Obispo Y Obispas

As a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, I have three bosses (well, besides Jesus): Our bishop diocesan, Jon Bruno, and our two new bishops suffragan, Diane Jardine Bruce (below left, with other colleagues) and Mary Douglas Glasspool. At our annual convention last December, +Diane became the first woman elected bishop in our diocese, +Mary, a few hours later, the second. +Diane's responsibilities include the churches in the bottom third of our five-county diocese (lucky St. John's), +Mary's all the diocese's schools (double lucky, since St. John's has one of the nation's largest Episcopal day schools). Bishop Bruno visited St. John's last spring and checked in with Headmaster Jim Lusby. Bishop Bruce paid a gracious private visit a couple of weeks ago.

And this week, on Monday (All Saints Day in the liturgical calendar), Bishop Glasspool celebrated Holy Eucharist and preached at a rousing service attended by 750 students, teachers, and administrators as well as a parent or two. Using the opportunity to teach the congregation about the origin of Halloween, she marched in wearing pretty much the scariest monster mask ever worn by a bishop (which fit neatly under her miter). Before the service, she tried it out on her chaplain for the day, 8th grader Christopher Lanham.

Doffing mask and miter, she was soon teaching us a handy mnemonic chant -- Spooks! Saints! Souls! When we dress up on Halloween, it's like the ancient Celts putting on costumes and masks to ward off demons. The next day, All Saints, the Christian church remembers its heroes. Nov. 2, All Souls Day, is reserved for all the precious souls God has made.

That's Bishop Mary below, with the precious young souls who helped with Monday's worship. Headmaster Lusby and Chaplain Patti Peebles are at right.

Photo by Jo Ellen Wilson

Halloweiners

Our St. John's friends Bruce and Lisa Hughes moved into their first house in Coto de Caza a day or two before Halloween over 20 years ago. When some of their kids showed up expecting to be fed, as children will, Lisa cracked some Hormel chili and Bruce grilled some hot dogs, because that's what was around. It's been their festive Halloween menu ever since, although with some elaborations, such as a choice of three kinds of hot dogs, including Ball Park Franks. This gave me the opportunity to clear my throat, ask for the kind attention of our hosts and their other guests, and explain how my father named the Ball Park Frank. If you like, I'll come over to your house and tell you about it, too. Really, I insist.

Besides being a partner, with Bruce, in one of southern California's premier family law firms, Lisa's a canny political insider who came within five points of denying archconservative former Rep. Bob Dornan the 1998 Republican nomination for Congress. Lisa would've given the one-term Democratic incumbent, Loretta Sanchez, a good race, whereas Sanchez easily defeated Dornan, whom she'd ousted two years before.

You can just hear party bigwigs rubbing their hands together and emitting a piercing Halloween cackle. Nominate a Republican who can win? That's just what they expect us to do! So we shouldn't have been surprised that Lisa gave Kathy and me our first opportunity (after nearly 60 combined years of service to 37) to interact with a mask depicting the ghost of moderate Republican past. Fun, if a little yesterday. We got back to Yorba Linda in time to give some Kit Kat bars to a teenaged President Obama. I thanked him for working for Middle East peace.

Halloweek Begins

Kathy and I just discovered a street in Yorba Linda where the grownups dig Halloween even more than the kids. Don't tell anyone (it reduces the sheer intensity of the scariness) but the ghoul at left is Frank Amato, a doctor and volunteer docent at the Nixon library. I think he was meaning to flash a Nixonian V-for-victory sign, but he couldn't because he was holding a Snickers bar in one hand and a fake cocktail in the other.

Frank and his wife live on a cul-de-sac where the residents were dressed as witches, Na'vi, outlaw bikers, and giant pumpkins, dispensing candy by the fistful. One driveway had an inflatable Christmas merry-go-round next to a caped, hooded skeleton hauling a jack o'lantern in a chariot.

It's two months early for Christmas, sure. But a week early for Halloween. On our street a block or two away, we've had fewer trick-or-treaters every year. We weren't sure if it was a national decline owing to heightened parental anxiety (apparently not), evidence of concerns among evangelical Christians about pagan chochanals on All Hallows Eve, or maybe just our reputation as a dark, scary old people's block.

Now we think it's because of the annual spook night at our community center, which Kathy and I had never attended before. Although uncostumed, we participated on our afternoon walk. They had game booths, a pumpkin patch, and a petting zoo, where two lovely princesses were vying for sovereignty over a rabbit. At at dusk, parents led a costumed kids parade halfway around the lake to denude Dr. Amato's block of sugary combustibles. They'll be so full of Reese's and Butterfingers that they might not bother coming to our house on the real Halloween. That's okay. Leaves more for us!

A Mere Ghost Of A Finding

Creating a laboratory for ghostly phenomena, researchers in London conclude that people either see what's actually there or think they do.

Does The Dried Fruit Constitute A Dirty Trick?

The take for the 2,000 kids who'll trick or treat at the White House, according to the AP:

A box of White House M&Ms with the president's signature imprinted on it, a sweet dough butter cookie made by White House pastry chef Bill Yosses, a National Park Foundation Ranger activity book, and a serving of dried fruit mix made up of cherries, apricots, pears, apples and papayas.

Hat tip to Mike Cheever