As the palm trees came into focus like angry splinters waving in the heat, I knew I was home. Over the course of the last decade, I have made this land where all kinds of differences collide my place of solace.  Decades are markers of sorts the older you get and I had just returned to Southern California after my 10 year reunion in the Pacific Northwest. It seems like it went by so fast, these 10 years, and I had lived most of them in this dry place where on one side of town it is littered with the small world of movie stars and fancy cars and the other where I dwelt.  That side of town wrestled with issues like social justice, grace, true love, and it is where I felt Jesus show up for the first time in my short life.