You quickly learn much about Rev. Howard Anderson, the new pastor at St. Matthew’s, by observing him in context. His office is located in the prow of the original St. Matthew’s half-Tudor church set in the idyllic woodland of the 30-acre campus. After eight months on the job, Anderson has arranged his space, where he writes, prays and counsels, with the talismans of his life and career. On the coat rack hangs a stole, a liturgical vestment usually made of silk and gold thread embroidery. Anderson’s, a gift from the Ojibwa Indians, features an eagle at the nape embroidered with copper thread. As you move around the room, a portrait of Rev. (John Johnson) Enmegahbowh (One Who Stands Before His People), the first Native American Episcopal priest, furthers the Native American connection. A cotton quilt is decorated with eagles and feathers painted by church school children and students at St. Matthew’s School. Anderson also treasures the peace pipe he received upon fulfilling his four-year adoption period into the Standing Rock Lakota tribe. For Anderson, 60, these objects are not merely a potlatch, but symbolize the heart of his ministry, which is cross-cultural understanding based on the unifying agent of God’s love. Initially a reluctant minister, Anderson imagined a teaching career. With a Ph.D. from the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii in American Studies, he was hired by the Native American Theological Association in Minnesota to start a program ‘to help native people get through seminary without being whitewashed.’ This work took him back to northeast Minnesota in the mid-1970s, to the state where he had grown up. ‘I am an adopted only child of Swedish parents,’ says Anderson, adding that he was the first person in his family to attend college. ‘Before 1976, when I started the recruitment program, there were only two Indians who had completed seminary and were ordained,’ Anderson says. His understanding of the Native American culture that values allegiance to the group over the individual was key to the successful ordination of 76 Native Americans, who attended one of seven seminaries in Minnesota.   ’They made it through because they were not doing this alone, they were part of a community,’ Anderson explains. ‘I brought medicine men and women to study in the seminaries, confirming that they could be both pastors and medicine men and women.’ For 17 years Anderson worked as a lay professional in diocesan administration working with native people. While he eventually completed seminary studies at St. John’s School of Theology in Winnipeg, he did so because it was partially subsidized and was an easy commute from Grand Forks, where he and he wife Linda were living. ‘I had resisted becoming ordained. I was a seminary-trained, competent lay person. I had become a ‘very important person’ in the life of the national church, sitting on the governing body of the Episcopal Church. I didn’t think that I needed to become a priest.’   But the question that had nagged at him found resolution by way of a Native American spiritual practice’the vision quest. Anderson embarked on a personal, spiritual quest alone in the wilderness. Fasting a number of days allowed him to become quiet and more attuned to the spirit world. ‘I had a vision of a white horse that came to me,’ he says. ‘I reached out and touched her. She was real, not a spirit. I looked around and saw four other wild horses, and they all reared up on their hind legs in a sort of dance the Lakota call ‘shunka wakan wachipi,’ or the dance of the horses. Then, they vanished down into the canyon.   ’Elmer Running, the medicine man who was my mentor, started to chuckle as I told him of my encounter with the white horse and the sacred circle gathered, for the vision quest is not for the person questing only, but the vision is sought on behalf of all the people. He knew I didn’t want to listen to the persistent call to pursue ordination. ‘You’re dead meat!’ he said. ‘The white horse only comes to show the wicasa waken (holy man) where his altar is.”   Finally understanding his altar was the priesthood, Anderson fulfilled his holy orders and took up his duties in a parish in Duluth about the size of St. Matthew’s. As of December 2005 there were 979 active members in good standing at St. Matthew’s.   