March 2025 • Around Town

• Early March Sunflower • 11022 Santa Monica Boulevard • Santa Monica Hummingbird at 1021 Pico Boulevard •

• In alphabetical order, this month I've pictured Gardena, Inglewood, Santa Monica, and West Los Angeles, and I've visited a few other neighborhoods.

• City Paradise / Urban Wilderness Lectionary for March covered Lent 1 through Lent 4.

• Wednesday 05 March
• two views of a gift sunflower

• Saturday 08 March
• a yellow rose and a balloon

• Sunday 16 March
• For the Second Sunday in Lent I visited St John's Gardena. Another circular time ranging from summer 2021 to Holy Week 2024 to now? Am I asking or am I saying?

• Tuesday 18 March
• Golden Poppies have been abloom since late February
• If you use google photos, you know they have some great user collage options, and they also make some for you in configurations you can't access. They captured these golden poppies in one of their best layouts.

• Thursday 20 March
• It's too long since I blogged blackberries. Prices have been right and they taste as good as ever.

• Sunday 23 March
• Nowruz, the 13-day long Persian New Year, along with some sidewalk art and the façade of 11022 Santa Monica Blvd I've pictured over the years. Lent 3 – Oculi – was another name for this day.

• Tuesday 25 March
• My first time at the monthly lunch at Mount Olive Santa Monica. I met some great people and loved the spaghetti dinner with desserts! I also got to introduce myself and offer the closing prayer. Win-win!

• Thursday 27 March
• At the Santa Monica Interfaith Council's Spring Luncheon I met some lovely and lively new to me people and gained some helpful spiritual insights. We met at the Pico Library in an outbuilding that had glass walls on three sides, and the lunch was full of my favorites.

• Almost eight years ago via the then newly completed Metro Expo line, I visited the Pico Branch Library with A and loved it then, too. So much seems to come back round. (Is that a "full circle?") July 2017 was the month of the (sixth and last) Reformation Roadtrip to San Luis Obispo that I referred to in our early February Five Minute Friday about noise.

• Pico Branch Library sign and trees, and a butterfly mural from further toward the ocean.

• Friday 28 March
• My fave Maple donuts again from the Asian-owned Amigo donut shop. This (obviously) is LA.

• Sunday 30 March
• West LA again for Lent 4. Google photos made this collage of my greenery and shrubbery pics.

Five Minute Friday :: Vacant

• Five Minute Friday :: Vacant LInkup

For a time in a previous life I managed rental properties. Though I actually was responsible for one 17-unit building (my header photo), I had a lot to do with the owner's other six or eight properties, particularly cleaning apartments when tenants left them vacant of human occupants. That experience plus seeing so many real estate signs announcing a vacant office building, retail space, or residential dwelling has me constantly connecting "vacant" and "vacancy" with bricks and mortar.

Vacant of human occupants is the usual expectation when you see an commercial or condo or other property up for rent, lease, or sale. But have you noticed many houses and apartments seem to be vacant or devoid of life? I mean life as in connecting to other people in your family or maybe housemates who rent or lease and stay there with you. Connecting emotionally, spiritually, and practically, too.

• How was your day?

• Do you want to make dinner together this week?

• I got avocados on sale! Let's create something good with them!

• I'd love your opinion on this client project I've been working on.

It often feels easier and for sure it's less threatening simply to co-exist in a space, pass each other coming and going, sit at opposite ends of the table without a word or even a smile or acknowledgement. It's easier to be a vacant presence than a lively, nurturing one.

A house, condo, apartment, or palace may physically contain a human or two or three, maybe a family of eight or ten, but is it vacant or is it occupied with people fully engaging each other's lives and supporting one another?

How about your family? Your roommates-housemates-flatmates? Even your workplace, whether it's a school, a retail, or other commercial space, do those walls, floors, and ceilings hold life and hope within them or is it vacant?

Think about it!

