July 2026

If you've been following this blog or my days in general, you probably know my current between lives work situation gives me one day off each week, so I do my best to make Tuesdays interesting and momentous with an activity like a museum visit. Here's the rundown for July.


• Tuesday 07 July

This didn't count as momentous, but I enjoyed hanging out at the Century City Mall. In an unusual configuration, you enter from the Santa Monica Boulevard sidewalk (there's also an attached parkade), and once you're inside the mall two floors of shops, department stores, and eateries open up.

Unlike many shopping centers, this one is alive, well, and a cool place to chill. It's larger and not as upscale as The Grove, and it's slightly less plebeian than shopping centers like Culver City that's also a Westfield. The LA Westside neighborhood of Century City claims pride of place in between the municipality of Beverly Hills and the Westwood hood where UCLA resides.

Because there was a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf I had to have a hazelnut frappe; did you know CB&TL does hazelnut much better than anywhere else?

With Subway's current meal of the day rotation featuring Tuna on Tuesdays, you know what I got.


• Tuesday14 July

• Village Square at LACMA.


• Tuesday 21 July

• Getty Center again because they had some new exhibits I intended to view, but instead of visiting them I sat around various spots inside and out and took some pictures.


• Tuesday 28 July

Again this time, I didn't write a separate blog for the last Tuesday of the month. I went back to the Getty and into the Research Institute building where I visited Lost, Found, Returned about the provenance of a particular drawing and Stendahl's World—Marketing Ancient Mexico and Modern Art in Los Angeles. I'd seen the word "provenance" before, but I didn't know the meaning. Provenance is where something originates (pro+venire=comes from), along with its journey if it has one beyond place of birth. In many ways tracing provenance is like tracking the title trail for a real property—especially legal aspects of both.

I don't link to the exhibitions on museum websites because they'll be gone as soon as the art in question is gone, but I strongly encourage you to check out Earl L. Stendahl's acquisitions, exhibitions, and sales, particularly when he got into Mesoamerican art and artifacts that became a trend and a status symbol. Everything wasn't genuine, and he left devastation behind at the excavation sites.

Wikipedia says, "He sold Mexican and Central American antiquities that were often stolen, looted, or assembled from disparate fragments. Often sold to Hollywood collectors, to museums, and even department stores." To think it happened during the century we just left!

Five Minute Friday :: Afford

• Five Minute Friday :: Afford Linkup

It feels as if everyone except the ultra-affluent is mired in an affordability crisis. Cities like New York, London, and San Francisco aside, who can afford housing, transportation, groceries, almost anywhere? Can anyone afford an out of town vacation? To quit their job and take time to find another that in the long run will be a better fit and pay more? Can you afford to start your own business? What kind of entertainment can you afford?

With more and more conventional goods becoming luxuries, what now?

Most of us who write to these prompts knew life in the previous century. Even if we started using technology early on, most Five Minute Friday writers aren't digital natives. Can you sense where I'm headed? Maybe you're already there?!

Step back a couple of decades to a backyard garden. Rent a community garden plot. Check out the farmer's market or a sidewalk vendor. Their fare may be more affordable, it's probably fresher, and you can benefit the nearby economy. Besides, can you really afford to pay Big Ag and all the supply chain intermediaries?

Step back from streaming and try hard to remember days of board games and analog puzzles together. Preparing dinner together. How's your memory? Try to recapture some of the free or inexpensive entertainment that probably included conversation and a major bonus of getting to know each other better.

What shape does your everyday take? Can you afford your current arrangement? It would be surprising to find someone who hasn't considered those concerns.

Whatever the economy does, laying the foundation of the days, the weeks, the future hopes, how about following the admonition of scripture to…

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32

Can you afford forgiveness? How can we not afford to forgive? Please remember: it's aways possible to forgive, yet sometimes it's impossible and/or unwise to reconcile.

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Five Minute Friday :: Phase

• Five Minute Friday :: Phase Linkup

We go through short phases and longer ones. Kate wrote about being a little kid as a phase in their lives and in a parent's life. Sometimes we decide it's time to phase out a certain behavior or activity. Sometimes we don't know we're in a particular phase until it's over. Does something else take its place? Sometimes. Does its exit leave an empty space? Sometimes. But every time-limited aspect of life isn't necessarily a phase, is it?

Today I'm thinking about the years I spent in the Intermountain West. I lived along the Wasatch front, but with Utah being such a beautiful state, I took day trips and half-day excursions to other locations. But I regret that I took next to zero photographs. How could that be? I was going through a phase of grief and loss but without anyone to admit it to, lacking someone else to acknowledge it, taking pictures didn't even occur to me.

And the times I spent in Boston. Although I was born in the deep south, I grew up in Boston in a family that was Midwestern and Southern. That first phase was long, with friends, schools, many activities, and plans for a future of service and participation.

My second Boston-Cambridge sojourn featured another phase of professional school—some would call it "grad school," but I reserve that expression for high-end academic programs and not so much for something like an MSW, MDiv or others with practical career content, even though they all include some heavy-duty academics.

My third Massachusetts layover was Boston and Cape Cod. Someday I might even write about that important phase.

All of those are long phases defined by a particular geography, and inside that longitude and latitude, defined by what I did and by what happened to me.

What kinds and lengths of phases has your life had?

