The Illusive American Dream, by Alayna

Why do we chase after the “American Dream?”  

My housemates and I spent a weekend in Tucson last month learning about immigration and border issues [with the Borderlinks program]. At a house for immigrants on the Mexican border, I had dinner with a man who had lived in the States for several years before being deported. He was a young, single man with no children. Friendly and well-spoken, he was open to answering any questions we had. He spoke of returning to live in the US, and I saw dollar signs dancing through his dreams; he talked about his desire to have a nice house, two cars, and money to spare.

This is a common dream–and not just among Mexican and Central American immigrants. American citizens have the same dream. A spacious house with a white picket fence, a couple nice cars in a large garage, a big-screen TV in the family room, the newest technology–that’s America.

But why?

We hear all sorts of stories about how money makes people miserable, how lottery winners’ lives fall apart after they collect, how the rich old man dies alone. Some of the happiest people I’ve seen are those whose lives aren’t cluttered by material possessions. I’ve heard friends talk about how much happier kids that they met at a Haitian orphanage are–laughing, content to play outside and use their imaginations rather than argue over the latest video game. You hear stories from Africa about people sharing their limited food or possessions with whoever they can and finding joy in the process. Please don’t mistake me to be lauding poverty or starvation; I mean simply to draw attention to the fact that the greatest joys often seem to be found in the lives of those who do not “have it all.”

When we’re chasing after The Dream, what we have never seems to be enough.There’s always another promotion, a newer phone/car/computer, a bigger house. It creates a culture of greed and dissatisfaction.

So why do we chase it? Why do immigrants risk their lives to achieve it? Is my understanding of the allure limited because I don’t know what it’s like to truly be in want? Can we really biblically justify the co-existence of the American Dream and the Christian lifestyle?

Opening DOORs Celebration and Silent Auction, Friday May 13th

We cordially invite you to learn about the exciting ways God is moving here in Hollywood, through the hearts of our neighbors, our Dwellers, and our many local agency partners. Admission free, handmade tamales from the Gregory Avenue neighborhood. 

We will conduct a community building silent auction, with "items" like:
- a private BBQ for 6 with Pastor Dan and Anne Baumgartner
- VIP tickets and tours of local TV sets like NBC's hit, "Community"
- a private Bible Study session with Dale Bruner
- tamale-making lesson at Mama's Hot Tamales downtown
- CEO tours of many local social service agencies
- original artwork from our church and local community
- music lessons, free massages, and more!

Our goal is to raise $10,000 to fund a "Neighborhood Ministry Coordinator" position for a new Dweller, in the spirit of the former Hollywood Urban Project.

Please call Matthew at 323-872-3174 with any questions, or click HERE TO RSVP

Everybody Dies, but Not Everyone Lives, by Josh

Since I came to Los Angeles I have spent a lot of time on the weekends playing Ultimate Frisbee in a park high up on a mountain under the famous Hollywood Sign. This has been a great catharsis for me to release all of my energy and work out any anger I have from the previous week. Through this activity I have also gained a lot of good friends, many of who I hang out with even off of the field. Some have even asked to come to church with me. I have also had the pleasure to have several of my roommates and old friends come to play with us. 


[A few weeks ago], I went to the field expecting the usual Saturday game. Upon arriving, I was informed that one of our friends had passed away. This information really blew me away. Our friend Tom was only 24 years old. I found out that cancer was discovered in his body less than a month ago, and now he is dead. I realize that people all over the world die every day from many different causes, but it still makes you stop to contemplate life when it happens to someone you know. A lady from First Pres. Church of Hollywood died this week in a house fire. You never really know when it could happen to you. 

Think about what you did last year, last week, yesterday, this morning. Would you change what you did if you knew that it was your last day on this earthly plane?  This reminds me of some song lyrics that I wrote last year:

If you were given a warning 

that you’ll die in the morning,

what would you do with tonight?

Would you throw a big bash?

Would you blow all your cash?

Would you try to set things right?

If you were told by a friend

That tomorrow’s the end

What would you do with today?

Would you release all your fears

After all of these years,

Or would you simply run away?

