Karma: Inside the L.A. Wildfire Relief Effort

 

karma - noun - (Sanskrit) - action 

For whatever reason, the definition of karma tends to vary. If you are a Hindu, you believe that karma relates to "the relationship between a person's physical action and the consequences following that action." If you are a Buddhist, karma is "the force generated by a person's actions to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of a person's next existence" (Merriam-Webster). The emphasis in all three if you include the Sanskrit is on action. I'd like to think of karma as cause and effect in which balance is involved. Whatever your understanding of the concept is, it is fine with me. Karma is all about actions, how they stimulate reactions. It is more about balance than punishment. You simply earn what you deserve. 

Yet how does karma relate to the recent Los Angeles wildfire relief movement? I'm getting to it. Since moving here from Jersey in April, I have found that the residents here are, for the most part, not stereotypes. Most of the angels in the City of Angels are transplants from other regions of the country or world. Most of us are here to live out fantasies acquired during childhood. I'm here to do what I can for the homeless community that has just grown due to loss of property caused by the recent wildfires. The cause has produced a generous effect of much generosity, defying balance, however. 

To illustrate what I mean, this past Tuesday, I volunteered to sort through bag upon bag upon bag of miscellaneous clothing donated by miscellaneous Los Angelenos who went out of their way to do their own sorting (through their closets) to come up with wearable items for the newly homeless. Over the course of nearly three hours, a fellow East Coast come-here and I micro-organized over thirty trash bags of clothes only to notice more donations in leaf bags, tumbling through the door en masse. The quantities were daunting. When I asked the higher-ups at the facility where the bags would eventually wind up, no one could give me a straight answer. Basically, my question was ignored. I walked out of the center, hoping that the clothing would find itself to the right, needy individuals and not to a landfill somewhere out of town. 

Just what am I getting at here? Karma does include cause and effect, but perhaps balance is a moot point. Does too much of a good thing lead to balance somewhere down the line? Will the clothes eventually be found and worn by just the right people? I hope so, but I don't know. What I do know is that if you believe in the karma that establishes your place in the next life, the citizens of L.A. who are going out of their way to give to the needy are all going to the best possible next-life alternative. The angels of Los Angeles will find their place in actual Heaven. 

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A Public Service Announcement

 

Hello, Readers of Word to Words...

I am experimenting with a new platform, Substack. As of now, a subscription is free. However, if I attract more readers, I may monetize. 

The web address is gwynenglishnielsen.substack.com.

Thanks for being loyal followers! 

Gwyn

The L.A. Ashes: Is There a Phoenix?

 

conflagration - noun - large, destructive fire

On the third of January, I left my present home of Los Angeles to spend a week visiting friends and family in my former home of New Jersey. Within days of my departure, winds blew, sparks flew, igniting destructive flames throughout portions of the City of Angels, reconfiguring the landscape. From Jersey, I flew to Las Vegas where I played the unfamiliar role of refugee until the air quality was breathable. Now that I am back in L.A., the conflagration continues. When it will end, no one seems to know. 

Already, the wealthy displaced are using their monetary advantage to secure replacement homes that are few in number. Already, there is price gouging in the real estate sector while the fires still burn. Already, the opportunists are finding opportune moments to secure all opportunities while the "middle class" wonder whether it would be worth their while to take what little they rescued and move to higher, moister ground, perhaps Helena? 

It all seems nightmarish, but is there a phoenix waiting to emerge from the ashes of what was once unparalleled beauty, natural and manmade? 

In order to answer the question, Americans have to step away from the 24-7 news cycle, ubiquitous, disparaging New York Times editorials for long enough to grasp perspective. Everyone knows that the media and those associated with it tend to enjoy exaggeration for effect. It keeps the customers coming back; the advertisers pleased. Okay, hold on. I'm not saying that the L.A. fires haven't been any accurate pejorative synonym one can find on Google. They have. What I am saying is nothing is as it seems to be, especially depending on where you are standing. 

Case in point, from a safe enough distance away in my hotel room in Vegas, from watching CNN news feed, addressing concerns from friends and family back east, I formulated the impression that I would never be able to return to Los Angeles again as my city of choice was mired in conflagration and destruction, havoc reigned. When I returned yesterday afternoon, that is not what I found. I found nothing amiss. The skies were blue, the rolling hills, mountains, mainly green, the flavor of the air unnoticeably different, the 405 still bumper to bumper at 3:30 in the afternoon. And I asked myself, How could this be? 

Los Angeles County is one of the largest in the country. It is over 4,000 square miles. The affected communities make up 60 square miles, the size of Paris, but roughly 1/70th of the total land area. It is no wonder I didn't see or smell anything. My path didn't take me through the affected regions, my apartment being ten miles from the holocaust. Largely, L.A. is still what it has always been: a great, internationally recognized city that is still functioning 24-7, not missing any beats.

I may not be a seer, but I do know this. Los Angeles was not named the City of Angels for no reason. All of us here are contributing to the salvation of the lost. Many of us do this routinely anyway, fires or no fires. Person vs. Nature is a literary and real human conflict that has plagued us long before "global warming" and "climate change" were even in the lexicon. Government has proven to be inept. But the people, "We, the People" will persevere. Is there a phoenix to rise up from the ashes of destruction? Yes. We, the locals, the millions of feathers on the wings of the phoenix, will rise together.

#word-to-words, #slice-of-life, #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #truth, #society, #L.A.fires, #LosAngeles, #SoCalFires, #Wildfires, #fires