The Episcopal Diocese 

of Northern California

Beloved Community

Resource Newsletter

Published by

The Commission for

Intercultural Ministries

September 2024 

Episcopal Church Becoming Beloved Community

Newsletter Highlights:

• Vote Faithfully Webinar: Episcopalians Engaging the U.S. Election, Wednesday, September 18, 1-2 pm EDT (10-11 am PDT)
• Vote Faithfully Election Engagement 2024 Program
• "I Will, With God's Help: Journey Toward Racial Healing and Justice" - Workshop Registration Now Open
• Sacred Ground Graduates Visit Site of Sacramento's Japanese Detention Center
• Season of Courage: The Rev. Dr. Daniel London
• Embracing Our Divine Identity
• New Camino: A New Vision for Latino/Hispanic Ministries
• Latino Holiday Toolkits for Congregations
• St. Peter's, Red Bluff, Receives Award to Provide Bilingual Free Little Lending Library in Latino Neighborhood
• Diocesan Rainbow Ministry Regathering!
• Screening of The Philadelphia Eleven on Sunday, September 29, in Davis
• Creation Care Course Starting Online September 24
• Trinity Cathedral to Host Free Documentary Showing on September 21

The service will be livestreamed on the event webpage as well as The Episcopal Church’s Facebook page.

Join Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and guests from across the church to explore the reasons behind voting from a theological perspective that centers this civic action as one expression of caring for one another and God’s creation. Our panelists will offer framing for healthy, faith-based civic engagement from the theoretical to the tangible, including addressing why it is important for Episcopal churches to leverage our resources to help our broader communities vote.

In an election full of increasing pressures—disinformation, the risk of political violence, disenfranchisement, environmental concerns, and more—come learn how to navigate challenges while remaining focused in our preparations to cast our votes in this fall’s election. Our panelists will provide an engaging discussion and direct attendees to resources that can help you encourage your parishioners and community to vote faithfully.

“It is a Christian obligation to vote, and more than that, it is the church’s responsibility to help get souls to the polls.” - Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

It’s time to get actively involved in the 2024 Elections. The Campaigns are in high gear, and as you know, there is so much at stake in this year's elections, locally and nationally. What can you do to get involved? Here is the answer.

The Episcopal Office of Government Relation’s Vote Faithfully Election Engagement 2024 program highlights six Sundays, prior to the November 5 election. Focusing on the themes of these Sundays is an opportunity for us to educate ourselves and be a resource for our community.

The six Sundays and their themes are:

●    September 15th - National Voter Registration Day

●    October 6th - National Voter Education Week

●    October 13th - Why Does Voting Matter?

●    October 20th - Misinformation in Campaigns

●    October 27th - Vote Early Day

●    November 3rd - Vote Faithfully Sunday

Last Sunday’s theme was Voter Registration. Are you registered? Have you checked your registration status lately? Do family members or newcomers to the community need help registering to vote? Here’s resources to answer these questions:

• United States Gov registration website
• California registration website

On Wednesday, September 18, at 10:00 am Pacific time, join Presiding Bishop Michael Curry with guests from across the church as they explore the meaning behind voting from a theological perspective that centers this civic action as one expression of caring for one another and God’s creation. Info and registration here.

I urge you to become engaged in this year's elections.

“Participating in our country’s political life isn’t just about casting our own vote – it requires working together so we can all vote and vote faithfully. There are many ways to get involved – from participating ourselves to supporting others in our congregations and communities. We can all play a role in getting “souls to the polls!” - OGR

For more information contact - Bob Wohlsen, bob.wohlsen@gmail.com.

• EDNC Voter Engagement Webinar
• Vote Faithfully Election Engagement Toolkit 2024 
• Vote Faithfully Election Communications Toolkit

Episcopal Racial Justice and Reconciliation Ministries I Posted September 10, 2024

Calling all diocesan racial justice leaders! On the first Wednesday of each month, racial justice leaders and practitioners from dioceses throughout The Episcopal Church gather to discuss pressing issues, exchange best practices, and illuminate the diverse ministries making an impact across our church. This monthly gathering is designed to be a sanctuary for ideas, strategies, and mutual support.  If you would like to share your racial justice successes and lessons learned, or to request discussion around a particular topic, please contact Miguel Bustos, manager for racial justice and reconciliation, at mbustos@episcopalchurch.org. RSVP here to receive the Zoom link for all upcoming meetings.

