Porch Story :: June 2019

• My end of the month summary blog for June 2019 covers less than a week, but those five days were good ones. Sometimes I sit on my actual porch, at other times it's a virtual veranda in a different time and clime, yet everywhere I'm still doing whatever I can to imagine my next move. Months became years became decades, and now?

• And now? I spent the last week of June helping with summer day camp in the San Fernando Valley. Besides mostly doing line chef-type dicing, slicing, chopping, and mincing in the kitchen, I enjoyed good conversations and glorious gardens. Snacks were yummy—one day we even had ice cream cones with our choice among five or six flavors of award-winning Thrifty Ice Cream! Dinner menus were varied and well-prepared. As usual, I've tried to be selective about the pictures I blog, so I chose color-filled ones to represent the venue well.



• With Day Camp sessions from 3 to 9, on Tuesday I got there just as all volunteer, LA-based The Rescue Train wrapped up a day of feline Trap-Neuter-Release, partly sponsored by the church that sponsored the onsite day camp. I have the impression Feral Fix LA also welcomed household pets who needed neutering.

World Oceans Day 2019

World Water Day mostly emphasizes fresh waterways; World Oceans Day concentrates on waters that contain easily measurable saline. Since it's a day of celebration and collaboration leading to a better future for oceans and for all creation, this year's WOD hashtag is a perfect #TogetherWeCan!

For 2011 I wrote about some of the numerous ocean bays that have been in my life. I currently reside in the South Bay of the placid Pacific Ocean, so I could add to my bay chronicle. But won't.

Creating a word panorama as I did for 2016 seemed a repeatable choice. Given WOD's focus on salty water, why not begin with the poignant fact whether it's ocean, tears, or sweat, salt water heals? I'm one of those many many individuals who don't necessarily go to the beach, stroll along the sand, even drive up or down the shore very often, but who really really want to know the ocean is there.

A light breeze –  fog rolling in from the ocean or out to the sea – shells for memories – shells for décor – seagrass in driftwood—pluses of a nearby ocean. With oceans and rivers gifting us as planet earth's lungs and with half the oxygen our human lungs breathe, we wouldn't be "here" if oceans weren't there.

This year's panorama includes memories of jogs alongside Pacific Beach North, along La Jolla Shores what feels like eons ago. Of early evening potluck picnics at La Jolla Cove while getting acquainted with new friends. If not for oceans, music lovers wouldn't have Bruce Hornsby's Eastern Shore of the Atlantic musical fusion sound (no, not a double meaning this time). That observation reveals my latest YT listens, but to continue, there wouldn't be any Atlantic, Caribbean (recently I've also been loving a lot of Steve Winwood and his predecessor bands), Pacific, or any music at all. Anywhere.

So for the sake of the music, the breezes, the picnics, jogs, the strolls and the shoreside drives, the lives of creatures who make seashells and seagrass their homes—for the sake of memories because no more oceans? No new memories. Let's all love the oceans by doing everything possible to redeem them, because #TogetherWeCan.

Amen? I hope so!

Porch Stories :: May & Spring 2019

• March 2019 in current city

• Observing April—double meaning

May 2019

• Porch Story Time! I'm linking to Porch Story originator and host Kristin's Highlights for the month of May

• As always when each meteorological season concludes to make room for the next, I'm participating in Emily P Freeman's Learned This Season linkup



• A new crop of peaches and nectarines, another seasonal splash of bright lemons and oranges, fresh crunchy apples (abundant veggies, too) at the Friday Farmer's Market, and there's an easy model to follow for the upcoming months of summer. Trust me, I have some plans and even more expectations for summer!




• Pick Pico Neighborhood Street Fair

• For the first time ever, my church participated in the Pick Pico Neighborhood Fair. Wisely they scheduled the city block event for only a few Sunday hours, which increased interest and attendance.



• Signboards at the entrance



• A perspective of our church table—I also designed a sign with QR code to direct people to the church Facebook page



• The daughter of one of our leaders who's one of our best Sunday Brunch chefs owns Atticus ice cream and pie shop




• I never can resist taking pictures of cacti and succulents



• Tent City: fairgrounds over-view

• Game Changers, History Makers



• A friend had extra tickets to the end of school year gala program by the California Dance Institute. Several schools participated with live band, lively dancing, spell-binding lighting, adding up to one of the dozen best ever performances of any kind I've ever experienced. Visit their website for more information and inspiration!

