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On religion & ego death
My dad did not like Los Angeles, but he did like the ocean, and he liked fresh fruit on a seaside porch. At a short distance, certainly, everyone loves the ocean. Fresh fruit an even easier confirmation. I recall I smiled, watching the tension release from his forehead wrinkles. He had enjoyed a moment he didn’t expect, in a city with supposedly little to offer him.
Hollywood is one monolith of many in the US that encapsulate American secularism. I imagine it could be the ocean where fervent religiosity ends as if saltwater was the antithesis to holy-water. This notion is multi-faceted in truth and falsehood because Los Angeles was named “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles” by the Spanish and became home to several Spanish missions in the late 1700s / early 1800s. This city is currently home to many people with strong roots in faith, wacky (Scientology), and global (Christianity). Yet when I lived there, I never got the feeling that religion was represented at-large. From a different background, I was raised Catholic in Michigan. I grew up to see American films where the country was someone’s ultimate opportunity to find themself through God. The City, any city really, was ruled by suits and bank accounts; millions of sinners milled about, warding away the Holy Spirit with tailored camelhair, praising the devil through day-trading and day-drinking. The suburbs (my home at the time) was…