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Getty Tuesday

This past Tuesday was the Getty Center again because they'd opened new exhibitions since my last time there. Although I did go to the Getty, I didn't visit any galleries. I had a pleasant time just being in those beautiful surroundings. Here are google photos collages of some of the pictures I took. Group one and group three have the same view in the same position, but that's fine because it's a really good shot. Since I was slow getting going, I had Tuna Tuesday lunch beforehand at the Subway on Westwood Blvd near Wilshire Blvd.

Most weekends I wonder what I'll do on my day off. I already know what I'll do on July 28th: back to the Getty and into the galleries I missed this past Tuesday.

Five Minute Friday :: Route

Downtown Los Angeles in May
• Five Minute Friday :: Route Linkup

In my footer pics you can see one of my takes on the sign at the very end of Route 66 at the Santa Monica Pier. My church sits along Route 66; second pic is the sign on the building accented with a couple of cables. It's always a joy when the sun comes up on the Santa Monica Boulevard along Route 66 and we're there to gather around Word and Sacrament. Again. And next week, too.

What can I say about a route, a path, a road? The road home, or the road to the cross? The route that intersects with another every time I venture east or west or almost anywhere?

I'm writing about a route and routes on Thursday 16 July. It's the middle day of July, it's this blog's twenty-fourth blogoversary, and I'm still working through an anniversary post that I'll pre-date when I finish.

My header provides a hint of what my intended route has been all along. Only a hint, because my passion for cities and The City includes downtown with its skyscrapers, mid-city, the CBD, the edges, the margins, the central city, and the not yet imagined.

How does a person discern their path or route? Gifts, passions, opportunities. Circumstances, too, as a subset of opportunities. My chosen route felt so logical. The way opportunities and circumstances came together, I knew God was choosing the city for me, and awaiting my response and participation. What happened?

Did an alternate route slowly or suddenly appear? No. Did I uncover an old interest and try to revive it? No. Did I change my mind about cities and The City and decide to sit things out? No.

Or did the city start happening and then continue with sometimes clear, sometimes imperceptible twists, turns, detours, and dead ends? Not that I've noticed. Did I take a different route home? No. I didn't and I haven't yet.

What personality and path has your route or routes taken?

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LACMA :: Village Square

Originally I'd planned to explore more of the new David Geffen Galleries for the second Tuesday in July, but memories of my first and only time there in April overwhelmed me. I hadn't been able to figure out or appreciate the layout and arrangement and this week I didn't have enough energy to try again.

There were exhibits in the Resnick Pavilion I hadn't really seen, so this time I focused on Village Square that opened February 22 and closes July 19. The description won't always be on the LACMA website; here's what it's about:

"Village Square brings together nearly 50 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the Henry and Rose Pearlman Collection in a celebration of art and community. The exhibition showcases expressive landscapes and striking portraits by Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Modigliani, Sisley, Soutine, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. Many of these bold, dynamic works grew out of close friendships among artists, and on occasion with Henry Pearlman himself. Village Square honors the Pearlmans' belief in art's power to create shared experiences and foster connections.

"This is the final opportunity to see the collection before it is gifted to museums across the country; six important works will remain at LACMA, strengthening its modern and impressionist holdings.

"This exhibition was co-organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum."

• Paul Cézanne, Cistern in the Park of Chateau Noir, c. 1900

• Chaim Soutine, Path to the Fountain, c.1920

• Chaim Soutine, Steeple of Saint-Pierre at Céret, c.1922

• Paul Cézanne, Mount Sainte-Victoire, c. 1904-06

• Paul Cézanne, Provençal Manor, c.1885

• PIerre-August Renoir, Nude in a Landscape, c.1887

• Camille Pissarro, Still Life: Apples and Pears in a Round Basket, 1872

• Paul Cézanne, Route to Le Tholonet, 1900-1904

• Paul Cézanne, House in Provence, c. 1890-94

• Maurice Utrillo, The White House c. 1937

• Oskar Kokoschka, Henry Pearlman, 1948

• Alfred Sisley, River View, 1889

Five Minute Friday :: Short

Owe no one anything, except to love one another,
for any one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:8
• Five Minute Friday :: Short Linkup

Buy short; sell long. Today I'm short on cash. Again. The short end of the deal.

Everyday.

Why do so many aspects of life keep coming up short? Not enough legal tender. Not enough human tenderness. The larder and the pantry lack. No rain for forty days and forty nights. Then nothing but rain with no sun for forty days and…

Knowing all that to be the case, what can we say about living in grace?

Maybe especially when we study the apostle Paul's theology, we contrast law and gospel.

Scripture reveals a world where we don't come up short, but one filled with abundance. The Hebrew scriptures particularly emphasize God's way as one of shalom, a peace that's far more than the absence of conflict. Shalom is wholeness, justice, goodness, bounty, and commonwealth. When we love one another we create shalom for the long run.

Shalom is integrity and honesty with each other. Shalom is the gospel lived out wherever we go. Shalom never runs short; it's the fullness of everything we need.

In the Acts of the Apostles we learn the newly birthed church born of Spirit, water, and Word, made sure everyone had enough, no one came up short on essentials. What can we say about living in grace?

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for any one who loves another has fulfilled the law." Romans 13:8

"Happy are the Shalom-makers, for they will be called children of heaven." Matthew 5:9

They'll be called children of heaven because when they practice shalom, no one comes up short. Everyone has enough. That is good news. That's gospel!

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