Politics
I take a look at my Outlook tasks for today, I see the weekly recurring “post on Hunsblog” and realize that in spite of the craziness and busyness of things, it is actually helpful (for myself at least) to pause and write on my blog. And with that reminder, I dutifully start up iTunes, select the shuffle command and hit go…..
Great…wonderful….not actually music this time, but a chapter from an audiobook. Really? An audiobook? Since when did you listen to audiobooks? Well, since last spring when I did a solo drive from Portland, OR to Los Angeles, CA in one day. Trust me, there’s not much in terms of radio in Northern California (although that particular lack is more than made up for in beautiful scenery).
Anyway, iTunes selected for me a chapter of the one audiobook I own, a book entitled Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. Subtitled {Nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality}, Blue Like Jazz reads as a memoir that one can almost step-”into”. Honestly, I’m not much into books that deal with Christian spirituality (I often find them shallow and hard to connect with, although I’m a sucker for folks like C.S. Lewis and Stanley Hauerwas), but this book absolutely floored me. Here’s the back-story (for anyone who cares):
It was January of 2005, and I had just returned to Los Angeles from Christmas vacation at home in upstate New York. I was not quite at the halfway mark of my first year of teaching at what was formerly known as Mt. Vernon Middle School. Suffice it to say, I was not necessarily in the best of spirits. I was battling the struggles of a first-year teacher while simultaneous trying to find my niche in the shadowy urban sprawl of Los Angeles. Yes, I had many friends and acquaintances through my connections and work with Teach for America, but had yet to find a real community to connect to. Previous efforts during the fall had thus far proved unsuccessful. The wonderful experience I had at my Presbyterian church in Wheaton, unfortunately did not necessarily imply a similar connection with the Presbyterians of Los Angeles (or, as my roommate likes to call them, “the frozen chosen“).
Anyway, frustrated at my lack of connection thus far, I was honestly pretty weighed down. One day after returning back to L.A. I found myself haplessly wandering through my local Borders bookstore (one of my current financial and time drains) and randomly came across this book called Blue Like Jazz which I seemed to have remembered a good friend (who had also recently relocated from to L.A. from Wheaton) recommending to me. I glanced at the book, picked it up, read a few lines from the first chapter and was instantly hooked.
3 days later, having polished off about 250 pages, I felt a renewed sense of hope and desire to find connection and community within L.A., very similar to the kind that Miller describes as occurring in his community in Portland, OR. Later that week, I randomly stumbled across an article in the L.A. Times about this church that had the strange practice of meeting downtown in a nightclub. Curious, I ventured alone to Mosaic that week and have consistently been back since.
Whew….catch my breath after that long post. I hadn’t planned on writing that much, but when you get on a roll, you get on a roll. At least it kept me from blogging about all the fun departmental politics that are currently happening within school. Fun. Politics.
Themocracy
Call back Joe on 5/20/08 as part of your to do list? A-ha! Busted! ;-) just kidding