The 3 p.m. Podcast | The Tasty Foods of Our Faith

I am a sucker for free food. And this past weekend was very tasty.

I went to three places where the opportunity for free food presented itself. I sometimes joke that the only reason I go to the events I am invited to is because of the free food.

The first event I photographed was the Ramadan potluck held at the La Cañada Community Center on Friday night hosted by the Islamic Congregation of La Cañada Flintridge.

The place was packed, and so was the food table. Everything from traditional dishes to In ’n’ Out burgers was served. It was incredible. People were piling on as much food as their paper plates could hold, and eating it just as merrily. Of course, you have to realize, that half the people there had been fasting for hours. I had several people telling me to get something eat; I had to politely decline, since I find it difficult to work and eat at the same time. By the time I had finished photographing the event, most of the food was gone, but I felt happy for the Islamic congregation that the event had been such a success.

The second place I photographed was the Wine and Gourmet Food Tasting held at Memorial Park Sunday afternoon.

The place was packed, and so were the wine and food tents. Everything from fresh peaches wrapped in prosciutto with a balsamic glaze, to pulled pork sandwiches, to red velvet cupcakes was served. And enough wine and beer was available for the city of La Cañada to open its own winery and distillery. Even though the event was not religious in nature, I’m sure most of the people who attended would put wine and beer among the top three religions.

I had several people telling me to get something eat and drink; again, I had to politely decline.

The last place I went to was the Bernhard residence, where I would be photographing the family partaking in the traditional meal eaten after Yom Kippur.

Mom Amy had prepared an abbreviated version for me of the meal to break the fast the family will be eating at the end of Yom Kippur next week. The meal included servings of lox, or smoked salmon, bagels with cream cheese and cinnamon rolls. The rolls are non-traditional. The cream cheese is spread on the bagel, a slice of red onion is placed on top of that, and the smoked salmon comes next. By the time Yom Kippur ends, the family will have gone without eating for 25 hours, so the foods served post-fast have to be light or dairy in nature, hence the salmon, bagels and cream cheese. I have to say, by the time this assignment ended, I had to partake in what Amy had prepared.

These foods reminded me of my own religious and non-religious traditions and their associated foods. I hearkened back to the days of posadas and champurrado and tamales at Christmas time; enchiladas, beans, rice and chiles rellenos at quinceañeras and Virgen de Guadalupe celebrations; raspados, paletas and corn on the cob covered with butter, mayonnaise and salt (you know, the ones with the stick coming out the end, sold by the man with the cart?) after Mass; or the fresh beef tacos, sprinkled with lemon and salt that our prayer group sells each week fresh off the barbecue.

I’d be curious to know what your foods are. What are the foods of your religious and non-religious traditions? Do you still eat them? Or are you like me, craving a warm cup of champurrado right about now because you haven’t had it in years?

Until next week.

All the best.

MICHAEL J. ARVIZU is regional coordinator of the San Fernando Region Ministry With Young Adults. Reach him at (866) 304-0341, or e-mail michael.arvizu@sfmya.org.

The 3 p.m. Podcast | All the Angles

I am always in awe of other religions.

This week, I had the privilege of photographing a lovely Jewish family from La Cañada for a story written by La Cañada Valley Sun columnist Anita Susan Brenner.

The Harris family — Tiffany, Marc, and kids Isaac, Rachel and Brooklyn — were very patient and helpful throughout the shoot, even though it was scheduled to start at 8:15 p.m. I wanted to make sure everyone was home.

Marc was dressed in his traditional prayer shawl, while Tiffany, Isaac and Brooklyn took turns playing a shofar, or ram’s horn, which is used during Rosh Hashana. Rosh Hashana begins at sundown Friday and will mark the beginning of the year 5770 on the Jewish calendar. It was the funniest thing to see little Brooklyn playing the big ram’s horn. And she could only play it if her mom held up the other end! It was even funnier to see that her father, Marc, couldn’t get a good note out at all!

