Being a believer in the same city synonymous with two-faced, back-stabbing, plastic surgery-fakery is something of a long and turbulent journey for me. Since being a Christian in March 1991, I've been through as much transformative change as the fickle TV/Hollywood-inspired trends since my conversion. And what do I have to show for thus far? A certain conclusion...
In looking back at my life--especially since early childhood, I have to speculate if much of my tribulant history have largely to do with the 'fake culture' around not only me, but my family as well. I can easily go off in the usual tangent of my Chinatown-related upbringing, but for the sake of the greater picture previously not seen in the cropped, pan-and-scan reality that has impacted my life and the lives of others, I have to stick to the subject by inquiring, how much more challenging it is to follow Christ, in spite of the mass-manufactured, mass-media reality around us? ...or for that matter (to some of my more Jewish readers out there), following God in this (stereotypical) quasi-Sodom-&-Gomorrah, and oft-times, seemed less quasi, or even borderline...
Especially within commutable distance of that televangelist network, Trinity Broadcasting Network (located around Orange County), I've been reminded by not only the Left-leaning, mainstream media likes of The L.A. Times, on how less holy the TBN enterprise really is, but likewise with other, fellow Christians of similar, yet nuanced orthodox-Biblical beliefs. After reading a past, L.A. Times article of how ridiculously lavish, nouveau-riche-tasteless The Crouch televangelist family is, I have to ask myself, much better--or shall I say, worse we are, compartively-speaking with TBN.
That's where I have to inquire not only with "Das Lieben der Anderen" of my home church--young people especially, but likewise with many other congregations within the SoCal area... How grueling is it to not succumb to the image-based sins, as opposed to resign to it? Especially at my hopefully, ever-wiser age, questioning how much fulfilling substance there is in those image-based sins, methinks how many of us "children of God," within the City of Fallen Angels, have become just as fake as the very sins we may have indulged in? Worse yet, how many of us City of Angels Christians have fallen not only away from God, but likewise with the very people within our home churches? I mean, yeah sure; I know all too painfully well what it is like to be reprimanded, a.k.a, 'judged' by others for whatever character pitfalls any of us can easily have, but...
...without going off the "Scarlet Letter" tangent, I would like to humbly address the broader issue of how all of us L.A. Christians not only fell for that SoCal trap of the proverbial, things of the world, but likewise come out surviving the very things of the world, when somehow but surely, we finally see what these things truly are?
And coming from someone with a semi-literal, survivalist background, I often wondered how astronomically hard it is to overcome not only personal temptations of the flesh, but also the identity issues that probably spur those ridiculous temptations/sins in the first place? Especially in a city as prosperous as L.A., how many of us believers have been woefully distracted by those quixotic lusts, worthy of an existential piece by beatnik writer,William Burroughs?*
*Something to do with the metaphorical issues of not spending enough time to see what is it we've been eating at the end of our forks/chopsticks, so as to ponder what is it we've been not only shoveling into our mouths, but likewise with what sort of being we've become, so as to feed ourselves with those oft-ignored food scraps? And don't get me started with Burroughs' controversial thoughts on homosexuality, gender issues! Hint: it's not what you may be expecting...
But in my Angeleno life thus far, I've learned to make peace with myself--AND God, the notion that I'll always be in full survival mode (either in a spiritual or physical sense--or both), since somewhere down the road of L.A. life, I will be able to live like the very human being The Lord designed me to be--as opposed to being some animal with little or no capabilities for insight, foresight, hindsight, etc... which ironically, are the very short-changing traits, many of L.A.'s epitomized elite, seemed to manifest--maybe even proudly...
*but not so much sincerely, given enough time, you might see what make these glamorous people tick... none of which is all that fit for even tabloid print...
Maybe truth be told, my L.A. Christian life is more akin to the many blue collar-middle class folks, whom every morning have to wake up, stay standing as long as possible in their average work weeks, hoping obstinately against the odds stacking against them, so as to not only build the ever-lasting, gold-refined character that is their true, God-given selves, BUT also with bestowing these gold-refined character traits onto their future kin/generations, as Paul Giamatti's John Adams said in the namesake, HBO mini-series, where guys like Adams hope and work hard to not only provide a better future for his children's better career options, but likewise with somewhere down the bloodline, the many offspring to be, will be able to afford the very arts-&-humanities insight/foresight/hindsight God wants them to be as to have--unlike some of the gleefully oblivious, libertine French aristocrats, whom not only have wasted their nobility gifts of the Judeo-Christian beatitudes, but likewise with being oblivious to the bloody revolution that will overthrow them via La Bastille et/ou la guillotine...
'Cause somewhere down the (blood)line, I want to look forward to the day when me and many of the very people (fellow Christians including) I care about, will be left standing, in spite of it all--EVEN with the possibilities of miraculously surviving a point blank shotgun blast--TO the face(!), in a silicon-fake metropolis, constantly dropping out/dead from the costs of tempting the very fate they want us to falsely aspire to!
