February 8, 2024 | VOLUME 36, ISSUE 06

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Last Sunday after the Epiphany

February 11, 2024

SCRIPTURE READINGS

2 Kings 2:1-12

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mark 9:2-9

Psalm 50:1-6

Preacher: The Reverend Jennifer Wagner Pavia

Saturday, February 10, 10:00 AM: Black History Month Celebration with Ahavat Torah & First AME in Sanctuary

Tuesday, February 13, 6:30 PM: Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper in Parish Hall

Wednesday, February 14, 12:00 PM & 7:00 PM: Ash Wednesday services in Sanctuary

Monday, February 19, 7:00 PM: Vestry meeting

Bible and Breakfast

Tuesdays | 9:30 AM

Luther Hall & Zoom

Midweek Eucharist

Wednesdays | 7:00 PM

Sanctuary

Adult Forum: Lenten Series

Wednesdays | 7:45 PM

Luther Hall & Zoom

Parishioner Karen Scharre is inviting us all to come experience a "lushly romantic" concert by Orchestra NOVA LA, the symphony orchestra in which she plays violin. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto sounds especially intriguing as it features the only American pianist to win a Russian piano competition since 1958. The concert will take place this Saturday, February 10, at 8:00 PM at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Santa Monica. We hope to see you there!

Lael Smith with Hector, the head of the garden crew doing the work

Our roses were getting old & on their way out

Lael works with garden crew

By Lael Smith

For those I haven’t yet met, I’m Baird’s mom, Lael. I’ve so enjoyed becoming a part of the St. Bede’s community and last year, when Jennifer mentioned that she dreamed of someday transforming the church’s memorial rose garden into a native pollinator garden more in line with the church’s mission of environmental stewardship, I told her I was happy to help.

I have a background in writing and producing in the entertainment industry, and I’ve also been studying and working in California native landscaping for the last decade. Last year I started my own landscape design company, Mothership. For me the work is a rewarding mix of spiritual practice, creative collaboration, and a moral imperative as we combat habitat loss and climate change.

Jennifer and I agreed that a native pollinator garden full of birds, bees and butterflies would be a celebratory and sustainable way to continue the wonderful tradition of the memorial rose garden. The seeds from the flowers could be collected in the fall and shared, as commemoration and celebration. Thus, this generous native pollinator garden could be a small but mighty example of stewardship, of climate adaptation, of habitat restoration and of celebrating creation.

I spent months analyzing the rose garden and surrounding grounds to understand current site conditions. The planting strip is bound by concrete and asphalt on all sides. Its plants need to handle lean depleted soil, hot sun, arid ozone-heavy air, tree root interference and seasonal rainwater irrigation only. And that’s just now. I also modeled its future challenges. Decades from now, modeling shows temperatures may be, on average, ten degrees higher than they were when the church was built (81 degrees instead of 71 degrees) and precipitation levels may be correspondingly high (hello, atmospheric rivers).

The site conditions called for tough cornerstone California pollinators from our local sage scrub community. Lucky for us, they are an exuberant bunch with flowers and berries for all seasons.

With this data and plan, this week’s atmospheric river and the Theodore Payne Foundation’s native plant sale catalyzed us into action.

So what will you see in the pollinator garden?

Yellow ‘Davis gold’ Toyon berries will start off the year alongside Ceanothus white and blue flowers and pink and white blooms on the Manzanitas. Then the Apricot mallow shoot up peach cup- shaped blooms. They take us into the spring when the waves of wildflowers come - orange poppies and pink clarkias and white yarrow and iridescent gila. Then the sages kick in their purple and white blooms and finally the buckwheats pop like pink and white sprays of popcorn, driving the butterflies and bumblebees wild before turning to gorgeous rust-colored seed heads for the birds.

Lastly, though it was beyond the scope of the pollinator garden, we added some native grape vines (Vitis 'Roger's Red' - Roger's Red Grape) to the walls around the church and parking lot. They are winter dormant now, but come summer their hand-sized green leaves should adorn most of the cement-block walls. They wave in the wind like little flags. In fall they produce delicious but tiny grapes. People can eat them but the birds usually get there first. In the winter the leaves turn bright red before falling. In addition to upping the habitat St Bede’s offers, they should add a lovely seasonality and celebratory streak of cardinal red to the grounds just as the Christmas season arrives.

The plants will eventually have plaques in place identifying them, including QR codes providing images and more information.

