Out & About—Christian Light MBC in Los Angeles

Whenever I go traveling, I devise a travel plan to get me to my destination by a specific route. Sometimes, though, I find something interesting and unexpected along my route. Such was the case earlier this year when I set out for Fillmore, California, to go to the Fillmore & Western Railway’s Railroad Days Festival. It was the best railroading event I’ve ever been to. Highly recommended.

About halfway there, though, making my way along I-10 in stop-and-go traffic, I saw an interesting church off to the side. The area of town—South Central Los Angeles—generally is not considered inviting to white people like me, and the church had bars and plywood on the windows, but you know me. It’s all about history and photographs, and as my wise old grandmother told me in 1967 when my best friend drowned in the community swimming pool: “When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.”

Here’s the church:

The church and its grounds were not accessible due to fences and gates, but I did find the cornerstone near the front entrance:

I know a J.S. Pope but he’s not a Reverend, and if he was head of that congregation in 1944, I’m pretty sure that he would no longer be living in 2017.

I’m familiar with the world’s religions but I had no idea what religion the Christian Light M.B.C. was, so off to Google. While I did not find the history of Christian Light M.B.C., I did find out that M.B.C. stands for Missionary Baptist Church. I’m familiar with the Southern Baptists, having grown up in Texas where the Southern Baptists are many in number, but I had no idea what a Missionary Baptist Church was, although I had my suspicions.

A Google search led me to gotquestions.org where I found this:

The Baptist movement has become significantly fragmented over the years, and there are various types of churches that use the label “Missionary Baptist” as part of their name. This article deals with the Missionary Baptist movement within the African-American community; it does not address other groups that may happen to use the name “Missionary Baptist.”

Most Baptist churches, including Missionary Baptists, believe and follow the essential tenets of Christianity. They hold to the inspiration and authority of the Bible, the deity of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. Also, Missionary Baptists, like other Baptists, teach the autonomy of the local church and practice believer’s baptism by immersion. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two ordinances of the church. Most Missionary Baptist churches view Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, in which no work or secular activities should be done. Many Missionary Baptist churches also call their pastor’s wife the “first lady” of the church.

Two of the largest groups of Missionary Baptists are the National Baptist Convention USA, with about 8 million members; and the National Baptist Convention of America, with a membership of about 5 million. Other African-American Baptist groups using the name “Missionary Baptist” include the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the National Missionary Baptist Convention.

The Missionary Baptist movement began in 1880, soon after the Civil War. At that time, there were many freed slaves in Baptist churches, and they felt the need to come together in worship and to fulfill the Great Commission. The former slaves formed the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention of the United States in 1880, the American National Baptist Convention in 1886, and the Baptist National Educational Convention in 1893. These three organizations united to form the National Baptist Convention in 1895. About 24 years later, a disagreement within the convention led to a split, and the National Baptist Convention of America separated from the National Baptist Convention USA.

Generally speaking, Missionary Baptist churches place an emphasis on Christian evangelism, promoting missions efforts at home and abroad; encourage Christian education; seek social justice and community involvement; and publish and distribute Sunday school material and other Christian literature. Missionary Baptists embrace their history and maintain a strong connection to the needs in their surrounding communities. As conventions (not denominations), Missionary Baptist groups do not have administrative or doctrinal control over their member churches; such matters are left up to each local church.

One phrase in all that text confirmed my initial thoughts on what a Missionary Baptist Church was: promoting missions efforts at home and abroad.

Way too many holidays

Happy National Cat Day!

Way too many holidays. How are we supposed to accomplish anything when there are 365 holidays each year?

Picture of the Moment—A personal relationship….

A billboard in San Diego County, surprisingly, or not, out here in the boondocks:

There are five points that I can identify on my journey from religion to atheism, which some say is a religion in and of itself.

The first was a period of seven years attending St. Gertrude’s Catholic Church in Kingsville, Texas, with my wise old grandmother. After church, little groups of people—cliques—would gather and catch up—gossip—on all the news about anyone and anything from the past week. I think I was fortunate that my wise old grandmother was not a member of any of those cliques. I only heard things as we walked from the church to our car. I thought it the height of hypocrisy to be gossiping in the church parking lot after church….

The second was as a freshman at Texas A&M University. I was living Puryear Hall, a ramp-style dorm. Each weekend, a group of us, led by a guy from Nigeria, would visit a different church—Jew, Catholic, Mormon, Lutheran, Methodist, Unitarian, Church of Christ…. No religion was out of bounds. That was when I realized that each of these religions could not each be the true religion….

The third was a couple of years after I graduated from Texas A&M University. I was living in Houston, and the woman I was dating, a senior at Texas A&M, was from Houston. She was a Catholic, so I had no problems saying “Yes” when she asked me if I wanted to go to church with her one weekend when she as home. Her parents lived about ten miles from me but the church was just a couple of blocks away from me, so she offered to pick me up. Mass started at 11:00 a.m., but she didn’t arrive until 11:30. We got to the church in five minutes but she spent ten minutes driving around looking for a parking spot, and when she found one, she backed into it. I asked her why she was backing in since it takes longer to park that way, and she said she could leave faster when church was over. Whatever….