• The Sixth Sunday of Easter



• Easter is Fifty Days, a week of weeks! For the thirty-sixth day, Sixth Sunday a stack of worship folders featuring my Tree of Life art on the cover

Observing April 2019

• April in southern California predictably brings warmer weather, longer days, hints of new life, and (very often) Holy Week and Easter Day. If you used to visit this blog on a regular basis, you may remember I used to write a lot of more or less formal, structured theology—on a regular basis. As I've been doing for the past couple of years, this end-of-month summary is a pictorial chronicle, yet isn't all creation, aren't all activities basically theological?



• First Moonflower of 2019



• Green Team / Farmer's Market / Pacific Ocean

• After Green Team met again in Glendale (sorry no pictures again this time because the formerly on-campus school's relocation means no more colorful bulletin board and other décor), friend J and I visited the Hermosa Beach Farmer's Market that gathers on Fridays.




• Pacific Ocean

• The literally pacific and placid west coastal Pacific Ocean offers an extreme contrast to the east coastal Atlantic Ocean, but either one is best of the best for a short stroll or a long saunter on the sand!



• Union Station

• Though A and I met up there for a formal transaction, the opportunity to chill around Union Station is a major perq of Current City that's a port of call, a port of entry, a cultural crossroads. What's better than a train to illustrate our (yours, mine, almost everyone's) open-ended futures? Well... there's always LAX along with at least a dozen other international and general aviation airports, then we have the seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach—yes, but trains carry a mystique no other transportation mode can match.




• Earth Day in Watts

• One month before Earth Day – 22 March – World Water Day reminded us Water Is Life. This year the day after Easter Sunday marked the 49^th celebration of all that's good, all that needs healing about Gaia. I ventured over to the LA neighborhood of Watts for an Earth Day event sponsored by the Sierra Club.



• Lent 6

• Originally we canceled Sunday School for Palm / Passion Sunday because of anticipated extra activity on campus, but I decided to meet anyway because I knew I'd enjoy reviewing and assembling liturgical and theological observations about Palm/Passion Sunday through the Three Day Triduum that accompany my quadrivium of related graphics.

• Maundy Thursday – Good Friday



• Holy Saturday – Easter Vigil / Sunrise / Morning / Evening



• Easter Flower Actuals



• Earth Day Monday in Town

Earth Day 2019 :: Protect Our Species

March 2019 :: Porch Story

• Looking outward, contemplating inward from porches around town during the month of March. Porch Stories host Kristin wrote about her month of March, as well.



• A couple of Tuesdays ago, LA Metro Conference gathered for Spring Assembly with reps from most of the 21 congregations in this conference – excellent food, excellent conversation, excellent ideas. I even got to take a very large serving of homemade spaghetti and four pieces of chicken home with me! God is good, all the time. As one of my fave Cornel West quotes reminds everyone, "We are people of hope. Why do we party on Friday nights? Why do we go to church on Sundays?" Because we are people of hope who think we know the rest of the story, but resurrection from death still always surprises us.



• On 22 March every single year (one month before Earth Day), United Nations World Water Day reminds us Water Is LIfe. Again we celebrated World Water Day 2019 by our local Los Angeles River; for the third year in a row, the Green Faith Team planned and sponsored the event that included music by the Water Is Sacred band and a yummy lunch prepared by one of the not far away churches. You can enjoy more of my pictures on this World Water Day 2019 blog post. By the way, how about getting baptized in your local river and then claiming ongoing care and stewardship of that river and its watersheds?



• Because the Los Angeles marathon routed past the church building, we scheduled worship for Saturday evening. I got to accompany Holden Evening Prayer on the piano—such a magical setting of vespers!





• Instead of after-worship Sunday brunch, we had a yummy sandwiches and salad supper and the first ever dessert bake-off that attracted the biblical number of seven entries. Here's the traveling trophy:



• A blissful Sunday outing to nearby Madrona Marsh yielded peace and pictures