Lastly, I just want to add for those who may not be familiar with California native plants, they do a few things differently. While some varieties grow fast, most grow slowly because they grow their root systems first. So the rule with natives is: the first year they sleep, the second year they creep and the third year, they leap.

But with all this rain, who knows!  

For those interested in knowing more about the specific plants . . .

Eriogonums - aka Buckwheats - the cornerstone pollinator flowering perennial in California.

We have four varieties here - ‘Dana Point’, ‘Warren Little’, ‘Sea Cliff’ and ‘California’ Buckwheat. White and pink puffy pom pom blossom in the summer which turn to a bird banquet of rust brown seed heads in the fall. The Sea Cliff Buckwheat, which naturally grows only widely on the LAX sand dunes, is the only food source for several kinds of nearly extinct adorable little spotted blue native butterflies. Many native gardeners will tell you if you have full sun, the most useful plant you can plant is a buckwheat.

Ceanothus aka California Lilac - dark leathery leaves and white, pink or blue flowers January through May. Blue flowers in February will ruin you for any other state, in my opinion. This is a fire-follower. It has a job to do for California. It replenishes the destroyed soil with nitrogen and generously feeds other plants through mycorrhizal networks over time. Just don’t water it in the summer! We have three varieties here- compact ‘Popcorn’, spreading ‘Yankee Point' and tree-like ‘Ray Hartman’.

Salvia aka Sages - Brush lightly against them as you walk by for an aromatic reminder of how awesome they are. And watch the butterflies, bees and birds visit their flowers and seed heads. Praying Mantis like to build their egg cases on the stems. We have two varieties - Salvia Allen Chickering for is profuse purple blooms and Salvia mellifera, aka Black sage for its popularity with the winged creatures. Both bloom spring through summer. Greek islanders routinely live to age one hundred, in part, scientists suspect, because they drink tea made from their local sage every morning.

Heteromeles arbutifolia ‘Davis Gold,’ aka Toyon - Hollywood is named for it, although it’s not Holly. Its deep roots do stabilize the banks of hills, like those around Hollywood (and sequesters lots of carbon). It is a cornerstone shrub for its flowers and berries which our birds and bees love. Our variety, Davis Gold, flowers white in the summer and produces cheerful yellow berries in the fall and winter. In 2012, the Toyon was named the official native plant of the City of Los Angeles.

Sphaeralcea ambigua - Apricot Mallow - A plant that admittedly is typically local to areas a bit more eastside, we think it will feel at home next to the blacktop. It shoots up apricot flower cups February until August that are attractive to all forms of life.

Arctostaphylos, aka Manzanita - It’s just so incredible in January to have a mint- or grey-green shrub full of gorgeous bell-shaped white and pink flowers buzzing with delirious bees. We have two varieties: Arctostaphylos tomentosa, aka Woolly-Leaf Manzanita and Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Sentinel’, aka Sentinel Vine Hill Manzanita.

And wildflowers should include (if atmospheric rivers don’t wash them away:

Eschscholzia californica, aka California Poppy - The one and only. Not just a pretty form of silver foliage and silky orange flower petals, this plant has a taproot that drills deep into the soil stabilizing it and helping sink water.

Clarkia unguiculata, aka Elegant Clarkia - Gorgeous spikes of different shades of pink and purple flowers in the spring. Easy to collect seeds in the fall.

Gilia tricolor, aka Bird’s Eyes - feathery foliage and white iridescent flowers in the spring with dark purple eyes. Yes, iridescent.

Achillea millefolium, aka Yarrow - feathery green foliage and a landing pad of white flowers summer through fall for butterflies, moths, bees and native hoverflies (which eat aphids, thank you) to land on. In the fall birds love the seed heads. According to some sources, Yarrow’s deep roots mine the soil for minerals like magnesium and copper and share it with local plants. Some people plant it under fruit trees for this reason and mulch it. It also can work as a styptic. It was named after the Greek warrior, Achilles, whose soldiers used yarrow on the battlefield.

By Carl Townsend

Eleven intrepid parishioners made the trek over to Griffith Park on Saturday, February 3, 2024. We parked at the Greek Theater and climbed onto the DASH bus that takes tourists up to Griffith Observatory. We met our tour guide (in the orange hat) at the Astronomers’ Monument as she regaled us with the history of Griffith Park and Observatory. The land was donated to the City of LA in the will of Griffith J. Griffith, with the provision that it be an educational site where folks could relate to our place in the Universe. After a quick stop to see the Hollywood sign, we began our tour. We climbed the steps to the carefully maintained 12” Zeiss telescope that is available to the general public any clear night (dome on the left). There is also a solar telescope in the right-hand dome. Alas, it was a cloudy day, so the solar scope was not in use.