• October meeting: Wednesday, Oct. 2, at 3 p.m. Eastern [12 noon Pacific]
• November meeting: Wednesday, Nov 6, at 3 p.m. Eastern [12 noon Pacific]

The 81st General Convention of The Episcopal Church marked an important point in our journey toward justice, particularly in terms of racial justice and reconciliation. Several resolutions passed during this convention demonstrate the church's persistent commitment to resolving racial disparities and building a community based on love and justice. As we reflect on these watershed moments, it becomes clear that the church's purpose is consistent with the larger work of justice in our world today.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry looks up at one of the columns hanging at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, during an October 2019 Executive Council meeting in the city. The steel columns memorialize the victims from all American counties where at least one lynching occurred from 1877 to 1950. Photo: David Paulsen/Episcopal News Service

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect a change in date and time. 

Sacred Ground, an antiracism curriculum for small-group discussions, has been one of The Episcopal Church’s great Christian formation success stories over the past five years. Thousands of discussion groups have participated, and the church now is working to maintain the initiative’s momentum with expanded staffing and an upcoming fall launch event.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who has helped make racial reconciliation a top churchwide priority during his nine-year term, will speak Sept. 24 at Sacred Ground’s fall online launch event. The 90-minute webinar, set for noon Eastern, is intended to share “what makes the program compelling and how the series continues to challenge participants to do the deep work of racial healing, reconciliation, and justice – in their own lives, within their ministries, and in society.”

Online registration for the Zoom session is now available.

Left to right: Diane Williamson, Jo Ann Williams, and Cynde Martin at the bronze memorial marker at Walerga Park commemorating Japanese American internment in Sacramento.

Diane and Cynde at the Camp Kohler site, first used as a mirgrant farm worker camp and later used to intern over 4,700 Japanese Americans.

In August Sacred Ground graduates and facilitators from St. John's, Roseville--Diane Williamson, Cynde Martin, and Jo Ann Williams--visited the desolate Camp Kohler site in Sacramento where a temporary detention center housed over 4,700 Japanese Americans in 1942. Read more about the detention center here. Internees were later transported to Tule Lake. The memorial marker at Walerga Park is inscribed with these words:

Lest We Forget

Walerga Assembly Center was established by the United States at the outset of WW2 to assemble and temporarily detain without charge or trial, 4,739 Sacramento residents solely because of their Japanese ancestry. Approximately 120,000 persons were uprooted from their West Coast homes and interned in 10 War Relocation Centers. Over two-thirds were American citizens by birth. Given the opportunity, many thousands left the 10 centers to work on farms and in war industries or to serve with valor in the armed forces. Their acts and deeds gave living proof that Americanism is a matter of mind and heart, not a matter of race or ancestry. May this memorial remind all Americans to be alert so that such injustices never recur.

Camp Kohler succeeded Walerga Assembly Center with the departure of the last Japanese American internees in late June 1942. After being taken over by the Army Signal Corps, the camp's facilities greatly expanded to house and train military personnel. Camp Kohler became one of the Corps' three principal training centers during WW2.

Dedicated by Japanese American Community of Sacramento in cooperation with Sunrise Recreation and Park District.

Keeping Track of Sacred Ground

Are you forming a Sacred Ground Circle? Let the Commission for Intercultural Ministries know by registering it here: https://forms.gle/hriHCPKmLwjUHEyEA

Are you interested in joining a Sacred Ground Circle? Sign up here: https://forms.gle/G26EPxDzEFSpnsZW7

Rev. Daniel is Rector of Christ Church, Eureka

I have been inspired by the courage of Betty Kwan Chinn, a Chinese philanthropist and humanitarian in Humboldt County who suffered unimaginable persecution and torture in China during the Cultural Revolution when she was a seven-year-old girl. After escaping and emigrating to the United States, Betty responded to her own suffering by fearlessly providing food, showers, housing, and job training to thousands of people struggling in northern California, even though local community leaders initially ostracized her.

Eventually, thanks to the advocacy and support of other local leaders like Pastor Dan Price, Betty and her work have been embraced and celebrated by the community and beyond, including President Barack Obama who awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2010. Pastor Dan Price’s wife Dr. Karen Price has recently published an outstanding book about Betty titled, The Gray Bird Sings: The Extraordinary Life of Betty Kwan Chinn (Arcata: The Press at Cal Poly Humboldt, 2023), in which she bravely tells the truth about the horrendous atrocities committed during the Cultural Revolution, a potentially dangerous undertaking since the regime responsible for the Cultural Revolution is still in power.

The courage of Betty, Dan, and Karen have inspired me to tell the truth about the troubling history of the Chinese expulsion in Eureka and my own parish’s complicity in the expulsion in the late 19th century. Although some people have responded to this truth-telling with offense and with the frustrated sense that I am trying to make others feel guilty about the sins of past generations, I have felt motivated by Betty’s courage to remain steadfast in telling the truth about our history in order to also proclaim the dream of the beloved community, practice the way of love, and work towards repairing the breach.

Ironically, the one person who has done the most to heal the social wounds of Humboldt County is a woman from China and it is her courageous work that has inspired a partnership between my parish (Christ Church Eureka) and the Humboldt Asian & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI), a partnership that seeks to acknowledge the reality of the Chinese expulsion in Eureka and to start working together, courageously, towards healing and reconciliation.

Editor's Note: This video and the comments below were shared from the Facebook page of Karen Hoida who is a diaconal candidate for ordination. She serves at St. Luke's, Auburn.

Love love love. Imagine…. We could change the world within and everywhere by being encouragers AND by receiving what is so freely and generously given. It brought to mind when Christ asked Peter: “Who do YOU say that I am?” Imagine asking this question to God…. About ourselves…if we could even begin, in very small ways to ask this question, how our identity would change, and how we would see others. We are so distracted by images and lifestyles that we somehow imagine is “the way,” but. What if we allowed God to reveal our true selves, imago dei….who we were created to be with all of our hidden gifts and treasures…what a world it would be… within and around us.

Logo courtesy of the California Natural Resources Agency.

Cal Humanities I Kerri Young I Posted September 10, 2024

In September we celebrate the start of California Latino Heritage Month, which honors, remembers, and celebrates the contributions of Latinos in California. At 15.6 million, Latino Californians are the state’s largest ethnic group with roots that can be traced across the Americas, Indigenous communities of Latin American and Africa, and beyond. In his 2023 Latino Heritage Month proclamation, Governor Gavin Newsom lauded “the leadership, service, and vision of Latinos” that “continues to enrich all facets of American life.”

Connect with your Latinx/Hispanic community in fresh and exciting ways!

Get ready for New Camino, an exciting in-person workshop led by The Rev Cn. Anthony Guillen!

This workshop will guide you on how to leverage your existing resources to better connect with people in your Latinx/Hispanic community, all without requiring Spanish language skills. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to make a real impact!  

Click here for more information.

Our diocesan Commission for Intercultural Ministries section on Latino/Hispanic ministries can be found here. You will also find toolkits that are available to congregations that would like to hold celebrations for any of the following holidays:

• Dia de los Muertos Toolkit
• Christmas Pageant: Pastorela Navidena Toolkit
• Way of the Cross: Via Cruces Toolkit

Episcopal Community Services (ECS) awarded $1,000 to St. Peter's in Red Bluff to provide and maintain a bilingual Free Little Lending Library in a predominately Latino neighborhood so that all generations could strengthen both their Spanish and English skills.

Congratulations to St. Peter's for building Beloved Community with their neighbors!

The night's sleeping mats neatly folded to one side, shelter director Michael DeBruhl bowed his head in prayer with the few migrant families who had stayed over.

There were eggs and black beans for breakfast, oatmeal and steaming coffee. DeBruhl greeted them using the Spanish he'd perfected in 26 years as a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

If migration at the U.S.-Mexico border has been one of the most divisive issues in America, DeBruhl has straddled both sides. He has handcuffed migrants and deported them. He has fed migrants and sheltered them. He has survived, in his own heart and mind, a debate that has divided the nation's politics, and its families.

