Tender Moments

It's a beautiful day today - the sun is shining, there is a cool breeze sweeping through the plaza and the sky is free of clouds and smog. I'm sitting in the plaza outside of Dolores Mission, a rennovation project that has cost our parish hundreds of thousands of dollars but provides people an enjoyable place to sit. It's covered by four large, porous tents, each one a different color (red, yellow, green and blue) and it reminds me of those parachutes we used to play with in gym class when we were little.

I'm meeting with Vince and a teacher from the school and we're talking about the youth group we're starting next month. Yellow bounces off our faces as we talk and we all look a little bit like we might have jaundice because of it.

It's nearing 4 pm and the homeless men who are part of the Guadalupano Homeless Project (GHP) start filtering into the plaza. They will line up at the GHP office to check in and get their towels and begin their nighttime routine. We're in the middle of brainstorming topics we can hit on during our youth group - life, death, relationships, family, rejection, love etc etc when we look over an see a man sprawled out on the brick tiling of the plaza, on his belly, reaching under a plastic table. He's whispering softly and petting Lupe, the green-eyed black cat that is lying under the table.

What a blessing to have caught a glimpse of that moment! Just the simple, quiet companionship between a man working to stand on his own again and a feline having found her home.

Reality Check

It's 4:45 pm, a time at which the playground outside is usually filled with churro-devouring children, flying footballs and screams skipping between the school building and open air. But today the atmosphere outside is eerily quiet. The 4:45 church bells are ringing and birds are chirping and the sun is shining but there's a quality in the air that reminds me of the excited nervousness I feel during a potentially imminent emergency, like a tornado warning. It's as if the uncertainty of damage that could be done and injuries that could be sustained is a damp mist that gets sucked into your psyche with each breath. Things are tense around here today, because it's the day of Tim's funeral.

Tim was a member of a prominent gang in our area (a few members of which whose names I know and whose potential I hope to see realized) and was killed in a drive by shooting last week. There's been talk of retaliation on behalf of Tim's fellow gang-bangers and, as far as I know, relatiation doesn't often go unretaliated...

My roommate knocked on my office door a bit ago with a bewildered, flustered look on her face and asked for a ride home. She was going to take the bus but, as she started walking down the street, noticed a huge group of guys congregating around the park area. The police advised the track coaches that they should cancel practice, the after school program let out an hour and a half early, and parents who normally allow their children to walk home from school met them half way.

As staff, we have been asked to be present at the weekly Via Crucis (it's sort of like stations of the cross...we do it every Friday at 5:30 during Lentand then to "provide a calming presence" at the 7 pm funeral.

I'm not even going to act like I'm not a bit nervous about the whole thing. For some reason, walking around "hot" streets right before a funeral of a drive-by shooting victim just doesn't seem like a good idea. But if no one stands up for peace and reclaims the streets as property which belongs to not just certain gangs but to everyone else who lives here, how will it ever come about?

I'm not entirely sure I'll be going to the Via Crucis, but I can show my support by going to the funeral. A lot of the kids I work with knew the guy who died and my presence will say a lot about how much I care about them, even if they don't recognize it.

Until now I've felt pretty secure in where I live and work. However, the events of the last two weeks, combined with all the concern and tension over tonight, have me reevaluating that sense of security and comfort that I have enjoyed.

Please pray for peace, on the streets of Boyle Heights, in our world, and in our own hearts.

Avoidance

It's time for me to come clean: I've been avoiding you, dear blog, for the last month or so.



I would love to say that my absence has been because of busy-ness - that my life is flourishing with social butterfly-like activity; that work has been boomingly busting; that I've felt so unconditionally accepted and involved in my community that I haven't noticed a need or urge to reach out and be expressive.



I just haven't known what to say. So I've been avoiding it.



Ha, and now I have so much to say that I don't even know where to start!



I dropped my cell phone in a puddle one rainy February day and now I don't have one. It was a slow, agonizing death for both my phone and my sexy phone number (it doesn't get much sexier than 357-4000), but I've been without it for several weeks now. I would love to say that not having a cellular device is unbelievably liberating. But my phone and I had a pretty healthy text life (not to mention actual phone calls!) and I'm both amazed and taken aback at how much I depended on that thing for support. Of course, it's not the device istelf that has helped me through tough times, but the contact with loved ones it facilitated.



I'm 7 months into my 24 month service agreement and doubting (see post "I'm a doubting Teri" for more details) and feeling daunted at the task. I've said it before: I love my job, love my boss, love the kids I work with and don't mind LA so much. So why the crap can't I be happy here? Is it a matter of just deciding to be and ignoring any other emotions that pop their ugly little heads in the door? No matter what I do - no matter how much I work out, pray, eat, don't eat, talk with my roommates, don't talk with my roommates, turn to my family for help and advice, turn to friends for help and advice, turn even to strangers for help and advice - I can't seem to go more than a few days without having some kind of emotional explosion behind my closed bedroom door (or, like last night, behind the wheel of the car) which requires half a travel pack of Kleenex and a wardrobe change for my pillow when I finally pull it together.



Perhaps it's the spiritual emptiness I feel in what I expected to be one of the most spiritually abundant times of my life. I don't know. I'm done trying to figure it out.



It hasn't all been doom and gloom though. I'm noticing that kids from the school who I have never met know my name and say "hi" to me as I walk past them on the playground. It's really heartwarming to experience that. And today we had meditation with the 7th grade girls and I couldn't believe the power we have to make twelve 13 year-old girls lay absolutely silently for 45 minutes!



Oh! And last week we had a "Girls Night Out" with the high school girls from our Confirmation class - an endeavor that has been floundering a bit in the area of attendance - and 17 girls came to Yogurtland with us! And what a blessing it was to buy $70 worth of frozen yogurt and walk around Little Tokyo eating it in 50 degree weather!



So there you have it. I'm back. I'm done neglecting you and keeping you from the goings-on of my life (and I don't say that under the assumption that your happiness and well-being are dependant upon being updated on the goings-on of my life - I wouldn't dare be so presumptuous).

Please accept my sincere apologies.