It was a unique experience for me, and it made me happy to see a family so proud of their religion, so willing to share it with visitors to their home.

I remember interviewing a young woman last year, days after she and her husband had just returned from the Muslim Hajj. She told me of her experiences there, walking through the desert with hundreds of thousands of other people, wearing nothing but the same sandals (her husband ended up losing his) and a simple robe for days. Her days consisted of prayer, mediation, prayer, discussion with other Muslim women, and more prayer and meditation.

Wow. That was an experience.

As a part-time religion reporter, I’ve attended La Cañada Presbyterian, La Crescenta Presbyterian, Lenten services at St. George’s Episcopal Church, Easter sunrise services at St. Luke’s of the Mountain Anglican Church, Sunday services at Ananda Ashrama Temple in La Crescenta, St. Bede Catholic Church, St. James the Less Catholic Church and La Cañada United Methodist Church.

I remember my first Presbyterian service at La Crescenta Presbyterian when I was in middle school. I attended with a good friend at the time as part of a youth group that was held there on Thursday evenings. The group attended services one evening. During communion, I was taken aback at the fact that they were using actual bread and that it was being passed along to the people in the pews as opposed to being distributed to people in standing in line. The communion cups were also passed along in this way.

At St. George’s, I was intrigued at the similarities between an Episcopal church and a Catholic church. Both have altars; both have the stations of the cross along the walls. I was even more intrigued when I attended services at La Cañada and La Crescenta Presbyterian churches — and saw no altar at all!

Probably one of the most beautiful services I ever attended was at the non-denominational Ananda Ashrama Temple in La Crescenta. This little temple is located where Pennsylvania Avenue ends at Markridge Road in La Crescenta, at the foot of the San Gabriels. Meditation, incense and music were the order of the morning, and a state of well-being was had by all (except someone’s cellphone kept ringing. I guess high up on the hill wasn’t high enough.) On a spur-of-the-moment decision to visit the temple one afternoon, my then-girlfriend and I even got to see a family of deer wandering the grounds.

Some people might say attending the services of another religion is sinful or even blasphemous. I disagree.

Why would it be a sin for a Catholic, such as I, to attend a Jewish service, or Anglican service, or Ananda Ashrama service if I continue to make it my life’s work to serve my faith in the end? I’m still the same old Catholic I was before I walked through the doors of the Episcopalian church or the Jewish temple. I’m not turning my back on my religion. I’m not looking to convert. Curiosity is a human trait, and I’m curious about your religion.

We all have the same mission, it seems, that is to serve God as part of our life’s work.

Until next week.

All the best.

MICHAEL J. ARVIZU is regional coordinator of the San Fernando Region Ministry With Young Adults. Reach him at (866) 304-0341, or e-mail michael.arvizu@sfmya.org.

The 3 p.m. Podcast | The Workbook of Life

By Michael J. Arvizu

This past weekend, I attended the funeral of a man whom I only knew as an acquaintance. He and his wife were close friends of my parents. The man was a great asset to our parish where he vonlunteered thousands of hours over the 40 years he and his wife were parishioners.

I last saw him reading the Sunday scriptures during the Spanish Mass about three weeks ago. His deep voice and slow pacing made him an excellent lector.

I did not know that would be the last time I would see him alive.

Funerals, or anything that has to do with them, always bring out the worst in me. Thoughts about mortality, our time here on Earth, the choices we make in life, and whether there really is a heaven or hell swam around in my head as I sat there listening to the eulogies. To bring some humor to the occasion, I thought about this Yogiism by catcher Yogi Berra: “You should always go to other people’s funerals. Otherwise they won’t come to yours.”

I thought about other friends whom I’ve lost, and I thought about other funerals I have witnessed.

My mind wandered to the funeral I attended of a young man who was shot and killed by the LAPD earlier this year after getting out of his car following a chase and pointing a weapon at police officers. The incident happened a few blocks away from my church. I remembered our pastor giving the young people gathered a talking to during his homily, saying that life is about making choices and facing the consequences. This young man clearly made a wrong choice. He didn’t need to go further than that to make his point. The casket lying at the foot of the altar was all the evidence he needed.