If you are not happy with your day to day life, change what you are doing. Pretend that you knew that you would die tomorrow.  How would you spend your last day? Would you want to talk with your family or friends? Would you rather spend your last living hours watching television? What is the point of not enjoying life? Many people say that they are not happy with what they are doing, but that it will all be worth it for the payoff in the end. Do the ends justify the means? Sure, you can plan for the future, but at what date in the future does the happiness begin? Lately, there have been many billboards put up around Los Angeles that proclaim that May 21, 2011 is the end of the world. This may or may not be true. I personally don’t believe it to be true, but it could be the last day for any of us. We might as well live as if it is. 

I’ll finish this blog with the story of Tom’s memorial.   A few of Tom’s closest friends organized an ultimate Frisbee extravaganza memorial. After church I got a ride to the North Hollywood Park to find games in full swing. Tom’s friends were grilling, having some drinks, laughing, and making new friends. It was estimated that over 70 people showed up throughout the day,and this wasn’t even planned until [a few days before]. It was a great day of enjoying life.  They had a box of some of Tom’s things, like dvds, books, and posters, that they wanted people to go through and take, to enjoy and think of Tom while they do. Overall it was just a great celebration of his life. I’m sure Tom would have had an incredible time if he were there. At the end of the night somebody said that we should have gatherings like this more often. I thought that the comment was very true. It shouldn’t take somebody dying, for the rest of us to really live.

An Idea

You pass it off as a small thing, but it's anything but that. 

Yeast, too, is a "small thing," but it works its way 

through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. 

So get rid of this "yeast." - 1 Corinthians 5:6, The Message

Last Wednesday, two speakers from Homeboy Industries visited La Casa de la Comunidad.  These men shared their lives, both past and present, and how the compassion of Homeboy helped them to step away from the patterns of gang life in East Los Angeles.  At one point in the presentation, a very poignant line from Father Gregory Boyle's book, Tattoos on the Heart, was referenced: 

New Friends from Homeboy Industries meet our neighborhood.

"The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives."  


Indeed.  It's not only taken root, it's produced poisonous fruit.  It's infested our daily bread.  This idea allows us to walk around dirty homeless folks sleeping outside a 7-eleven with no more than a "what-a-lazy-wretch" sneer across our face.  This idea is the seed of the notion, "this side of the tracks, that side of the tracks."  This is the idea that allows slavery, inhumane treatment of prisoners, allows us to look at people as problems, issues, statistics in a world population explosion, and not, as we all were intended to be seen: as the image of God.

One of the Homeboys spoke quite eloquently about the internal damage an idea like this causes.  He said that he had no problem with people calling him a monster, a f*!&-up, a no-good menace to society.  He believed himself to be all those things.  But call him worthy of kindness, call him useful and helpful, call him beautiful even, well, his entire body rejected it, like an allergic reaction.  He said, at first, he would become so angry with a compliment that he would retaliate and work to regain the more comfortable status of being a "low-life."    The idea manifested in our sense of self, maintaining the lie that we can lose God's affection and can't hope of winning it back.  Or, more to the truth, can't believe that we never lost it in the first place.

Dwellers, Neighbors, and friends from Oasis came out.

What if being a "Christian" was, at the very core, simply about waging war with this idea?   I looked around that evening at all the faces listening, together, in kinship.  From different backgrounds, sure, but a gathering of people responding to the gritty truth of God's desire for restoration, as poured through these two former gang members.

I've been following the blog of an incoming Dweller, Ben Adam, who will arrive this fall.  This quote is part of a larger work of his on the politics of the Resurrection, but I found myself feeling the resonance of it during the Homeboys' talk: "The Jesus movement, unlike Marxism or the Cuban Revolution, did not seek to make a poor person into a rich monarch. It was a movement that believed G-d was bringing down the powerful and raising up the powerless so that they could meet in the middle as equals."  Meeting in the middle.  It's the heart of what we're attempting here in Hollywood.   God-willing, bridges of understanding, equality, and a kinship that only God could create, can continue to be built and nurtured.