The fourth was when I was dating a woman in College Station, Texas, in 1987. She had a personal relationship with her God, so personal that he was telling her when to call in to work sick, when to take vacation, when to eat, when to come see me. One Saturday she was at my place where I had my home office. I was working in the living room and she was back in my bedroom on the bed, with my two dogs Penney & Sugar, studying her Bible lesson for the next day. At 11:00 p.m. I decided to take a break. I went to my bedroom and asked her if she wanted to take the dogs for a walk with me. She rolled over, looked at me ever so sweetly, and said, “No. The Lord has not told me to take the dogs for a walk with you.” I broke up with her a couple of days later.

The fifth was a period from April 27, 1993, to February 15, 1994. I arrived in San Diego on April 15, 1993, and spent two weeks orienting myself before deciding to study the world’s great, and not-so-great, religions to determine if there was a religion that was fully accepting of an openly gay man. Only the Metropolitan Community Church came close, but it was based waaaaaaay too much on the traditions and tenets of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, it didn’t really bring anything new the table, all things considered….

Those 10½ months of intense studying convinced me that I had everything I needed to lead a productive life, to be a viable, contributing member of society. Perhaps I got everything from my upbringing in the Mormon and Catholic churches, but whether or not I did, I do believe I would have learned everything I needed without religion.

Some might say that the people around me, brought up in their own religions, influence me, and that quite likely is true. Thus, as I like to tell people, I have no problems with you practicing your religion if doing so helps prevent you from raping, murdering, and stealing.

For me, at this point in my life, I have a personal relationship with reality and don’t need any religion.

Out & About—Extreme Sailing Series stop in San Diego

I remember the days when I used to spend all my time in, on, or near the water. Now it’s a special event when I get to the coast since I live out in the mountainous boondocks about 25 miles away. This past weekend, though, was the Extreme Sailing Series in the San Diego Harbor. It was a 4-day event featuring GC32 foiling sailboats. They look like this:

When they are going fast, it looks like they are out of the water because all you can see or those little foil thingies.

Along with the GC32 foil sailboat racing, they had foil kiteboard racing, which was won by Johnny Heineken. What a name! All he would have to do is provide Heineken to all the other contestants and get them drunk!

And parachutists:

According to the program,

The extreme Sailing Series is the ultimate Stadium Racing championship, visiting eight iconic cities across three continents each season. The global series pits teams of the world’s best sailors against each other on hydro-foiling GC32 catamarans. The world-class crews compete on stadium-style racecourses set just metres from the shores of the free entry Race Villages, putting spectators at the heart of the sailing action like never before.

San Diego is the second-to-the-last stop on the 2017 tour. Previous stops were Muscat, Oman; Qingdao, China; Madeira Islands, Portugal; Barcelona, Spain; Hamburg, Germany; and Cardiff, United Kingdom. The final stop is November 30-December 3 in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Playing docent for friends at the San Diego Zoo

Remember that if you come to San Diego for any reason and need a personal docent for the day, I’m always up for it. I often have free tickets to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. They can be YOURS, free, just like I got them!

Yesterday I played docent for two old friends that I had not seen since 1983, other than Facebook, of course. Here are some pictures from our trip to the Zoo:

Grizzly Bear

Panda. Remember that these are not bears. Just pandas.

Baby monkey, although I don’t know what species.

A female gazelle, looking very pregnant
and being checked on by her previous child.

Polar Bear enjoying the San Diego sunshine.

Reindeer, but not Rudolph, obviously.

Arctic fox. There were two of them yesterday. In 23 years of going to the San Diego Zoo at least once a month, and usually once a week, these are only the second and third pictures I have gotten of the arctic fox.

Got a group photo of some well-known people.

California Condor. Extinct in the wild as recently as 1987 with only 22 birds still living, all in captivity. The San Diego Zoo’s breeding program has resulted in the re-introduction into the wild. It still is one of the world’s rarest birds, with 446 now living both in the wild and in captivity.

Hyrax. I got up close and personal with my 150-600 mm lens.

Meerkat. One of my favorite animals. They are so much fun to watch.

Hyrax momma and her two young ones. The look on her face! Is she thinking that some sort of pervert is taking pictures of her young ones sucking on her teats and is going to put them on the Internet?

Squirrel. This is a “local animal” according to the Zoo,
meaning that it is free to come and go at will. Of course, it knows
where the best food is, not to mention lots of friends!

Kookaburra. It’s difficult to get a good picture of these birds because of the tiny mesh surrounding their enclosure. They have to be at just the right distance from the mesh for my 150-600 mm lens to get through the mesh.

Silverback Gorilla, pondering.

Orangutan, also pondering.

Out & About—The Birdwatcher in Julian, California

I went to Julian, California, for their Apple Days the weekend of September 24 and discovered three cool stores. The Warm Hearth is in my blog post here. The second one I want to talk about is The Birdwatcher. How can anyone resist going into a store called The Birdwatcher?