The power of the spirit worked once again in guiding Anderson’s move to St. Matthew’s, which he had not immediately felt was the best placement. After five years at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., serving as president of the Cathedral College, a teaching center for preachers of all denominations, he was ready for a change. Having ministered to an affluent church community in northwest Washington, D. C., where there was no socio-economic diversity, he was wary of coming to another community where he feared that entitlement thinking would prevail.   Fortunately, the 18-month interview process not only allayed his misgivings, but also opened his heart to the people at St. Matthew’s.   ’For the search committee and for me, it was more of a powerful spiritual experience of discernment, not just a job interview,’ Anderson says. ‘The people on the search committee convinced me that this parish was where I should be. There was a Latina single parent, a Polish immigrant whose father was a cavalry officer, and another parishioner who grew up in rural Minnesota in my hometown, population 5,000.   After I accepted the calling, I remember a welcoming picnic on the beach and I was amazed once again by the level-headedness of the congregation. I was hearing comments like ‘I am so grateful to be able to live here, or ‘I can’t believe I live here.’ These people are so aware that they live in a bubble; even the children know they have it good, but also have a high sense of responsibility.’   It wasn’t until February of this year, when 18-year-old St. Matthew’s parishioner Nick Rosser was killed in a tragic car accident on Palisades Drive, a full six months after Anderson had arrived at St. Matthew’s that he felt as if he were truly initiated. ‘When you grieve with people, you become a part of their community,’ he says. ‘When I got to the accident site, a number of St. Matthew’s families were already deciding who would bring meals to the Rossers. I was there when the parents arrived and watched the community wrap around the family. It was a powerful thing to see. At this moment I saw the health, the real guts of the community.’   The parish also started a grief group for Palisades kids to let them process the death. ‘The community itself, not just the pastor, is empowered,’ Anderson says. ‘God taught me that the body [church members] knows what it’s supposed to do to take care of people, and our job is not to interfere. We equip the saints to do the work.’   An ongoing challenge for Anderson is realizing that while the St. Matthew’s community is exemplary in helping those who are less fortunate’a third of the cash budget from fundraisers supports service outreach around the city and the world’the community still needs to be able to receive. They don’t ask when in need. And with that in mind, the parish has begun a fund to help the church members who are hurting, who’ve lost a job.   Despite his initial misgivings, Anderson is well suited to the St. Matthew’s parish. A family man, he and his wife, Linda, who retired from a career as an executive in social service agencies in both the private and public sectors, have two children and three grandchildren. Their daughter Kesha was recently ordained and will be serving an Episcopal parish in Oxnard, and their adopted son Clarence Roy, an Ojibwa, lives with his wife in Minnesota.   Fit and amiable, Anderson has resumed surfing along the beach below the Bel-Air Bay Club’a sport he enjoyed while living in Hawaii, and has recently tackled in-line skating. But he is also skilled in amelioration and cultural understanding and is actively offering guidance on dealing with the hot-button issues’homosexuality, stem-cell research’that are creating schisms within the Episcopal Church. ‘The question I try to help answer is how do we disagree fervently on seminal issues and still maintain the body [church unity]?’ says Anderson, who for six years chaired the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Human Affairs. The group examined these issues from various viewpoints: life experience, doctrine and scripture.   ’While I feel like I have a special position to address these issues,’ Anderson says, ‘I have not engaged them from the pulpit. We have gay and lesbian parishioners on the vestry and on the priestly staff. These are non-issues at St. Matthew’s.’   Anderson admits that his plate is full, but that in his first year he has made an effort to learn as much as he can about the parish. ‘I participate in everything to get an idea of what I want to do,’ he says, which means offering the weekly school chapel lesson, walking the labyrinth with parish men’s group members, serving on the school’s executive committee or surfing with a few buddies.

