San Fran & Silence

...But first, an Easter Egg Hunt (from the Friday before Urban Compass’s spring break!) 

Look closely…the kids’ facial expressions are hilarious. Also in the picture are some of our volunteers from LMU.

Friday night after work we loaded up Barney and drove to San Jose, where we crashed with the lovely ladies of Casa Pedro in Santa Clara. On Saturday, we took off to explore San Francisco. We drove around and hit many of the hot spots, the funkiest of which were Haight-Ashbury & The Castro, and the yummiest of which was Ghirardelli Square. Here’s a pic of DK, San Fran style!

A fine looking bunch in front of the Golden Gate Bridge!

 

On Sunday, after a delicious breakfast with Andrew, our program coordinator, we hit the road for Applegate, CA…home of the Our Lady of the Oaks Jesuit Retreat Center. From Sunday through Wednesday we were on our Silent Retreat.  The retreat was awesome; there was a little bit of structure (meals, group prayer services), but was generally free time and peace and quiet. We were each matched with spiritual directors whom we met with each day. Mine was great – he offered some great suggestions on ways to pray and scripture passages to guide my reflection.

  

One of the most creative suggestions he had for me was inspired by Saved by the Bell.  Remember how Zach used to do those “time outs” where everything would freeze and he’d talk to the camera (click here for a reminder)? Well my SD suggested using that approach with prayer. It works like this: imagine a situation that you find yourself in that drives you nuts. Play through it in your head, then freeze, right when you get the most aggravated. While everything and everyone else in the scene is frozen, imagine God walks in and you can talk to Him about it. (What the HECK is going on here, God? How should I react?)  Pray about it, then unfreeze and continue the scene.  Whatever comes in prayer might be helpful when the situation occurs in real life! This might sound bananas, but it’s kind of fun to try.

Overall, I really enjoyed the retreat.  It was really nice to have time to myself to read, pray, hike, and just chill, without feeling like I was missing out on stuff going on at work or with my community. I appreciated the calm and the alone time – neither of which I have a whole lot of in LA. The hardest part of being quiet was not being able to talk to people about how good the food was! The other hard part for me was going almost 3 days without really laughing.  I had to stifle some giggles as silly things or thoughts so as not to disrupt others’ silence!  Also,  the timing was great because I didn’t need to take off any work and didn’t have to rush back to the chaos of my kids today.  

Happy (early) Easter to you all!

Really Nice People

I’ve been really hard on Los Angeles as a city, and I would like to make an apology. Many times I’ve said that I couldn’t imagine living here post-JVC or that I don’t like the obsession with image and celebrities or that the air is gross and the transportation system stinks and there is too big of a gap between rich and poor.  Maybe these things are true, but I’ve realized that I like LA a lot more than I let on. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, I probably won’t come back to live here, but I do want to share what I love about the city…besides the weather.

Exploring:

The list of neighborhoods yet to explore seems to be endless. From East LA to the Westside, from Downtown to Long Beach, and everywhere in between, there’s always another neighborhood we haven’t ventured into with local hotspots. I can’t even imagine the number of times we’ve said “Oh, we should come back here!” about a place or neighborhood because it was so cool. Barney, our beloved 4Runner, is perhaps the biggest blessing of all because he’s allowed us to get to all these cool places.  The people-watching, shopping, sight-seeing, and free/fun/outdoor things to do are endless!

Urban Planning:

Everyone complains about LA traffic. Everyone. However – and I’m no expert in this – I think the city of Los Angeles is a good example of Urban Planning. The streets are numbered sensibly, the freeways (as congested as they may be) are in the most convenient places, and the streets form a grid that makes navigation (generally) a breeze. With a decent sense of direction and acquaintance with the main veins of the city, it’s easy to take local roads to avoid traffic.  Things are where you need them to be – gas stations, Subway, malls, grocery stores, parks, post offices, etc.

But most importantly, People:

The people in MY LA are not the people you see on TV. They don’t live in Beverly Hills or even downtown. They live in South Central or work in Watts or are Jesuit Volunteers.  They work at the grocery store, library, post office, and craft store where I go every week.  They are NICE people, real people. They are hard workers and people who want to help others.  This morning I was at the Compton Food4Less that I frequent, where every single manager say hello, every cashier has been nothing but friendly, and people let me cut in line if I have fewer items than they do.  People are nice to me, and I’m the one who clearly doesn’t belong in their supermarket. I’m the tall really young white girl in the professional clothes buying granola bars and juice.  It doesn’t stop there – the woman at the library, the attendants at the post office, the managers at the other food store I go to, the cashier at Michaels, our neighbors. People are just plain nice. They aren’t caught up in Hollywood or their workout routines or the latest celeb sightings of the super hip cafes where you’re sure to see someone famous.  Sure, their hair might be streaked red to show their gang affiliation. But that doesn’t stop them from treating me – and the people in front of me and behind me in line – with dignity. 

I like LA. I might not want to live here forever, but that’s okay.  It is a wonderful place to do JVC and I am grateful to feel at home in the many parts of South Central that have shaped my time here.

Greetings! I want to share some links to the things I have been up to this week.

For community night, we went to a small theater in downtown Culver City to see Of God's and Men, a French film about Trapist monks in an Algerian village under threat by Muslim extremists. The film was awesome, and highlighted a beautiful relationship and sense of understanding between the Catholic monks and the Muslim villagers. I highly recommend it!

Yesterday, Emily (of casa JD) and I went to a conference titled  Urban Creative Solutions: From LA to the Bay at Otis College. The symposium was put together by the Integrated Learning department at Otis, an art and design school on the west side.  The Integrated Learning has worked closely with Homeboy Industries and is connected with people and organizations in San Francisco who work for violence prevention. Theresa we invited to speak about Urban Compass and the prevention side of gang violence and involvement for our students. It was a really cool day!



Finally, some pictures from Wednesday night, when Casa Ita Ford got revenge on the other houses in LA for the stealthy removal of their bulletin boards last month...

Casa DK, toilet papered. What you can't see: the various creepy pieces of artwork and halloween costume props scattered all over the lawn. Note the pyramid of chili beans in front of the gate...

They forked "ITA" in the grass.

The best part? Now I can add, "My house has been TP'd by a Jesuit" to the list of fun facts about myself acquired in the past calendar year.  The list of interesting facts is short, but the other really good one is "I have been to Lil John's birthday party." YEAH!

Grand Canyon

Here are a few pictures from this past weekend at the Grand Canyon! We camped for two nights on the south rim and had a great time.

We drove about 8 hours each way in Good Ol' Barney.
Barney now has over 213,000 miles on him!

Cara and John were the other Casa DK reps.
Julie and Zach were on De Colores, the trip to Tijuana with LMU.

On Saturday we hiked for a bit. This is the view from the "Oooh Aaah"
point (so labeled on the trail map!)

The whole JV crew, minute John and Chris who were busy
hiking to the bottom and back. No big deal, just 13 miles.

Oh, so grand!

Sunset over the Southwest rim on Saturday.