It may have been the first time that student voices chanted the ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus in Garver Gym – surely, in any case, it was never sung so beautifully. It marked the first occasion since last year’s Homecoming Spirit Day, anyway, that the Headmaster prostrated himself on the gym floor. Let us hope it’s not the last time that the Bishop of Los Angeles, the irrepressible J. Jon Bruno, celebrated at the altar surrounded by Campbell Hall students, one of them, a kindergartener, making faces into the golden chalice before him on the table during the ceremony.
Many people have kindly congratulated me on “my” ordination at the end of September, in which the Bishop and about a dozen priests lay on hands in the ancient rite of consecration.. However, from the beginning of my discernment process eight years ago, my advisors and mentors described the priesthood in terms of its context within a community. Without the community, the priesthood has no meaning.
Campbell Hall requires its Head of School to be ordained in the Episcopal Church. This reflects, not a narrow denominational loyalty, but an understanding that the truth has its roots in an indefinable Mystery, known to us as the ground of our being and the object of all our ultimate longings. Without such an understanding, all philosophy is at fault, as Emerson once said. It is a great honor and pleasure to serve this community of lifelong learners.
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