• Nearly half of world's migrants are Christian, Pew Research shows
• 4.1 million migrants: Where they're from and where the live in the U.S.

Please join us for a meeting of the diocesan Rainbow Ministry (RM). After a brief summer hiatus, the Rainbow Ministry is regathering and you are invited! The Rainbow Ministry is a group that welcomes all who identify as 2S/LGBTQIA+ and allies. God loves us all and we are all saved by God’s amazing grace.

Details:

Rainbow Ministry Regathering 

Wednesday, September 25, 1 pm, via Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86220268889?pwd=TMlbO0oZT0MlfXT7cPTba7aIMI06lq.1

Meeting ID: 862 2026 8889

Passcode: 443388

Mission:

The Rainbow Ministry exists to celebrate and embrace the fabulous gender and sexual diversity of all God’s people, fostering education, invitation and connection throughout the diocese. 

While the agenda for the meeting is still being finalized, we hope to create a time and space to welcome and connect with new members and build relationships with each other as we regather after our hiatus. We would love to touch base with each other on where our churches are in their journey of openness and acceptance of 2S/LGBTQIA+ community and allies. The Safe Zone Project (https://thesafezoneproject.com/) will be discussed. Please join us! 

Episcopalians and others are invited to join a 12-week virtual education and formation series designed to inform and equip advocates for gender justice. The series—grounded in Scripture, theology, prayer, arts, and culture—will include discussions with organizers, clergy, and other leaders on topics including defending reproductive justice, supporting LGBTQ+ youth and families, preventing gender-based violence, and more.

• What: “Gender Justice Jam” series
• When: 7-8:30 p.m. ET on Mondays, Sept. 23-Dec. 16 (no meeting Oct. 14)
• Registration deadline: 6 p.m. Sept. 23
• The first session on Sept. 23 will focus on “A Faith-Based Understanding of Gender Justice” with Aaron Scott, gender justice officer for The Episcopal Church, and the Rev. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice. Theoharis holds a doctorate in New Testament and Christian origins from Union Theological Seminary. Read about all sessions here.

Questions? Email Aaron Scott.

St. Martin's in Davis is hosting a free screening of The Philadelphia Eleven, a feature documentary chronicling the pioneers who overcame discrimination and rejection to become the first women ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. 

The screening will take place on Sunday, September 29, at 4:00 pm in the parish hall. There is no ticket charge, but donations will be accepted. 

This film tells a story that continues to resonate today as women seeking ordination continue to face resistance, disrespect, and even exclusion from roles reserved by men for men. The documentary explores the lives of these remarkable women who succeeded in transforming an age-old institution despite the threats to their personal safety and the risk of rejection by the church they loved. These women became and remain an inspiration for generations of women in the ministry, and a clarion call for the entire Christian Church.

After the screening, refreshments will be served and there will be a brief discussion featuring ordained women discussing their own experiences, including the Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan, rector of St. Martin’s, and the Rev. Mary Goshert Ekenstam, one of the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church in Northern California. If you are an ordained woman in our Diocese and would like to participate in the Q&A, please let Rev. Pamela know by contacting her at pamela@churchofstmartin.org.

This summer The Episcopal Church unveiled its new "Love God, Love God's World" curriculum, a nine-session course about caring for creation, informed by our faith tradition and climate science. The format is based on the hugely successful Sacred Ground curriculum, featuring videos and readings that will challenge and inspire you.

The Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan and Miriam Casey, co-chairs of the Commission on the Environment, will be leading the first offering of this new curriculum in our Diocese. They both have experience leading small groups, including Sacred Ground. 

The circle will meet every other Tuesday evening, beginning on September 24, from 7 to 8:30pm on Zoom. The plan is to complete the first six sessions before Christmas, then take a break, and then finish the last three sessions in January and February, before Lent begins. 

Please email pamela@churchofstmartin.org to sign up or with questions you might have. The circle size is limited to 12 and participation from around the Diocese is encouraged.

“Cooked: Survival by Zip Code” 

Directed & Produced by Judith Helfland  

There will be a panel discussion and substantial refreshments in the Lexis Gallery, Trinity Cathedral, 2620 Capitol Ave, Sacramento. 