A rock from the moon on loan from NASA

Carl Townsend holds a meteorite

The Hollywood sign

The solar telescope

The observatory opened in 1935 with a with its iconic domed structure overlooking a magnificent view of the entire Los Angeles Basin. In 2002, the observatory was closed for an extensive renovation. Not wanting to disturb the original structure, a large underground addition was created under the front lawn area. New exhibits, including scale models of all the planets, the Moon and two massive iron-nickel meteorites were added to the new floor space which opened in 2006. Our guide commented on the various “Easter egg” design elements. For example, the diameter of the Leonard Nimoy theater is a scale model of the Sun’s diameter at the same scale as the above planet models. We wandered up to the main floor of the original building and viewed the Foucault pendulum, showing Earth’s rotation, the camera obscura, viewing Los Angeles, and an infrared camera showing our cold hands but rosy cheeks.

At the conclusion of the tour, we went down to the cafeteria for a snack before boarding the Dash bus down the mountain and rejoined our respective carpools. Thanks to Daphne for organizing the event, and thanks to our guide who added considerable color to the visit.

Visit the St. Bede's website and at the top of every page, look for the "Donate" button. When you click on the "Donate" button, you will be transported to St. Bede's Vanco eGiving and Payment Process Site.

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You are invited to set up one-time or recurring gifts using credit, debit, or bank transfer on Vanco's secure payment processing platform. Giving online through the Vanco site saves time and the hassle of remembering to bring your offering. In addition, you decrease the expense incurred by St. Bede’s from handling and processing checks and cash.

By Your Side training to begin Feb. 27 in Sylmar

A new By Your Side training session for volunteer end-of-life companions, offered by Episcopal Communities and Services, will begin on Feb. 27 at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar.

Since 2011, the mission of By Your Side has been to support people in times of change and difficulty, particularly in health crisis, and to be at their bedside at the end of their lives as needed. More than five hundred volunteers have been trained to be a compassionate presence.  

ECS’s By Your Side program continue to develop teams of people to serve in acute care (Olive View and Keck/ Norris at USC), along with long-term care settings, especially in its several assisted-living communities. Team members have had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of what it means to really be “with” the residents they support; residents become even more aware of the needs of neighbors having difficulty with changes in their lives, with challenging diagnoses or increasing frailty. In the larger community, individuals and spiritual care teams strengthen their understanding of what being together through the end of life can really look like. 

All are welcome to join By Your Side in this exploration. There is no obligation to volunteer. The 10-hour training is at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, 14445 Olive View Drive, Sylmar 91342 on Tuesday evenings, Feb. 27 — March 26, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. For further information and to register, contact Susan Brown at sbrown@ecsforseniors.org or 626.403.5424. A fee of $70 (which includes all materials) is due by the second class. Scholarships are available. CE (12 hours) for nurses is available for an added $30 under California Board of Registered Nursing Provider CEP 16239. 

The DeKoven Center in Racine, Wisconsin, was founded in 1852 as Racine College. Photo: DeKoven Center

Wisconsin campus with deep Episcopal roots considered for new home of Episcopal Church Archives

By David Paulsen

Documents and artifacts detailing centuries’ worth of Episcopal Church history have been housed for the past three years in space leased in a former furniture store in Austin, Texas. Now church leaders are in negotiations to possibly relocate The Episcopal Church Archives to a permanent home with deep Episcopal roots in Wisconsin.

Executive Council, at its Jan. 26-29 meeting, authorized Jane Cisluycis, the church’s acting chief operations officer, to negotiate a potential long-term lease for the Archives to move into space at the DeKoven Center in Racine, Wisconsin. If successful, Cisluycis would bring a proposed lease agreement back to Executive Council for consideration and a vote at its April meeting.

The DeKoven Center occupies an 11-acre campus overlooking Lake Michigan about a half hour south of Milwaukee. It originally was founded by Episcopalians in 1852 as Racine College under Bishop Jackson Kemper. Today, it is operated by the nonprofit DeKoven Foundation as a retreat center and a popular site for weddings and other events.

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