The Diocese of California Gets an Award from the East Bay Chapter of the United Nations!

Last night was a night to remember. I attended the award presentation and dinner for the UN Awards because I had been at the right place at the right time and was asked to accept the award on behalf of the Bishop of California, Marc Handley Andrus, along with the Rev. Ted Thompson. Ted came to the dinner with his lovely wife (really) Mary and my lovely husband Matt Cantor came with me. We all took the stage and accepted the award together. The evening included a clown-like dancing water goddess, covered in flowing spangly blue robes and wearing an enormous wave-like hat. The theme of the evening was "Water for Life" and she made sure we remembered that. At the second half, she came out covered with plastic water bottles and intoned over and over again, "Is this what you want? Is this what you want? Turn off the spigot of your tap and turn on the spigot of your heart!" The food was great, and we were among very honorable company as recipients of this award- we came right after Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates. I did the acceptance speech and here it is:

Acceptance Comments for the East Bay Chapter of the United Nations Citizen Award
Given to the Diocese of California

I am truly honored to accept this award on behalf of the Episcopal Diocese of California, Bishop Marc Handley Andrus and all the remarkable churches, youth groups and individuals who have done such wondrous work for the Millennium Development Goals. And thank you to the Water Goddess for making this such a Berkeley moment for me. There have been so many astonishing things happening in the diocese to support the MDGs that I am sorry I have time to lift up only a few, but here goes…

Bishop Marc, very early in his tenure as our Bishop created a diocesan committee on the MDGs. This has been beautifully chaired by the very versatile Rev. Shari Young. The impact of the work of this committee has radiated out like ripples of water not only through the Diocese of California, but all over the world. Churches have shifted their programming to reflect their commitment to the MDGs, they have gone solar, their outreach programs have blossomed and many churches have sent out missions to alleviate hunger and fight disease all over the world. Our own East Bay St. John’s church in Montclair under the leadership of the Rev. Scott Denman is a good example of this, having completed a youth mission trip to Puerto Rico this past year and continuing important mission work in Uganda and Tanzania.

Bishop Marc also created a committee to identify three dioceses to be in partnership with ours. This would be a partnership that would have mutual fulfillment of the MDGs as a major priority. One was to be in Latin America, one in Asia and one in Africa. I am proud to say that our own East Bay Rev. Ted Thompson was the one who ably chaired that committee and they recently identified the first of those three partner dioceses - the Diocese of Curitiba in Southern Brazil. It turns out that Curitiba is one of the greenest cities in the world, so we will learn as much from them as they will from us. I would also like to raise up the Church Divinity School of the Pacific for their innovative greening of the campus program, led by Jan O'Brien with the sage help of Dr. Marion Grau. And Kevin Jones of Holy Innocents, San Francisco, has created a database that is a veritable wikipedia of accountability of the progress made by our diocese with the MDGs. Our work has been mapped out so that we can see the consequences of the impact of every church in this diocese throughout the world.

There has been truly wonderful representation by the youth in the diocese. The youth group of the Rev. Ted Thompson’s own Christ Church in Alameda, led by Laura Toepfer, drafted a resolution for the California Diocese to urge all clergy and all churches to change AT LEAST one incandescent bulb for a compact florescent. This resolution passed almost unanimously just last Saturday, and I went home and replaced one of my light bulbs that very afternoon! Two East Bay youth groups have sent teams to New Orleans to repair the awful damage there and help the people who continue to suffer. St. Alban's Church in Albany sent 22 people, led by the indomitable Bobbi Ryan and Interim Rector, the Rev. Linda Campbell, and actually ran a camp for the children from the lower 9th ward. All Souls Parish in Berkeley sent a group of 18 hardy souls to clear debris and weeds from a huge field, pass out supplies to the needy and insulate the new houses that are being built. Many other youth groups have done many other marvelous things, in and out of the East Bay, from creating works of art to illustrate each MDG, ( the Youth Arts Academy) to making ceramic light switch plates, telling us to turn off our lights! These were sold, and the proceeds used for a solar panel fund for the youth group’s church- Our Saviour, Mill Valley.

But I have to say that the leadership for all this good work has been from Bishop Marc Handley Andrus. Since this is Berkeley, I would like to take a moment to try to impart to you the cosmic nature of Bishop Marc’s leadership. Perhaps the best way to do this is to describe the presentation that Bishop Marc has made whenever possible- at events, conferences and during a sermon. I refer to “The Cosmic Walk.” This is a tour through natural history, starting at the very beginning- the phenomenon of the Big Bang- or, as the Bishop calls it, "the great primordial flaring forth." A long rope is spiraled out on the ground, with the inside coil representing the beginning, delineating such landmarks as 12.5 billion years ago when stars and galaxies are born, 4 billion years ago when the oceans are formed, 2 billion years ago when oxygen-loving cells emerge, 600 million years ago when ecosystems emerge, right down to the emergence of human beings, and eventually, culminating with the creation of the MDGs. The Bishop saunters along the spiral, noting each landmark and honoring it by lighting a candle at each spot. The moment that stays with me the most is 540 million years ago when eyes emerge- the instant when the first amphibian raised its protruding eyes out of the water and, for the first time, that thing which was made from the earth was able to see. For the first time, earth sees itself.

I was taught to see the earth in an entirely new way when I took a course on the MDGs from Bishop Marc’s remarkable wife, Dr. Sheila Andrus. There were many transformative things I learned from that course, but here are two that have really stayed with me:

First, the brilliant feminist and ecological hero, Dr. Marion Grau came to talk, and she made an interesting confession. She said that she discovered that the work she had been doing was, in large part, fueled by anger that other people were not doing enough, or by guilt, that she was not doing enough. She came to realize that guilt and anger are not renewable energy sources, and like an incandescent light bulb, she was burning out. So to renew herself, she went to a great joyous Earth-day like festival in her native Germany, and she had a revelation: That she no longer needed to fuel her work with anger or with guilt, but with joy. Joy that she, in this short life, could do SOMETHING to reach these goals we are all talking about, and joy that there were so many people all over the world to do that something with!

After her talk, Bishop Marc showed up and immediately added another Millennium Development Goal- I guess when you are Bishop you get to do that. He added MDG #9: Peace and Reconciliation. And I hope that all of us will work for peace as well as the realization of all these goals. I hope we do something every single day, preferably out of joy, that will add in some small way to the realization of these outrageously optimistic, challenging and deeply possible goals. Thank you.
-The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor