intersections

Griffith Park Fire...again!

No sooner was I reminded of last year's fire than we had another one, yesterday, in basically the same place. Fortunately it never got out of control. There is an amazing photo of the LAFD helicopter dropping water at the LAist blog. Do yourself a favor and check it out!

There's a cool series of pictures at the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council website.

Tweet-tweet

It's official! I actually like Twitter. I sorta quietly starting Tweeting about 2 months ago at the suggestion of my friend, Alburn. I didn't make a big fuss out of it at first, mostly because I didn't get it. It just seemed silly to me. At some point it is silly, but it's surprising how much funny it is to blog in this micro format.

So, if you're interested, you can find me here. My tweets are set as secure so I have to allow you to follow me before you can read my tweets and follow me. I'm only following a few people and allowing people I know to follow me.

Also, if you're a Mac user, I highly recommend Twitterrific for keeping track of things. It's free as long as you don't mind a few ads, which aren't much of a bother at all. Otherwise it's $15.

Some sample language for Hillary Clinton

This morning as I was reading news feeds I came across a couple of interviews with West Virginia voters that made my blood run cold. Have a look at this...

And this...

After watching these interviews I decided I would offer Hillary Clinton some sample language for an upcoming speech in which she could demonstrate real leadership for our divided country.

Good morning, Kentucky! It's great to be with you. As you prepare to go to the polls next Tuesday let me thank you in advance for your support of my campaign.... We had a great day in West Virginia this past Tuesday and I again want to thank the good people of West Virginia for their support.

However, there were some troubling signs about that election. I've lost a little sleep over some of the things I've heard. So, as you prepare to vote on Tuesday - and I trust you will vote for me, Hillary Rodham Clinton - I want to ask you to consider WHY you are voting for me. And let me start by giving you a couple of unacceptable reasons to vote for me: because Barack Obama is black. That is an unacceptable reason to vote for me. Or because his middle name is "Hussein." Or because you heard that he is Muslim. These are all unacceptible reasons to vote for me in exactly the same way it would be unacceptible for you to vote for Sen. Obama simply because I'm a woman and you don't think a woman should be president because of sexist stereotypes.

Instead, vote for me because...[insert your policy talking points]

Friends, America needs to move past this politics of fear, racism, sexism and innuendo. [Insert reference to Obama's speech on race and quote your favorite part]

So, my Kentucky friends, when you go to the polls on Tuesday, vote Hillary Rodham Clinton. But do it because you believe in what I'm saying is best for America. Do it because you think I would be the best president. Don't do it because you're afraid of black people or because you think my friend, Barack, is a Muslim who is trying to infiltrate America. These fears are unfounded and precisely the thing that America doesn't need right now.

Thank you and God bless you!

Memorial Day peace service

On Memorial Day (May 26th) I'll be participating on the chancel in a prayer service at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, convened by the Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Initiative. If you're in the LA area I hope you can join us. All the details are in the press release below...

******************************

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Franci Levine-Grater, Coordinator
Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Initiative
francilg@myway.com
(626) 683-9400

Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Initiative To Convene Memorial Day Interfaith Prayer Service
To Be Filmed and Broadcast Throughout the Middle East

Los Angeles, CA – April 29, 2008 – The Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Initiative (AFPI) will convene an interfaith prayer service on Monday, May 26, 2008 at 11:00 a.m., Memorial Day, at All Saints Church located at 132 Euclid Avenue in Pasadena, California.  The prayer service, which will be filmed and repeatedly broadcast via satellite throughout the Middle East thanks to the generous donation of a supporter, is intended to illustrate to the people of the Middle East that Christian, Jewish and Muslim Americans are working for peace and understanding between nations and faiths.  The event also provides an opportunity for people from throughout Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley to join together with like-minded worshippers in the pursuit of peace on a day that commemorates the tragic losses of war.

“Not all Americans support the current war in Iraq; not all Americans support war in general.  We want the people living in the Middle East to be exposed to an alternate point of view – Christian, Jewish and Muslim-Americans of faith are working hard for peace.  Many of us believe that our faith demands we seek peace and justice for one another, and we are striving, together, to make our voices heard and to assert that peacemaking – as a concept and an action – is absolutely central to Islam, Judaism and Christianity,” says Rev. Dr. George Regas, long-time peace activist and co-founder of AFPI, Rector Emeritus of All Saints Church and Executive Director of the Regas Institute.

How long, O Lord?

God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
'How long will you jude unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?
Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.'

They had neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk around in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

Rise up, O God, judge the earth;
for all the nations belong to you!

~ Psalm 82:1-6, 8

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now...

~ Romans 8:22

8,500+ dead in 7.8 earthquake in China hundreds are believed to be school children (video, photos)

22 dead as tornado rips through Missouri, Oklahoma & Georgia

Death toll rises to 32,000 in Myanmar after last week's cyclone and now face more.

You can help!

Envision '08

There is a very exciting conference happening June 8-10 in Princeton, New Jersey called Envision: The Gospel, Politics and the Future. The focus will be Christian Engagement in the Public Square. Not unlike the theme of my post here and the upcoming Adventist Forums Conference (check it out here). Uncanny, huh?

