Being a Tourist at Home

Traveling is an incredible gift and if you are given that gift I hope you'll cherish it, learn from it and with all that you gain, I hope you'll give back to others. But every place has a story, a history, a culture, a language, a people, even the place you call home. It's been my experience that we often miss out on what is right in front of us. We take for granted the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people, that home is made of. Sometimes I think we'd find what we're looking for if we would just look up...

I have wanted to explore more of Los Angeles for a long time but never really had the time or energy to do it. This season has been great for travel and exploring new places but it's also been great for slowing down to see the beauty that's right in front of me. Here are a few of my favorites from my day in LA, which by the way was VERY rainy, a great surprise to this sundress and sandal wearing girl, good thing I don't mind getting wet! 

One of the really awesome things about the area surrounding Union Station is that pretty much everything is free (except the parking!) including The Chinese American Museum, Pico House, La Plaza and Olvera Street... you should go there!!!

This mural depicts something important and I can't remember what... 

(insert shameful emoji face here)

The Pico House

Olvera Street

I love this hall in Union Station, apparently you can rent it out for events, that would be so rad!

These mural painting people love LA too :) 

You will see Junipero Serra all over the place when you read about the history of California, in the background of this photo is the beautiful Union Station. 

What do you love about your hometown? Is there someplace you have yet to visit there?

 I hope you get to go soon! 

I Just Need Some Space Right Now...

I have been wrestling for a good portion of my walk with God with some fairly big issues. It has been exhausting, sometimes I have felt defeated and wanted to walk away completely. I find that there tend to be two camps of believers, make that three (even if I'm the only one who occupies that third camp); those who strongly believe one way and those who strongly believe the opposite of whatever the others believe. I am not a huge fan of dogmatic beliefs, ok, I'm not a fan at all. In some ways I admire the ability of those other two camps to have and hold such firm beliefs but mostly I just feel defeated by them, I feel ostracized by them, I feel alone in my own little camp.


There are some really hard questions when it comes to faith, especially when it comes to how we live out our faith in our present culture.
I think we have answers to a lot of things but I think those answers are complex and layered and rarely as simple as a "vote ___" on whatever the current issue is. The more these issues surface the more I find myself desiring space to seek out answers. Sometimes I feel crowded in by both sides of an issue, each sure that they are right, each sure that if I am really a Christian I will agree with them. And I do, I agree with both of them. I would love to see the Christian community be a safe place to ask questions. I would love to feel safe telling my "conservative" friends that I think women should be given more leadership and teaching opportunities or that I think legalizing gay marriage was the right thing to do. And I would love to be able to tell my "liberal" friends that I think Jesus IS the only way and life apart from him will certainly feel like hell whether here on earth or in life beyond this earth. And I would like to not actually be sure of any of those things but be able to talk them out and sit in uncertainty without being told I'm in sin or rebelling or I can't possibly really love people or God if I believe x, y or z.

If I sound frustrated, it's because I am. Frustrated and exhausted. Like so many sad and cliched break ups that have gone before I'm here to say "I just need some space right now". Not space from Jesus, where could I go from his spirit? But space with Jesus, to wrestle out some hard questions and find his heart in the midst of all this chaos.

To those who may find themselves wrestling with some of the same things I hope you find a safe space to ask those questions. I hope I will be one of those safe people that others can come to. I KNOW that Jesus is safe and wants to sit with you in that space. And to those who have graciously given me space, thank you, it means more to me than you know. 

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand." Henri Nouwen

ps. I'm not a fan of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" as they are used in our current culture, hence the quotation marks when I use them. I would love to change their meaning but I think I'll save that task for another day...