Raves of the Week: Bills Medical Staff, the Clerk of the House of Representatives, and a Catholic Priest Who Responds to Gun Violence

A weekly rundown of the people who inspire and move me

With a new year having dawned, I’m going to try to get back in the habit of focusing more on the good stuff (and people) in life by highlighting folks in the news who inspire and move me through my newsletter’s Raves of the Week. Here’s my first edition for 2023.

Buffalo Bills Medical Staff

Bills athletic trainer Denny Kellington

Whoever wins the Super Bowl next month will need to take a backseat to the true NFL champion this season: The medical staff of the Buffalo Bills that saved the life of Damar Hamlin after he suffered cardiac arrest in the Jan. 2 game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Hamlin’s remarkable recovery over the past week makes all the more amazing what the Bills’ medical staff executed in those crucial moments after Hamlin collapsed on the field in front of a national television audience. They were able to immediately diagnose what had happened to him and restart his heart so that he could receive life-saving care at the hospital.

The vast majority of individuals who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting die. As Dr. Leana S. Wen pointed out in this Washington Post column: “In one analysis of commotio cordis patients, resuscitation that occurred within three minutes resulted in a survival rate of 25 percent. That dropped to 3 percent when resuscitation was delayed past three minutes.”

What the Bills medical staff accomplished last week was every bit as impressive as Tom Brady getting the ball deep in his own territory with less than a minute to play and flawlessly executing a game-winning touchdown drive. Whether or not you’re a football fan (or a past one as am I), that is something to celebrate and honor.

Cheryl Johnson

Clerk of the House Cheryl Johnson

There wasn’t much that members of the U.S. House of Representatives agreed on last week during the fiasco to elect a new Speaker, which climaxed on Friday night with a confrontation between House members that for moment appeared might turn into a brawl. But everyone in the House (and country) seemed to agree that Cheryl Johnson, the clerk of the House of Representatives, did a masterful job running the show and maintaining order when no one else was in a position to do so.

The clerk is usually a largely anonymous figure who deals with mundane procedural issues in keeping the House running. But for all intents and purposes, there was no House of Representatives last week because newly elected members couldn’t be sworn in until a Speaker was chosen. If there had been a national crisis last week, the lack of a functioning House of Representatives could have been a grave national security matter. Fortunately, there wasn’t, and fortunately for us all, Johnson and her team were the grown-ups in the room (or chamber) while everything one and everything else was in disarray. As the Washington Post wrote about Johnson’s role:

“The first House clerk was elected in 1789, and in the 234 years since, it has been a little-acknowledged role. But amid a uniquely dysfunctional speaker election, Johnson attained the highest profile of any House clerk in U.S. history, as a once unremarkable political process became political theater in the most literal sense of the phrase. You didn’t have to be a political wonk to tune in, you just had to have a nose for drama. And standing front and center in all that politicking, posturing and speechifying, was Johnson. Before California Republican Kevin McCarthy was finally elected as House Speaker early Saturday morning, Johnson was the de facto leader of the proceedings; the only rules the ones she set. For those watching from their home or office, Johnson cut an impressive figure: always in an impeccable jacket; her hair, the color of burnished copper, with not a strand out of place; firmly but politely imploring the room, ‘For what purpose does the gentlewoman’ — or gentleman — ‘rise?’

Johnson’s leadership during this pivotal episode is a good opportunity for us to reflect on the vital role public servants like her play in making our government function, even when the folks we elect seem unable to do so. It’s also a good opportunity for us to acknowledge the roles of government clerks in general, including city clerks like the one in my hometown of Martinez who have done impressive jobs running government meetings during the pandemic (including making them work both on Zoom and in person) and complying with information requests from the public. I’ll never forget how Martinez clerk Kat Galileo worked late into the evening on the Friday before Election Day and on that Saturday to compile the latest round of campaign finance reports for me so that I could share them with my fellow voters before Election Day.

The Rev. Jayson Landeza

Father Jayson Landeza

The San Francisco Chronicle headline profiling the Catholic priest from Oakland said it all: “ ‘A saint on earth’: How one Oakland priest comforts the grieving during city’s most violent, tragic moments”

The issue of gun violence in our society, and particularly the carnage of homicides that rock cities like Oakland, is often reduced to political debates over police funding, gun laws and social ills. It’s easy to forget the human toll of the carnage for the people who live in these communities and suffer the results of such wanton violence that is uniquely American. Amid this suffering, it’s people like Father Landeza who comfort the afflicted, heal the wounds and help put the pieces back together of lives shattered by this epidemic. As the Chronicle story said of him:

Like police officers and EMTs, Landeza is a vital part of the city’s response to these tragedies. The Catholic priest, who has been the chaplain for the Oakland police and fire departments, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and other federal law enforcement agencies, has been on the scene of hundreds of homicides over the past 22 years. He often goes to offer support to the family members of victims and law enforcement officers — either through prayer or by just being there as they grieve and vent. He also tries to answer questions about what may have just unfolded.

The scenes are familiar, and the trauma he’s witnessed stays with him. This year alone, he has responded to a triple homicide, the fatal shooting of a beloved dentist in the Little Saigon neighborhood and a school shooting where two gunmen fired 30 rounds total, among other shootings. In 1999, Landeza started hammering crosses into the lawn of St. Columba Church in West Oakland, where he served as pastor until 2009, as a reminder of the toll — which the current pastor has continued to do today.

As some of you may know, I made the difficult decision to leave the Catholic Church last year because of its institutional failures, arrogance in failing to properly address them, and specifically the political hypocrisy of U.S. bishops who have weaponized Church sacraments to try to punish Catholic politicians like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi for failing to do their religious bidding in their government roles.

But leaving the Church as an institution doesn’t mean leaving behind the spiritual sustenance that leaders like Landeza, the pastor of St. Benedict in East Oakland, have long provided me and others. He is the living example of what Christianity and Catholicism should be in our modern world: a faith that serves and lifts up those who suffer the most from the sins of the world. Thank you, Father Landeza, for continuing to show me what religion truly is and the positive difference it can make in our lives.