Church life in La and Fatherhood

"The Weird,Wonderful and Sometimes Whacky World of Southern California Churches" As we were settling into LA the wife and I attended this church we had heard about called "The Hiding Place" it met in a school and had a youngish pastor who referred to preaching as his "weekly rap". What stood out to me about the place was we only attended a handful of services yet every sunday there was this wonderful latino brother,an older man, who sought us out and insisted that we join him at his home for lunch after church. He was quite a successful businessman and had this home in Beverly Hills!. He was a tenderhearted unpretentious and treated us like royalty(I sorta felt like it sitting in a house next to movie stars,rock stars and the such..that's a long way from Fairbanks) I remember how he would our hands along with his wife and daughter and pray over the food many times getting choked up telling God how much he loved him and us...sweet.
I have one word for some of the churches we tried out..HUGE..I was invited to a Baptist type church that had 7000 members and a sanctuary that could hold 3000..we visited "Church on the Way" and heard pastor Jack Hayford preach..we was and still remains one of my favorite. It seemed there were large churches every where. We had to go to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa the birthplace of Christian Rock. I recall sitting there as a surfer preached using all the surfer lingo...I hardly understood a word he said. I found the fellowships much more light handed at handling folks. Much less legalistic. One of the first things I got to do that was choice was to go to Disneyland and a "Christian Music Night"..Here I saw up close some of my biggest heros. Mylon La Feverre and Broken Heart, Darrell Mansfield,The Rez band, and Phil Keaggy. Plus I saw a few newer bands I had never heard of. I saw one of the first punk bands ever. "Undercover" I remember seeing this guy up there sporting a MO Hawk with a torn tee-shirt that had "GOD RULES" painted on it. I wasn't sure what to make of them until the singer took out his Bible and began to share..I immediately felt God's presence. The other bands were just as cool. There was even a Christian Rockabilly band called "The Lifters"..I stood there as the guitar player prays.."God bless our singing and our playing and our Dancing".."Did he say what I thought he said?..Dancing?"...as soon as he says "Amen" he turns to the crowd and hollers..."TIME TO ROCK"..and off they go and the dance floor fills up with bodies that boogie!!! I'm in shock..If we had done that back home we would have been run out the back door of the church faster than you could say"Jitter bug"...I definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore!..and I LIKED IT!
On any day walking down Hollywood Blvd. you would be buried in every kind of religious flyer imaginable. Not two blocks from school was this big purple building that was the local "Scientology" center, there were Moonies,Mormons, Hare Krishna's and Happy Christians every where.There was a group who passed out fliers that had their whole doctrine built around how the Pope was in Fact the Devil! Southern California truly was the proverbial "Box of Granola"..what wasn't fruits and nuts were absolutely FLAKES! There were churches that catered to surfers, bikers,ex-cons,ex-gays,drug addicts and every walk of life in between. One of my old friends from Alaska has been the pastor of a biker church for years.
During the 1984 Olympics I was still at school when it seemed like the entire world wide church had converged on Hollywood with grim determination to get every freak there saved. There were street revivals, gangs of fresh faced Christians from all across the USA who were "On a Mission" I found it amusing to be walking down the street with some fellow student(sinner usually) and find myself surrounded my a bunch of believers wanting to share Christ with us(I guess having long hair,sporting a guitar and Jimi Hendrix tee shirt made me look like a sinner) I'd go...."Saved,Set free and Tongue talking! Can I get a witness?...now my friend here....well you know what to do"...it was sheep to slaughter.
Eventually we found a nice little fellowship to become involved in. The "Household of Faith" was a little storefront church located in the Sunland/Tujunga area of the San Fernando Valley. Located in the foothills not far from Glendale and Pasadena. Pastored by a nice young couple Terry and Lisa. Lisa was an athletic woman who also loved music and Terry was a be-speckled good humored guy with a heart for God and a lot of kids. I told right from the git go that I was a musician and had a call on my life. At our first sit down I played some Jazz arrangements of hyms I had done on Lisa'a guitar and they invited me to get involved with the church music(a sometime drummer and one piano player) We found a home. By this time we had moved out of crack central into an apartment in Sunland where we would remain till we left LA. The wife was pregnant with our second child and I had found myself in trade school.
I would find that in LA there was always work to be had but the vast majority of it rarely paid a living wage. When I left Alaska working for the state I was making 11.00 an hour good money for Alaska in 1983. That same job in LA required a license and paid a measly 3.65. So off to welding school I went.
It was, by this time, becoming obvious to me that I was in for a tough road. I was in fact in the middle of what would become a wilderness that would last for years. But having been led thru serious Bible study on the subject I was not unprepared to handle it...not that it would ever be enjoyable..I just knew what God's intention would be during the coming trials. As a welding student once my instructor gave me a demonstration on how to turn cold rolled steel into case hardened steel. It was a simple process a combination of heat and water. But it required a sense of knowing when enough was enough. Not to much heat not to much water, the perfect blend of hot and cold...too much would make the steel hard yet brittle. The key was to produce a piece that was both extremely hard yet flexible. As he worked that steel I knew I was staring at God's working in my life.
Just prior to moving out of crack central the wives mother had asked if we would take in her younger sister. She and her step-dad got along about as well as two alley cats thrown into a gunny sack. I find it fairly distasteful when adults don't act like adults in the face of a poor wounded kid from a divorced family who was just trying to find her place in the world. So we took her in. They offered to help out with room and board(gave his money but not his soul..go figure) I thought it would be good for the wife to mend the broken bridge between them. Looking back I see God's hand in it considering what the future would bring.
Life with my little family was a mix of trials,troubles, joy and jubilation. Jeremy was growing like a weed and was a constant source of joy for me. He was a funny little man. Loud as hell and hungry as a bear. I remember bring home a chicken McNugget for him once..the thing was a two handed affair with him and he hardly had any teeth but he devoured it and when he was done had chicken grease all over his face and his filmy hair stood on end. He was so funny. I was so very fulfilled and found a completeness in me being a father.
On a sunny winter morning the wife woke me up with "It's Time"..needless to say I was wide awake and ready to go. So off to Newhall again and this time after 2 hours and three pushes the world invited Jessica Joy Olsen into it. My beautiful dark curly haired bundle of love.
I held her for what felt like an hour. And forged a bond with her that would remain steadfast even today 23 years latter. Precious she was and is. I remember giving Jeremy his first bath moments after his birth and the serious look he had on his face. Then watching him fall asleep a moment later. He came out of the womb relatively quietly. Not Jessica...She arrived crying like hell and displaying all the power of her spirit immediately. She calmed down and started sucking her thumb as I held her and she nestled into my chest while her mom tried to recover. It was one of the most soulful heart warming and full filling moments of my life. From a solo artist I had gone to a duo then a trio now we were a quartet!!!What was once the empty fallow ground of my like now had become a garden of love with a fine strapping young oak and in time not one but two lovely and fragrant roses. I was so full of joy and never knew what perfect unconditional love was until I had become a father..it completed me...and still does.