The first home that I remember was where we lived when I was 5 in 1960. It had a row of windows under the eaves to let light into the living room. Sadly, birds would fly into the windows and knock themselves out, dying an agonizing death on the ground below. I was picking up dead birds every morning. I resolved to never have windows that would kill birds. Of course, now that I’m a little older, I realize that all windows have the potential to kill birds. You can help our feathered friends by using WindowAlert. Pretty neat.

Rick & Brenda Campbell own The Birdwatcher, and Brenda kindly gave me permission to take interior photos for my blog post here. Thank you, Brenda!

A beautiful selection of wind chimes just in case you don’t have any songbirds at your place.

Birds like taking baths. I mean, who doesn’t?

Bird cards to send your family and friends.

Real honest-to-goodness books about birds for your own personal library.

Cute hangings for your yard.

They have a special wall in the store where they display bird pictures taken by anyone and everyone. All you have to do is send them a picture!

Bird houses and bird feeders of all shapes and sizes to help us care for our feathered friends.

Proof outside that their bird feeders work:

Hot pads, coffee cups, and hand towels.

Birds, nests, and eggs for inside, without the resulting mess to clean up.

Shirts and socks. No pants? No underwear? Sad.

Beautiful and whimsy wall art.

Dishes.

Of course, I came home with something. I could have come home with a lot more but I was in the Corolla instead of the 18-wheeler.

And if there are birds around, well, you know there has to be a cat around, too. Here’s The Birdwatchers indoor kitty:

As soon as I told her that I was going to make her an Internet star, she gave me that look in the first photo and then curled up and pretended she was asleep. Yeah, right.

I was carrying my new video recorder around with me and got a short video of the many hummingbirds hanging out. I think The Birdwatcher even has more hummingbirds than the San Diego Zoo!

If you need anything at all relating to birds, stop by The Birdwatcher in Julian, California.

Video—Their water fountain is now MY water fountain

On September 30, 2017, I went to Julian, California, a historic gold-mining town in the mountains, for Apple Days. While I was there, I discovered all sorts of cool stuff and cool places. One of the cool places was The Warm Hearth, a huge store full of goodies to make your house into a home.

One of the items they had, which I fell in love with—and it’s difficult to fall in love with inanimate objects, but I did—was a water fountain. Jim and I had been looking for a fine fine fine water fountain at a reasonable cost, and this one was only $379. We headed to Julian yesterday for the sole purpose of getting the fountain.

Here it is in all its glory—flowing water, sound, and lights— on our deck. It will only stay on the deck for a few weeks until I get the landscaping in. It sounds a lot better than it did in The Warm Hearth because there aren’t a billion people walking around talking….

Did You Know?—In the presence of mine enemies

The last Saturday in September is the Cabrillo Festival at Naval Base Point Loma here in San Diego. It actually is the Navy’s submarine base. Only one day a year can a member of the general public like me get onto the base.

It’s a historic area because it’s where Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo landed his Spanish galleon in 1542. Cabrillo was the first non-Native to visit what is now San Diego.

The 2017 Cabrillo Festival has been on my calendar for a year. I wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to walk around the base. Certain areas, of course, were still off limits. One of the first sites I saw was this marker:

THE FREEDOM TREE
WITH THE VISION OF UNIVERSAL FREEDOM
FOR ALL MANKIND
THIS TREE IS DEDICATED TO
CAPT. HOWARD RUTLEDGE
AND ALL
PRISONERS OF WAR
AND
MISSION IN ACTION
1978

Here’s the Freedom Tree:

Capt. Howard “Howie” Rutledge was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on November 13, 1928, and died of cancer in Norman, Oklahoma, on June 11, 1984.

He spent 7½ years as a prisoner of war in the “Hanoi Hilton” after his plane was shot down on November 28, 1965, over North Vietnam, and was released in 1973 as part of the general prisoner release. He later served as commanding officer at a naval air base in the Pacific and retired after 34 years in the Navy.

Rutledge co-wrote a book with his wife, “In the Presence of Mine Enemies,” detailing his time as a POW. Upon being published, it became the first book-length, firsthand account of the experiences of American prisoners of war in Vietnam.

For more on Capt. Rutledge, visit the Pow Network.

The food chain in action

I guess as the ground squirrels and rabbits pass on the rumor that I’m a pretty nice guy, more wildlife seems to be visiting me. Yesterday a beautiful California Scrub Jay came to visit and drink.

Today, a Greater Roadrunner came to visit. Sadly, the roadrunner found a large Helix Snail that I had saved earlier in the day because it was trying to cross the asphalt street. I picked it up and brought it over to my side of the street. Just a couple of hours later, I watched the roadrunner find the snail, pick it up in its beak, bring it over to the concrete walkway, and bash that snail until the shell broke open, whence the snail became food for the roadrunner.

Reminds me of my wise old grandmother. When wildlife—spiders, lizards, flies—got into her house, she would catch them in a Mason jar and return them to the outside rather than summarily killing them for invading her house. Her reasoning was that they were a viable part of the food chain.