TREE (Trinity Respecting the Earth & Environment) and St. Francis’ Climate Justice Committee are co-sponsoring a free showing of the documentary, “Cooked: Survival by Zip Code,” the story of a tragic heatwave in Chicago when 739 citizens died in a single week. What are the implications for Sacramento? For public policy? For action?  

There will be a panel discussion and substantial refreshments in the Lexis Gallery, Trinity Cathedral, 2620 Capitol Ave, Sacramento. 

For more information contact Deirdre Johnson at deirdre.johnson@icloud.com.

Tulalip Indian schoolgirls standing outside a longhouse in Tulalip, Wash., circa 1910. (Hibulb Cultural Center)

More than 900 Native American children died while being forced to attend Indian boarding schools, according to a new federal report that urges the U.S. government to formally apologize for the enduring trauma inflicted by its systematic effort to assimilate the children and destroy their culture.

Many of the children were buried in at least 74 marked and unmarked burial sites at 65 former schools across the country, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior report released Tuesday. The actual number of children who died and the number of potential burial sites are probably greater, the report said.

“For the first time in the history of the country, the U.S. Government is accounting for its role in operating Indian boarding schools to forcibly assimilate Indian children, and working to set us on a path to heal from the wounds inflicted by those schools,” wrote Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland in a letter presenting the report to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary.

"It was while working in two hospitals in Atlanta, Georgia, a city which has a predominantly Black population, that ingrained inequities really became blatantly obvious to me. One hospital had predominantly wealthier, white patients, and the other had predominantly poorer, Black patients. The poor patients had worse outcomes - and I thought: why? It's me, the same doctor treating them." - Ruth Shim, MD, MPH, psychiatry professor and the Associate Dean of Diverse and Inclusive Education at the UC Davis School of Medicine, in a February 2024 Lancet Psychiatry profile about confronting racism in psychiatry.

"I never show up as a woman in medicine: I always show up as a Black woman. When I go to my clinical practice, I see children who look like me with inequities and whose stories historically have not been told. Identification is important. Racism has permeated the medical fields. I want to give children, whose pain and dreams are real, a voice so they can live and thrive." - Tiffani Jenae Johnson, MD, MSc, pediatric emergency physician and professor at UC Davis Children's Hospital, in the December New York Times story, "Profiles of Change: For 7 Women, a Heartfelt Cause Became a Mission."

Nathaniel Jung-Chul Lee is an Episcopal priest who studied with Stanley Hauerwas at Duke, completed a Ph.D. from Baylor and teaches at St. John’s University. We’ve had the opportunity to collaborate on issues of race and faith at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan, and I am so grateful to him for this deep theological dive into the work of liberation.

Greg Garrett: A few months back we did a forum about the gifts of Black liberation theology at the Church of the Incarnation. What does that tradition have to offer us in the present moment? How does Black Liberation Theology encompass the concerns of those who are marginalized or disenfranchised?

Nathaniel Jung-Chul Lee: As you know, I have spent the better part of the last 15 years reading and thinking about the tradition of Black Liberation Theology. It is probably right to say that I’ve had no more significant interlocutor during these years than James Cone, and in a sense, no one has had more influence on my theological imagination. I live with him every day and am profoundly grateful to coinhabit the theological world he created. That said, my own work could ultimately be described as a critique of Cone — an appreciative critique and, perhaps even, a hopeful one — but ultimately, still a critique.

I see three issues here — especially as it relates to articulating a theology that does justice to all marginalized persons.

Now first, I really don’t think we’re done with Black Liberation Theology. I feel this — and I do mean feel, in my body, in my bones — when I preach in the mode of Black Liberation Theology. For example, check out this sermon I preached on Good Friday in 2022 at St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery, which essentially channeled Cone’s Cross and the Lynching Tree.

• Call for a Ceasefire Now
• Urge Congress to Save Oak Flat
• Tell Congress to Help Welcome Our Afghan Allies
• Act on the Crisis in Sudan
• End Homelessness

For more information, contact Bob Wohlsen, Advocacy Team Chair, bob.wohlsen@gmail.com.

The Episcopal Diocese of Northern California

The Commission for Intercultural Ministries

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