I turned and looked at our current Dwellers.  I thought about some of the ideas they are starting to share, starting to blog about.  I'll leave you to ponder them, and I pray you are blessed in the thinking:

"God has called us to be present: to love His people as much as we possibly can, despite who they are or where they come from." - Alex

"I think that we all feel deficient, not just when standing in front of God but in many of our relationships, and that we all spend far too much time working to hide these deficiencies instead of handing them completely over to the One." - Robert

"Whether or not he stays does not detract from the fact that we cared enough to keep visiting him, find him help when he asked, and will continue to work with him, no matter the outcome of rehab.  He knows we care about him." - Alayna

"I started thinking about how many people are truly involved in this process of volunteerism.  This is not a one-man show.  If I had to list everyone involved in the process, I know that it would take up pages in very small font."  - Josh

"It's also hard for me to see what good a system is if it can only help some, but not all.  I even get angry that people have to be homeless or that there's such a thing as homelessness." - Brady

"Help [homeless people] feel not invisible as they have been walked [over] by so many people ignoring them.  We are all the same in Christ." - Kyle

May God meet you in your middle today.  Thanks for reading.  - Matthew

"He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud."
- Luke 1:52, The Message

God With a Hairbrush

Dwellers Alayna, Alex, and Brady at a YoungLife Gala

One of my favorite books in high school was A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris.  It’s a story told by three native American women: a daughter, her mother, and her great aunt, and the three different perspectives are woven together in a narrative braid.  Thematically, it draws from the struggles of modern native Americans, what it means to be a woman, what it means to overcome addictions, and how we pass over our lives to those we love.  This week, I witnessed the amazing way God is braiding the lives of us followers together, in powerful and surprising ways. 

This story, though, has four women: two of our Dwellers, Alex and Alayna, a homeless young mother who I’ll call Andrea, and a teenage Discover participant who I’ll call Alice.

Not long after arriving from Plum, Pennsylvania, Alex was walking into the Hollywood Trader Joe’s and saw Andrea sitting outside with a sign that read, “pregnant hungry homeless.”  Alex hadn’t had much experience yet with the homeless, but felt compelled to reach out.  She sat down and talked to Andrea for awhile, exchanging phone numbers, and Alex offered to help with calling assistance agencies.   About a week later, the two met for pupusas and Alex got to meet Andrea's husband, Jake.  Time flew, and Alex realized she needed to be getting along to her Bible study, but something tugged at her to invite Andrea and Jake.  Much to her surprise, they decided to join her. 

So began Andrea’s part of this story.  She was 6 months pregnant, and she and her husband were currently homeless.  Originally from the Midwest, they were struggling to get their lives stable before the baby would be born.  Andrea’s greatest fear, understandably so, was that the baby would be taken from her as a ward of the State if she and Jake were unable to find a good place and good work.  That night, at the Bible study, they were welcomed and embraced, and when the couple ran out of a money a few days later, the Bible study pooled enough money together to cover the cost of a hotel room for a full week.

It was great, but obviously only temporary.  Andrea and Jake also started to visit the 5846 Gregory community, and Alex’s roommate and fellow Dweller, Alayna, from Pierre, South Dakota, got to know them.  She was becoming aware of programs through PATH Achieve Glendale, her agency placement, that might be able to help the young couple when the hotel room funds dried up.  It took time, and patience, as Alayna was new to all of this herself.  But everything would eventually line up, and Andrea, Jake, and their new little one are now staying at the shelter in Glendale as they work towards self-sufficiency, together.

When Alice first showed up at 5846 Gregory last Sunday evening, it was clear she was highly clever with an off-beat sense of humor, the first to chime in during group discussions.  Alice came as a Discover participant from one of our most regular partnerships, a school in Arizona for troubled teenage girls.  This school is not specifically Christian, so the leaders ask us to be sensitive to the girls' diversity of faith backgrounds and not lead our Scripture-based lessons.  We accommodate, and pray that God will still use us in just the right way.  Alice was always a jokester, always the first with a snappy quip in any situation, yet seemed to carry something quite heavy, as if the sarcasm was a defense mechanism.

