Date: 06/30/2008
Prayer was offered by:
Senate Chaplain Richardson
Holy and gracious God, be with our governor and lawmakers as they confront the issues that perplex them; give to them clarity in vision, creativity in thought, and openness to listening. Give to all of these leaders here gathered patience and forebearance with each other, and the courage to act not in their own self-interest, but for the good of all your people in our state and nation--Amen.
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The Rev. Canon James D. Richardson
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It is an honor and privilege to serve as the Chaplain of the California State Senate for the 2007-2008 legislative session. I am the forty-seventh individual to serve as Senate Chaplain since the office began in 1897. Please let me explain a little of what the Senate Chaplain does.
The tradition of legislative chaplains dates to the beginning of the Republic when chaplains began serving Congress. Both houses of our state Legislature - the Senate and the Assembly - appoint a chaplain for each legislative term.
The Senate Chaplain is responsible for serving the spiritual and pastoral needs of California's 40 senators, their families and the Senate staff, and to serve as the pastor representing the Senate at official occasions when called upon, for example at a memorial service for CalTrans workers killed in the line of duty, and at the funeral and graveside services of U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui of Sacramento in 2005.
The Chaplain opens each Senate floor session with prayer, typically on Monday and Thursday mornings. Prayers are also offered daily in the Senate Chambers during those periods when the Senate holds daily floor sessions.
The prayers are offered to God on behalf of the Senate in recognition that our freedom and our abundance are gifts from God. The prayers are reminders that we are called to serve all of God's Creation and, that as servants of the people of California, we have particular responsibilities to be stewards of this great land and guardians of our people.
Because our state is so richly diverse, with virtually every religious tradition on Earth represented in California, the prayers are non-sectarian in tone and content. I write most of the prayers, but from time-to-time I offer prayers from other traditions, including from the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Christian faiths. Guest chaplains are also invited from time-to-time to offer prayers in their own tradition. All of the prayers are recorded in the Senate Daily Journal and on-line at the website.
The Chaplain does not take positions on specific legislation, but can assist senators in locating appropriate moral and ethical resources from a variety of perspectives.
Please let me invite you to pray for our public servants, and join in the Senate prayers on this website.
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Cn. Richardson is a native of California, from a family with deep roots in the Golden State. Cn. Richardson was educated in Bay Area public schools, and graduated from UCLA in 1975 with a double major in history and anthropology. He is also proud to have served as managing editor of the UCLA Daily Bruin.
Before entering the priesthood, Richardson was a journalist for 22 years, including stints as a reporter with The Riverside Press-Enterprise and the San Diego Union. He moved to Sacramento in 1985 to be the Capitol Bureau Chief for The Press-Enterprise and later joined the reporting staff of The Sacramento Bee as a state Capitol reporter and later as the Higher Education writer. He reported for The Bee for nearly a decade.
He is the author of the definitive biography of former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (Willie Brown: A Biography, University of California Press, 1996) , and co-author with his Bee colleagues of three editions of the California Political Almanac. He continues to write professionally for a wide variety of publications. He was a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow in 1993, and was a visiting lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 1997. He has also completed summer course work in government at the University of Cambridge, U.K., and in Anglican theology at the University of Oxford, U.K.
Richardson left The Bee in 1997 to enroll in the Episcopal seminary in Berkeley (the Church Divinity School of the Pacific) where he earned a Masters of Divinity degree in 2000. Richardson was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in January 2001.
You can reach him at SenateChaplain@gmail.com.
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