency regarding Covid 19 was declared on March 13. Since that time members of our Communion, our friends and family have suffered the ravages of this scourge. Communities have scrambled to creatively respond to their own worship needs. Pastors and lay leaders have labored to hold their flocks together. Some have fallen sick. Some have died. Some communities have lost their worship space for various reasons, including economic ones. Our chaplains have been under significant strains. Many of us have become weary. Our hope has been tested by realistic projections of what life in our country is likely to be like for the foreseeable future. At the…

January 25-31 I visited the California Diocese in late January. The purpose of the visit was strictly to strengthen the bonds of unity between the church in California and the rest of the communion. I met with the lay delegates to Synod, most of the clergy, and Bishops Armando and Peter. Every diocese or area of the country is naturally going to have a local flavor, and thus the Church is going to “incarnate” differently in each milieu. Our unity will be held together, I believe, through the wisdom of the ancient phrase of unknown authorship, quoted by Pope John XXIII in his first encyclical: “But the common saying, expressed…