After a week of service learning and hearing testimonies of homeless folks and former gang members, Alice opened up during our Thursday night closing discussion.  As it turns out, Alice and her classmates had served at PATH Achieve Glendale that very day, and actually met Andrea and Jake.  As Alice is recounting her story, she suddenly wells up with tears and the room goes silent.  When she gathers herself, a full minute later, she explains that she always thought babies were gross, booger-y and stinky, and vowed to herself to never, “reproduce.”  And yet, that day at the shelter, Alice was overwhelmed with a desire to hold Andrea and Jake’s baby, still quite small at 2 months old.  Alice was struck by the strength of emotion as she held this baby, and after a few moments, Andrea quietly looked up at Alice and said, “you will make an incredible mother someday.”

Alice admits that, for the first time, she actually believes it, no longer afraid of babies, and still wiping tears away, feels like she’d truly like to become a mother.  And then, later that night, Alice writes DOOR a note in response to a general question asking if she experienced hope while here in Los Angeles.  She writes, “I lost faith in God a long, long time ago.  In a nutshell, it’s back and ready for action!”

Before saying goodbye to our friends from Arizona

Alex didn’t know her actions would affect Alice.  Alayna didn’t know if she’d be able to get Andrea into the shelter.  But working to live more like Jesus, to step out in faith while depending more on God, an overlap and peaceful interconnectedness can occur, much like braiding hair.  God can take all that is messy, all that is tangled, all that we’d wish to hide under a hat or somewhere even darker, and make something lovely.   Alice also had no idea how much her revelation would affect her classmates, affect her teachers, affect me.  But God did.  God does.  Amen.  - Matthew Schmitt

Finding Space, by Robert

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. -Genesis 1:31


Finding solitude in Los Angeles can be difficult. But, it is certainly necessary.

Here, there is a deluge of media. Everybody wants your attention and, more importantly, your dollars. I spend a good portion of my time riding shotgun in a minivan scouring the streets for people experiencing homelessness. An unfortunate side effect of this isbillboards. It's very common to see between five and eight thousand large, bold, scandalous advertisements at each of the intersections of Hollywood and Vine and Hollywood and Highland, and more in a short stretch heading east out of West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. These aren't the only locations. There are advertisements on the sides of buses, on bus benches, on cars, painted on buildings, and on all the major roadways; there are men handing out fliers on the boulevard, painted helicopters flying stuntmen along the beach, and I've even watched skywriting off my back porch. In Los Angeles, in Hollywood, everyone is trying to get you to look at them. 

And, unlike home, these billboards and screaming advertisements aren't to tell you there's a Wendy's on the right at exit 60 or for JR's Cigar World in Burlington. No, most likely these billboards are suggesting that you watch this movie, that television show, or buy this shirt that that model is barely wearing. Or, they're screaming 'Diets don't work, call 1-800-GET-THIN and get LAP-BAND today!' More recently, they are love letters from Ken begging to get the passion back with Barbie.

It's a culture where  your barista and your burger flipper know they're better than you and let their attitudes show it. Everyone is busy, on the go, trying to figure out how they can use anyone else to get a step up the ladder, and they're either in 'the business' or trying to get into it. Or, at least, that's the way it often seems.

Finding refuge, finding time to spend with God is vital and it's hard. This was highlighted by a solitude retreat that my housemates and I went on at the end of January. We went together to a monastery of Benedictine Monks in the desert an hour or so north of Los Angeles and spent the day in silence and mostly apart from each other. Admittedly, I spent a fair amount of time reading Mark Twain's autobiography (Volume One) and a long hour or two napping, but at the end of the day I was in a place where I felt ready to hear God speak (and wishing that the day would last just a little longer). Perhaps the most impacting part of the day was during the time I spent creeping through the dusty hills along a path constructed to take you through Christ's journey to Calvary and resurrection. Towards the end of this path, there is a cross erected in a clearing about halfway up a hill overlooking the abbey with a statue of Jesus, crafted with pieces of twisted metal, nailed to it. There, I sat for an hour or so watching the sun settle on the horizon and mulling over my life. It is times like these, times of silence and in the beauty of God's creation, where I tend to see how God has worked in my life in both the hard and the easy times.

