Sackcloth and Ashes

I always thought wearing sackcloth and ashes seemed like an odd way to express mourning and sadness. This biblical practice was a physical expression of anguish and grief over sin and a way of visibly demonstrating repentance. If anyone tried to do that in Los Angeles today, they would probably find themselves quickly arrested or written off as crazy. Yet, I do wish we had a modern equivalent because we as a city need an old testament prophet to call us to repentance. Would Los Angeles listen? Would we turn from our evil ways?

The incident that sparked this post happened on the Sunday before Labor Day in Westlake a few miles from where I live. On Tuesday, I ran into a friend near USC who told me about a fatal shooting at a bus stop near her house by the police. Manuel Jamines was a Guatemalan immigrant who appeared to be drunk and threatened a few people with a knife. According to some reports, he didn't speak Spanish or English. An officer opened fire and killed him with two shots in the head. Immediately the area around McArthur Park erupted in pent-up anger against the police for a seemingly senseless murder when non-lethal force could have been used. For three nights in a row, people filled the streets, blocked traffic, rolled dumpsters down the hill and the news media eagerly covered all the chaos in breathless detail.

Late on Tuesday, when I gave my friend a ride home from USC, we started seeing crowds of people gathering in the streets. People crossed in front of my car without seeming to care whether I stopped and when I tried to turn left, someone deliberately placed an orange cone in front of my car and stared at me. They gestured for me to turn around and go back. They finally moved when my friend rolled down her window and said she just wanted to go home. She lives across the street from the Rampart police station and cops and their cars were all over the place. On my way home, three cop cars blocked my way and one officer flashed his light and made me turn around. By this point, I was starting to panic and wondered if I'd be able to find a way home safely out of the chaos. Fortunately, I made it home safely, but it was a close call.

That night, I lay awake, wanting to weep for the brokenness of my city. The community lives in fear of the police who are supposed to protect us, but instead they so often seem to bring strife. The police claim they act in self-defense and only use necessary force, but too often the headlines are filled with their indiscriminate abuse of power.

We are called the City of Angels, but sometimes all I see is evil around me. Perhaps we need to rediscover how to weep and cry out against injustice and ask God to heal our land, to bring restoration and wholeness to our city. Let us remember to pray for peace and perhaps go find some sackcloth...

Ruthless Trust

I am loving not having a job. Ordinarily this would be cause for anxiety but I actually should be starting a new job in a few weeks. So now I have a couple of weeks during which to read, travel, clean my room, hang out with friends and do a lot of stuff that I had been neglecting. However, I'm also realizing how much I need structure in my life to get anything done. Its very strange to go from waking up every day at 6:30am and knowing that I have to be somewhere until at least 5pm, to having a full 24 hours a day to do whatever I want.

One of books I am re-reading is called, Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. In it, Brennan defines ruthless trust in God as one that is "without pity" meaning that he takes a stance against all the "self-pity" that is so prevalent in our culture. "He is calling us to a trust that stoutly refuses to regard self-interest as the highest good in life...it is an attack on all the egocentric hyphenated self-sins of our day: self-indulgence, self-will, self-service, self-aggrandizement, self-gratification, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, etc." Brennan tells of a trust that is grounded in a solid and unshakable knowledge that the Lord of heaven loves every human being he has created. He does not ask us to gloss over the jaw-dropping horrors of the earthquake in Haiti or fail to see the daily miseries of life in order to trust, but simply asks us to give up the semblance of control and let God lead our lives. While this seems childishly simple, to actually practice this trust is much harder. This trust is not an abdication of hard work or of asking God to wave his magic wand and make hardship disappear, rather it is the recognition that the Lord is sovereign even when he doesn't intervene in exactly the way we had hoped.

To make this less abstract, I cite my recent job transition from LA Health Action. I worked with the organization for nearly two years, through multiple staff transitions, uncertain funding and some really difficult situations. In the last few months, my motivation and desire to stay with the organization has been diminishing as it has become increasingly clear that we lacked good leadership and direction. One afternoon, I received a phone call from LA County Department of Public Health with a job offer to come work in the planning, development and evaluation department. What excellent news!

I began to plan my departure and figure out how to break the news to my one remaining co-worker that I would be leaving her to run this struggling organization on her own. After turning in my letter of resignation on a Thursday, things really began to explode. We had an argument the following Tuesday and accusations and distrust blossomed where before there had seemed to be a close working relationship. Last week I think I cried at least ten times because I felt so betrayed and angered. We stumbled through the week, barely speaking to each other, yet falsely smiling on the outside and pretending everything was fine. Finally, last Friday it became clear that I needed to get out immediately, so I cleared out my desk, saved my files and left the office for good.

Throughout, I kept praying for strength and courage to end well but everything still seemed to be collapsing into chaos. Kind co-workers sought me out and prayed for me when I didn't know what to do and helped me not feel so depressed about leaving so abruptly. Although there's still some lingering anger and bitterness, I begin to see how it is really a good thing to have some time off between jobs. I never would have chosen to end my job this way, but now I have the space to reflect on grad school and travel to visit friends. This experience confirms that God is sovereign in every situation and that he is worthy of unconditional trust.