Pictures of Peace and Happiness

Clouds from the backyard of our house. Beauty is everywhere if we are willing to see it.

My blog posts usually come from a place of intense emotions, there is nothing initially wrong about that. I was filled with a lot of emotions before break and it was very easy for me to get off center. Since coming back from break, I was able to recenter myself. I feel more at peace with everything and more content. I am generally more happy and want to share that happiness in my blog. Each picture below brings an important moment of peace and happiness to me. 

Mural I found across the street from Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Love is something we could all have more of, especially in a big city like Los Angeles. 

Any LA native will tell you that graffiti art decorates the streets of the city. As a fellow creative person, my eyes were naturally drawn to this type of artwork. Before I switched outreach teams, I would have to walk 30 minutes home everyday. I was not patient at waiting for the bus, especially when that meant I had to wait at Hollywood Boulevard after a full day of being downtown. Needless to say, that walk home everyday was not my favorite part of the day. I tried to make the walk more enjoyable by calling my family or playing Pokemon Go, but in the end it was the graffiti hunts that made my walks more enjoyable. (I started noticing the graffiti close to where I live because they were Pokemon stops.)

Near the end of last year and in the beginning of year, I started to venture off on more graffiti walks. When I go on graffiti hunts, I am observing places and not just passing by them. I have to pay extra attention to areas in order to find graffiti. In order to find cool graffiti, I have to pay attention to the details, look in places I normally wouldn't look at. I have to get out of my world and focus on the world around me. The reason I love taking pictures of graffiti so much is because it forces me not think about me. It forces me to be engaged in the world that I am not only observing, but the world I choose to be a part of. It can actually be very therapeutic engaging in an activity that pushes me to look at the world in a new lens. 

 The two pictures are of a lovely little drawing one of the kids made for me during neighborhood hours.

Without a doubt one of my favorite parts about being a dweller is working and playing with the kids during neighborhood hours. I briefly mentioned it before but I never went into detail about neighborhood hours. During my struggles last year neighborhood hours were sometimes the only thing that would help me make it through the week. I never knew how much I would enjoy working with the kids.

While working with the kids, I am not only learning so much about the kids in the neighborhood, but I am also learning so much about myself. A lot of changes have happened this year in the DOOR program that effects the neighborhood hours. I have a lot more responsibility during neighborhood hours, but despite the extra responsibility I still feel a sense of accomplishment and joy when community hours are done for the night.

One of my favorite activity to do with the kids is to draw with them and ask them questions about what they like and don't like. It is always interesting to hear their response and see what they are drawing. They will sometimes tell me a story behind the drawing. It is a special bonding time for me and the children. The other night I was drawing some hearts for one of the kids to take home. That kid in return drew me a drawing that is in the two pictures above. It made my day because I was not expecting it. It was such a sweet gesture. I was actually having a very very long week so by the time Thursday night came I just wanted the week to be over. However, receiving that gift Thursday night was without a doubt the highlight of my week.

 Sam and I had an outing Saturday to explore the city. We went to Olvera Street, a place I wanted to explore ever since I heard about it.

Olvera Street was settled in 1781, the earliest settlement of the LA area. There is still a lot of cultural influences from the earliest settlers, which means that there is a big Latino community around Olvera Street. While the street was the main part of Olvera street (hence the name), I felt like Olvera street included more than just a street. However, I felt like it was too small to be considered an ethnic neighborhood. There was a main courtyard, but then also different sections surrounding the courtyard. Even though Olvera Street has a lot of shopping friendly tourism, I was so much interested in the architecture and cultural and historic influences of the area. I told Sam that it was probably one of my favorite places of LA thus far. I great place to people watch in my opinion.

We passed by several buildings such as a cultural center, the picture on the left is of the outside of the cultural center. Sam and I tried to guess what the story behind the mural was trying to convey. We concluded that it was a monk delivering a message at some kind of festival. We also went inside La Plaza Iglesia Metodista (La Plaza United Methodist Church) which thankfully was open to the public. We found out that the church was one of the first churches established in the area. Originally it began as a Mexican Mission in 1899, sharing the Gospel with the people indigenous to the land. In 1926 the church building was complete. Even though the church had several historic artifacts, such as pictures and print displayed along the church entrance, the church is still opening its doors for those who wish to worship there on Sunday.

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always even to the end of the age."
                                  Mathew 28:19-20 (NLT)










One of the things I told Sam was that I wanted to explore this one spot across the street from the courtyard that looked like it was apart of the Olvera community. There was mini courtyard/plaza by a church cemetery. There were only a couple of vendors there so it was pretty empty. I was about to leave when Sam pointed out this biblical imagery. I'm so glad he did because this is the first time I ever saw a Latino Jesus. Growing up, I was never fond of the white European Jesus icon. I found it...boring and historically inaccurate. Jesus was from the middle east so he is going to have a darker appearance. I mean what Arabian man has blue eyes and pale skin? I always wished to see more historically accurate representations of Jesus. In college I learned that the reason why there are so many white icons of Jesus is because the artists has an artistic biased to illustrate Jesus in their cultural setting. For example, an artist from the black or African American community is more likely to interpret Jesus as being black than as being white, Arabian, etc. For me my culture is white Anglo Saxon, so I am more used to seeing white interpretations of Jesus.

There are several interpretations of Jesus based on the artists cultural and racial upbringing. I think this bias is only human nature. The bias becomes a problem when people are not open to other artistic interpretations of Jesus. Jesus means many things to many different people. For some Jesus could be black, asian, middle eastern, indigenous. Who am I to say one artistic interpretation of Jesus is the right one? This is why I love this image so much, it is a reminder that to some Jesus is Latino. There is nothing wrong or right with interpreting Jesus as Latino, it is how some people are able to connect to Jesus. Icons of Jesus are not about historical accuracy, they are about being able to connect to Jesus. There is not one right or wrong way to connect to Jesus. For example, for this artist they connected to Jesus by illustrating a Latino depiction of Jesus. In the next few months in LA, I am interested to see how other communities interpret and depict religious and spiritual concepts.