I was going to post on this later, but I just realized that the early bird registration of rate of $99 ends today. It's an amazing deal because tomorrow it goes up to $249. My understanding is that a donor paid down the registration fee for the early registrants.

I wouldn't usually travel across the country for a conference where I'm not speaking, but this seems like something special to me. Also, my dear friend Samir Selmanovic of Faith House Manhattan, is co-presenting with Miroslav Volf on pluralism or something. Actually, I don't even care what they're presenting about. Whatever it is is worth hearing.

I'll say more about this in the future, but right now I'm just wondering if any of you are going to be there. If you are, leave a comment to that effect. I'd like to organize a 'meet up'.

Downtown Art Walk

The second Thursday of every month in Los Angeles is the Downtown Art Walk. It officially runs from noon to 9:00 pm, but my sense is that it doesn't really get started until after dark.

Yesterday was my first experience of the Art Walk and I didn't get to do much, but I did stop by the Crewest Gallery where there were a couple dozen graffiti artists painting on boards and canvases. Photos after the jump.

Missional Museums?

I have a new post at Allelon's Missional Journey blog called "Missional Museums?" As I mention in the article, I got this idea when a few of us from the Hollywood Church went to the Getty Center to hear our friend and artist, Man One, speak as part of a panel discussion called, "Art in L.A.: 1997-2007."

Here's an excerpt:

Last December, the Getty Center turned 10, which caused so small amount of reflection not only in the art community but in the architectural community as well. An article on the front page of the LA Times by the resident architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne, caught my attention. As I read his article I had this impression that I was listening to a conversation I am frequently a part of – that of the relevance of the church as an institution in our communities.

Hawthorne opens his December 2007 article, entitled, “Getty at 10: Still aloof, yet totally L.A.”* like this:

During much of the 1990s, as the Getty Center was rising on its Brentwood hilltop, a couple of stubborn questions dogged the hugely ambitious project: Would Richard Meier’s design ever have anything meaningful to do with, or say about, the city over which it loomed? Or would it exist as an expensive import, a vast collection of smooth enamel and rough travertine conjured up by a New York architect who looked west for commissions but east, to Europe and its Modernist past, for inspiration?

Questions worth asking, to be sure. Questions church leaders would do well to ask as they are “building” their churches. I hear a lot of talk in my denomination and others about building a great, relevant, healthy, significant churches. But often it seems like we do nothing more than build “expensive imports” inspired by our “Modernist past” that have little do with the cities in which they exist.

Read the rest here.

Los Angeles Metro is Tweeting

Los Angeles Metblog reports that the Metro is now tweeting

Remember way back on May 8th when I said that Metro should use Twitter to tell us what’s going on with stuff, like train delays and freeway accidents? They - or someone posing as they - just tweeted this morning at metrolosangeles!

I'm the sixth "follower". Oh, and by the way, I'm tweeting too. Follow me here.

A year ago today...

...Griffith Park was on fire and threatening the community of Los Feliz, including our apartment. Here's the picture I took 2:42 pm that day (10 minutes from the time of this typing, so literally one year ago).

Here are my posts from last year:
LIVE...from my driveway | May 8, 2007
We Survived! | May 9, 2007
What's Left | May 10, 2007

'It is political, obviously!'*

A quick glance at the category cloud on this blog (left column) will reveal that 'politics' and 'religion' are two topics that I write about frequently. Those who know me know that I believe that the deep practice of Christian faith is unavoidably 'political'. But this statement is far from self-evident within the church and society today, whether you're talking about the Seventh-day Adventist Church in particular or the Christian church more generally.

It is easy to throw around glib phrases like "politics and religion don't mix," but what does that really mean. Tony Campolo is credited with saying that mixing politics and religion is like mixing horse manure and ice cream. It doesn't hurt the manure very much but it sure messes up the ice cream. However, Campolo's life in Christian service reveals that he has engaged in many causes that would, by most measures, be considered 'political.'
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*This is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies, Nacho Libre.

Affordable Housing Victory in Los Angeles

Today I had the privilege of participating in something truly historic in our city. The Los Angeles City Council today enacted two ordinances aimed at curtailing gentrification in the city. These are complicated issues, but I feel that my role is to stand with the poor and the disenfranchised whenever I get the chance.

The main issue before City Council today was an ordinance that essentially protects "residential hotels" from being demolished or converted into luxury condos or other market rate housing. The folks at LA CAN (Los Angeles Community Action Network) have been leading the charge on this issue for something like 6 years. I spoke for a grand total of 1 minute before the City Council members who were mostly chatting with either other and their staff. Nevertheless, good organizing finally won the day and we have successfully protected over 18,700 affordable units from being lost forever.

Residential hotels in the City of Los Angeles are basically "housing of last resort." If these units are converted to market rate housing the people who currently live there will be homeless. They have nowhere else to go. By preserving these units we essentially prevent thousands of people from becoming homeless and insist that the working poor have a place in our city.

Read the Los Angeles Times report of this ordinance and the other ordinance referred to as an anti-mansionization ordinance. I'll let you figure out what that means.