Reflection: Drivers Ed.

I have entered phase three of my L.A. trip.

I am here till Saturday as we look to get my dad out of the hospital, and into rehab. While nothing is certain, the acute crisis appears to be behind us. Now the work of recovery begins. It may be weeks or months. It may be a year. He is a fighter, and I have hope.

I checked out of our business hotel this morning, dropped Lori off at the airport, and started the third leg of this trip.

When you are in a city, as you pass through neighborhoods, I always feel like I’m passing through worlds.

Los Angeles always struck me as New York City plus a celestial rolling pin. Very few skyscrapers. Very little crowding. Just big, and sprawling, and spread out.

According to Google, the city has 572 neighborhoods, in 15 council districts, spread out over 500 plus square miles.

L.A. County is over 4,000 square miles.

The Greater Los Angeles area, depending how you define it, is over 30,000.

It’s 18 million people, but they have room to move.

So, you pass a lot of life on your way to your destination.

I left a Courtyard Marriott in Valencia, this morning, and am checking into a Residence in in Long Beach.

I have moved from business centers to shopping centers.

Aside from one aggressively cranky driver on the 405, I have been gliding through the city in silence and peace.

And now I’m in a dining room with people starting their day.

There are sales reps in polo shirts and dockers.

There are construction workers with ZZ top beards in dayglo parkas.

There are sleepy ladies in hoodies and yoga pants.

There’s a dad with a small boy in maroon pajamas eating an apple

There’s a big man in a Malcolm X Sweatshirt, camouflage Lakers hat and cargo pants, and an unmissable gold watch, who looks impressively put together at 7am.

It’s coffee and biscuits and sausage and life.

I am always struck, at the intersections of life, how our paths overlap.

In the 2004 movie “Crash,” which explored racism and social tensions in Los Angeles, people from different worlds collide in a series of circumstances both random and systemic. In a city characterized by open space, and life in cars, people’s lives nonetheless intersect, often with combustible results.

It includes the line “"We crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

New York is nothing but crashing into each other. People who aren’t paying attention to you at all rub up on you in subways, and elevators. They hit you with their bags and step on your feet. And those are the polite ones. You can feel alone in Manhattan, but it’s not for lack of contact.

L.A. is different, and it’s making me think.

One thing “Crash” does well is show the complexity of human nature. Nearly all the characters display love and prejudice. We see them at their best and worst. The villains do some good things. The heroes do some ugly stuff.

“Crash” showed us civilization in friction, and tension, in alienation and hope.

That was in 2004.

21 years later I see a world with far more isolation and division.

We’ve all gone digital. We’re buried in smartphones and social networks.

We see each other more, understand each other less, and honor each other little.

We all survived a pandemic but seem less prepared to survive another one.

Our news is more polarized than ever.

We have weird partnerships between industry and government, and between administrations and nations, where we are constantly wondering who is really in charge, and whose interests they are serving.

Meanwhile, we’re all just doing life.

We have sick relatives, and bills to pay.

We have strengths and weaknesses.

We have addictions and wounds.

We have joys and concerns.

We have fears and dreams.

We have noble ideals, and ugly ideas.

My prayer for today is that we would sow to the former and interrogate the latter.

I pray that we get better at accountability than defiance

I pray that we would not easily take offense, but not look to give it, and not dismiss it when it occurs.

I pray that we would look not to step on toes, or bend fenders, and would honestly acknowledge when we do.

Traveling mercies.

I’ll see you on the 405.