My top footer image is a house a couple streets over from the place I shared with a friend during my last year in Boston. I don't know who lived in the triple-decker I photographed, but I do know my friend and I had an easy-going, friendly, helpful relationship and that place definitely wasn't vacant.

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Engage

• Five Minute Friday :: Engage Linkup

Rules or guidelines for engagement. We often talk about contextualizing ministries— our engagement with individuals, groups, sometimes even entire communities or entities such as schools or hospitals. That means knowing some of their histories, their cultures, their desires, and their dreams. Because as sincere as our admiration may be for our histories, our cultures, our visions of them and the futures we might imagine for them, the people God sends us to serve need to be on board and own whatever we're doing. They need to engage with us as we engage with them.

If you've pastored a church or been a missionary – "sent person" – anywhere, you've probably spent time reading and watching videos about the place you're going to. Whenever possible meeting with and engaging with people who've lived there. If the primary language isn't the same as yours, you've learned basic vocabulary and something about the personality of the language. That's especially important if it's in a different language family than yours.

You study their culinary preferences and try not to assume what they enjoy at home is the same as a fusion version you've had at the fast food place on the corner. If a family in your ministry area hosts you as a guest, you do your best to fully engage the flavors, textures, colors, and deliciousness of what they offer you. You find out in advance the most suitable (literally!) attire to wear when you visit.

Maybe you know deep in your heart they need to learn some scripture, but you've found out the literacy rate is low, with some adults not able to read at all. So you start by engaging them with the alphabet, simple words and easy sentences before you go to an Easy Reader Bible or maybe just verses of scripture. You then explain what it's all about so they can engage with the scripture that in turn engages their lives and futures.

Do you put your own culture, language, and experience aside? No, because that's impossible and it would be unwise if it even were an option. You enter a congregation's or other community's life so engagement will be a two-way street, with no stop signs along the way—ideally only a few cautions to slow down and explain what's going on.

God has called and sent you there because their lives will be enhanced if they engage with the gifts you offer. When you engage with the gifts they offer, you'll also be changed. Contextualizing is a two-way street, an engagement that's a both ways treat for everyone.
# # #
• The flowers are so beautiful I had to use them twice! I believe Kate usually gets her images from Unsplash.

Five Minute Friday :: Journey

• Five Minute Friday :: Journey Linkup

It's about the journey, not the destination is a commonplace observation because it rings so true. I even have an Old Navy shirt that announces that reality! Do you think of it as a Journey or a Trip or an Adventure? After observing me for a while, a coworker told me I loved the thrill of the chase. Indeed I do. But is that a chase or is it a pursuit? (Check out last week's Five Minute Friday)! Is a chase or a pursuit an intrinsic part of the journey or is it an added after market component?

Any of us could write or talk forever about their journeys so far and their hopes for the days and moths to come. But right now the church is in the season of Lent.

As we prepare for Easter during this forty day long season, many slow down, become more intentional about study and service, possibly take on a meaningful project or activity and often relinquish a sensual favorite such as meat, wine, or desserts.

In Luke's gospel, the journey to Jerusalem and to the cross is particularly focused and incessant. Jesus first sets his face toward Jerusalem in Luke 9:51. Toward Jerusalem—the cross and the empty grave. Does knowing Jesus' persistence working through his calling and destiny help your Lenten considerations as we anticipate death, resurrection, and the possibility of a new creation?


• About my header picture: When we enjoy a recipe from a different culture or country, when we have tea, coffee, fruit, or condiments that actually originated elsewhere, is that a way of taking a journey, making a trip? As we receive a literal taste of Greece, a hint of the Caribbean, a portion of Southern Soul, it definitely is! The Koreatown Los Angeles coffee and tea stop with its international customers and international bill of fare felt perfect for today's topic.

• I've piggybacked parts of this from my scripture blog for this week: Lent 2 :: Reminiscere

# # #

Ocean Swim

August Three

August Two

August One

Hibiscus Two

Hibiscus One

October

Pomegranate

Summer Apples

California Apples