So, how to find this in the city? I have taken to riding my bicycle. When I was in high school, I used to ride my bike around Odell School Road and through the pasture, among other places. But, since the accident, I stopped riding. When I moved to Hollywood in September, I saw that, without a car, cycling would be the most convenient mode of transportation. So, I taught myself to ride again in a span of about 30 minutes spread over two afternoons. I quickly realized that I would need a bigger bicycle than was already available at the house (after all, my legs are pretty long), so I went out and purchased a beautiful twenty-one speed cream colored hybrid (hybrid in the sense that it's sort of a merging between a road bike and a mountain bike) and I've been using it to piddle around town ever since.

Since January, I have made it a goal to bike to Malibu which is about a 65 mile round trip, so the past few weekends, I've been building up my endurance with 30 to 40 mile rides with some scenic stopovers scheduled in. This past Monday I did a 30 mile loop past Runyon Canyon (a popular hiking spot) taking Mulholland Scenic Highway through the hills before drifting down the north side of the hills into North Hollywood and rounding back home through Griffith Park. 

It's a pretty amazing ride. Mulholland is above the stop-and-go of LA and provides a beautiful view over the sprawl and of the distant mountains. Going into North Hollywood was a blast. I took Coldwater Canyon down the hill. It's a steep road with a number of sharp curves and it was so thrilling to come down it as fast I felt safe. I started laughing about halfway down the hill and for a solid 10 minutes afterward. I am so grateful for that, just a silly hill and two wheels to coast on. I felt...on top of the world...and we all know Who likes to sit up there.

PrayersBe thankful today. Be thankful for God, his love, and his creation of this universe in its vastness and in its specificity.

Our Civil Rights Movement

President Obama addresses the gathering.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of flying to Washington, D.C., to attend the Teach For America 20^th Anniversary Summit.  Teach For America is the national teaching corps, dedicated to ensuring the day that all children in American have the opportunity to receive an excellent education.  I taught 6^th grade Language Arts in New Orleans about a decade ago, in a school that has since been obliterated by Katrina’s aftermath.  TFA is passionate about closing the achievement gap so that, no matter what income bracket a child grows up within, they can have the same life prospects as their peers nationwide.  11,000 people congested the public transit of our capital, and it was a great time of reconnection and re-invigoration.

If there was a thread wound throughout the entire conference weekend, it was the rally cry that educational equity IS the civil rights movement of our generation, and in order to push for transformational change, we need to embrace this notion.  As I'm no longer a classroom teacher, nor am I working directly in education, I admit, I was beginning to feel somewhat sidelined within the Teach For America mission.  In my role as Director of DOOR Hollywood, I'm always drawing upon skills and values I learned during my service in TFA, as we invite and create experiences that others might "See the Face of God in the City."  We are an asset-based mission, working to set up situations of mutuality and real respect across class, racial, and cultural lines.  We dismantle the notion that benevolent upper class folks are the only people who can "help," and that poor folks living in the city are the only people who "need."  Surely, my experience teaching in urban New Orleans has left an indelible impression on me that is paramount to my ability to convey these messages with integrity and authenticity.  But that's only the start, and it's only peripherally connected to TFA's primary mission.  

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, keynotes the closing.

Then, amidst many other provocative ideas, I caught hold of a gem in the “Faith in Action” breakout session moderated by Joshua Dubois, Executive Director of the White House’s Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  An excitingly dynamic panel shared ways that their particular faith was leading them to serious involvement in closing the academic achievement gap.  And right towards the closing of the session, one statement hit me directly in the gut: "no civil rights movement has ever gained true momentum without widespread support from churches, synagogues, and other communities of faith."

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was invoked in many of the sessions and speeches, leading my thoughts to perhaps the most memorable image of his famous "dream" speech: children of all colors, races, and backgrounds walking hand in hand.  Presumably, as equals.  Equal opportunities, equal roles to play in the success of our nation, equal importance in the eyes of one another.  This is freedom, this is what it ought to mean to live in America.  We are not there, not when schools still look so segregated and academic achievement still looks so white, but this summit reminded me that we can be.  We absolutely must work to get there.  So what will I do?  I'll remember that my faith teaches me to fight for social justice, and I will pray, support those in the classroom, and "not-shut-up" about this movement in my church and  the communities where I live and work.   Not until this flame turns into a bonfire, and maybe not until that bonfire turns into the afterglow we're all hoping and working for.