The West L.A. Community Police Station has been reinforced after losing 26 officers in December, when they were reassigned to the new Topanga (Canoga Park) and Olympic (Koreatown) Community Police Stations. According to Rueben De La Torre, Commanding Officer of the West L.A. Patrol Division,17 officers and one sergeant have been reassigned to the station. ‘We’re back to about 75 percent of what we lost,’ he told the Palisadian-Post.   West L.A. has had 13 captains in the past 14 years and the high turnover rate has caused some worry in Pacific Palisades. De La Torre, though, is unconcerned. ‘It’s a good thing because they’ve been promoted,’ he said. ‘Like any corporation, people move up the ladder.’ In February, Captain William Eaton was reassigned to the Van Nuys area after serving for 14 months, and the subsequent Captain, James Craig, stayed for eight days before leaving for a position in Portland, Maine. De La Torre, who served as the interim captain, explained that the structure of the station is much like having a president and a vice president (which is his current position). Even with the captain leaving, De La Toree maintains there is stability because of the second in command.   His command includes the day-to-day operations, the sergeant’s task force and bicycle operations. The captain oversees detectives, community relations, narcotics and vice. With the promotion of Captain Evangelyn Nathan to the No. 1 spot at the station, De La Torre said, ‘I envision that we’ll be here 12 months if not longer.’ Nathan assumed her new position last Sunday, coming from the Wilshire Division where she had been the commanding officer for the patrol division.   Since joining the LAPD in 1981 after graduating from Cal State at Dominguez Hills, Nathan has worked a variety of patrol, investigative and specialized assignments. She is also a graduate of the FBI National Academy and two leadership training institutes. Nathan is a 2006 inductee to the L.A. Captain Police Revolver and Athletic Club Hall of Fame, and has a Master Gardener certificate through UC Extention. De La Torre assured local residents that even though Pacific Palisades is geographically isolated, the police are concerned about this community. He is currently investigating the possibility of creating a sub-station at the Palisades Recreation Center, where it would be easy to install a computer, a desk and chairs.   ’It’s an excellent opportunity and would be good for the neighborhood,’ he said. ‘People could make a [crime] report or just stop by and talk. It’s all part of my plan to beef up the Palisades. I’m not comfortable having one unit here.’ Currently, the Palisades has a patrol car 24 hours a day, with shifts from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., but occasionally the car is out of the community.

Three local residents have created Palisades Village Book Friends, a charitable organization that will provide financial assistance for the community literary events hosted by Katie O’Laughlin and Village Books and others.   ’Our goal,’ said co-organizers Michael Doyen, Susan Nash and Kelly Anderson, ‘is to ensure continuation of the tradition started by Village Books of having weekly author readings and book signings in the Palisades. We have contracted with Village Books to act as a host for future literary gatherings and as a liaison for school and community educational events.’   Book Friends has raised over $17,000 since its formation in early February, enough to underwrite events hosted by the bookstore into the summer. The organization needs additional community donations to keep the literary charity going.   ’We call on all readers and friends of books to help support our literary traditions in the Palisades and continuing local access to books and authors,’ Doyen said.   Donations can be sent to Palisades Village Book Friends, P.O. Box 1553, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. Suggested donor levels are: $100 – $499, Caldecott Friends; $500-$999, Newberry Friends; $1,000-$1,499, Booker Friends; $1,500-$1,999, Pulitzer Friends; $2,000 and up, Nobel Friends. Of course, donations in any amount will be gladly accepted.   (Book Friends’ tax-exempt status as a public charity is pending. Assuming tax-exempt status is obtained, donations made now will be retroactively deductible to February 5.)   ’This ongoing financial support will provide vital cash flow for my store,’ said Village Books owner Katie O’Laughlin. ‘When I stay open late to host speakers’sometimes two or three times a week’the money will pay for my extra labor costs and other related expenses.’   The organization’s officers are Michael Doyen (president and chairman of the board), Kelly Anderson (secretary) and Susan Nash (treasurer). All are long-time residents of the Palisades and lovers of books.   Doyen and his wife, Denise, have lived here since 2002 with his wife, Denise. They have two sons: Paul, a student at Lewis and Clark College, and Max, who attends Calmont School.   Anderson has been working part-time at Village Books for three years and keeps the store’s Web site updated. She and her husband Bill, residents here since 1986, also have two sons: Max, a senior at New York University, and Spencer, a freshman at Duke.   Nash, a graduate of Stanford Law School, worked as a business litigator for eight years, first at Latham & Watkins (1982-1985), then at Munger, Tolles & Olson from 1985-1990. After working part-time for 18 years, she returned fulltime to Munger last September as Of Counsel.   ’Mike Doyen and I knew each other from my first stint at Munger,’ Nash said. ‘We asked another lawyer at our firm, Steve Guise (a former Palisadian), about forming a nonprofit organization for charitable literary purposes. Steve did the work to incorporate PVBF pro bono.’   Village Books is located at 1049 Swarthmore Ave. Contact: pvbookfriends@earthlink.net.