It is now officially spring time! It’s a season for new
flowers and fresh ideas to break forth from the winter slump. While the weather
here has not taken any noticeable turn from the average 70 degrees and sunny,
there is definitely a new energy in the air. Trees and bushes that I thought
would only ever be green are suddenly breaking out with purple and pink
flowers! Their smell greatly improves the stale, city air, and also inspires me
to think about the ways I, myself, will blossom at the end of this year.
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| This green vine I pass walking to work has erupted in beautiful, pink flowers! |
My life would have certainly changed if I had only come to
L.A. for one month. Now, after 6 ½ months, I can easily make an extensive list
of ideas and virtues that have changed through my experiences of working in
homeless outreach and in my Latino neighborhood. One idea I’ve been processing
most recently is how I have come to see God differently, gradually taking him
out of the box I was taught to put him in.
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| Rowena and Gio picking lemons in the garden. |
The sermons at First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood are
posted on their website so people can listen to them any time after Sunday.
This month I have started listening to the previous Sunday’s sermon on one
morning per week during my bus ride downtown to work. It’s been interesting to see the different ways
I relate to the message when I am on the bus versus when I am in the sanctuary.
On the bus, I listen as the pastor talks about our neighbors,
and then I see 2 middle aged Latino women, an older Korean man, a white man
with tattoos and a Dodgers hat, and a young African American school boy pay
their bus fare.
In the sanctuary, I am surrounded by middle and upper class
white people with whom I can relate to so easily.
On the bus, I listen to the pastor talk about living graciously
in the midst of suffering, and then I see a poorly dressed man on the sidewalk run
in front of the bus and through traffic to give a man on the other side who is
begging for money half of the sandwich he has.
In the sanctuary, I think about my own suffering as I work
long hours far from home but still muster up the energy to play with 20
neighborhood kids at the end of the day.
What I love the most about listening to the sermons on the
bus is the prayer at the end. In the sanctuary, everything is quiet and you can
do your best to focus and feel good about how we might change the world.
On the bus, everything is loud and busy and real. That prayer suddenly goes out to the mother in
the seat ahead of me, struggling to keep her and her child’s bags together in
the small area. Or a word of love and peace gets sent to the couple behind me
arguing about last night.
It is so nice to sense the presence of God in my life outside
of the sanctuary. I spend the great majority of my time out in the real world,
where life is so busy it feels like God can’t catch up and I have to slow down
back in the Sanctuary to find that spirit again. But listening to that prayer
on the bus, I find a very different feeling of being with a God who drives 1000
mph all day, every day, and still manages to keep everything in order.
A few weeks ago our site coordinator, Matthew Schmitt, gave a
sermon on racial reconciliation. The line that has stuck with me the most was
about how Heaven will be a place with people of all cultures and particularly
of all music; rock will blend with classical, which will blend with steel drums
and sitars, then bluegrass and pan pipes. Everything we can imagine and more
will be present and beautifully come together!
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| A clear view of the City of Angels |
Before this year, I’m pretty sure my vision of heaven was still
all about cloud furniture and choir robes. Now I am coming to see that the Heaven
God has in mind is actually full of beautiful, smiling faces in every color,
maybe even on a bus together, with the most eclectic music and flowers and food
the world has ever known! With that diversity in mind, I would definitely say
that Los Angeles is a piece of Heaven on Earth.
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| Oh yeah, my family came to visit! Here we are at Olvera Street experiencing quite a bit of diversity! |