I thought about the funeral for a great teacher and friend of mine who succumbed to cancer four years ago and whose presence I miss every time I see someone play our church piano.

To worsen my melancholy, I went to our parish office and flipped through our death registry, which just happened to be open to the last page upon which the details of the most recent funeral had been written — that weekend’s funeral. I looked to see if I could find the details of other friends who had passed. They were there. The funeral of a young man who had recently been the victim of a homicide was also there. The book goes back five years, so every funeral or memory of every person I knew — Rene, Mercedes, Cenovia, Pete, Ricardo — who had passed was there at my fingertips in a sort of silent reminder.

Then I listened to the scripture readings that Sunday and heard the portion of the Gospel of Mark about the mute man who was made to hear again after Jesus puts his fingers into his ears, and made to speak again after Jesus spits and touches his tongue. (We would see this again in the Gospel of John Chapter 9 where Jesus makes a blind man see after Jesus makes clay out of mud and spit and rubs it in his eyes.)

Certainly, in contemporary times, the putting of fingers into ears and spitting and touching of toungues is not the most appealing visual. But the real message behind the Gospel was not so much that Jesus uses his fingers and tongue and spit to make mute men speak, but that he uses unexpected things to bring about change. Such was the case with the funeral. What can I learn from seeing friends pass away? Is God telling me to spend more time with my family and cherish the time I have with them? Is he telling me to reconcile with people who have hurt me?

What is God telling us about the recent fires? I doubt the answer to this question is to make sure our brush clearance is up to par. But maybe he’s telling us to appreciate nature more. Or maybe brush clearance could be a family project, where a dad and a son can talk about old times and reconnect while hacking away at the chaparral behind their hillside home. Maybe God is showing us a lesson in the people who lost their homes to the fire — possessions and homes can be replaced, and human lives cannot. Maybe we have too many possessions in our lives. Maybe we don’t give enough to the poor. Maybe we can give a dollar or two or three to the homeless man we pass every day on the way to work. Maybe I don’t need a closet full of shoes ... you get the idea.

Whatever the circumstance is, maybe we can learn something from it.

MICHAEL J. ARVIZU is regional coordinator of the San Fernando Region Ministry With Young Adults. Reach him at (866) 304-0341, or e-mail michael.arvizu@sfmya.org.

The 3 p.m. Podcast | A Humble Start

By Michael J. Arvizu

This is probably the hardest piece I’ve had to write for any newspaper.

I’ve had my share of difficult stories to write, but this one takes the cake.

Weeks ago, when I was asked by my editors to write a column for this space every week, I accepted it humbly and graciously, with the thought that I did not deserve to have a column yet in this stage of my career and that instead it should go to one of my esteemed veteran colleagues. What’s funny is, when I finally figured out what I was going to write about, I panicked over how I was going to write about it.

So I’ve mulled for days now how I am going approach this column, and several hours to go until deadline, I still don’t know.

My religious background is really simple. I volunteer in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Office of Religious Education. My duties include coordinating various events and programs for the young adult ministry of the archdiocese’s San Fernando Region (the archdiocese is divided into five regions; my region covers an area from Lancaster to Pasadena. No pressure.) and overseeing the region’s young adult advisory board. I also sit on the advisory board for the archdiocesan young adult ministry, which is made up of young adult representatives from the individual five regions. (We define “young adult” as people between the ages of 18 and 39.)

My ministry began many years ago as the only kid brave enough to take it upon himself to pass out bulletins to people at the end of Mass at my home parish. I wasn’t asked to do it, I just did it. Later, I graduated to being a musician in my church’s choirs and serving as an acolyte. Later, as I met more people, I stepped off the church grounds and began playing a part in the young adult ministry, climbing the ranks, so to speak, to where I am today, and even doing a stint as a volunteer at the cathedral downtown for about a year. I guess I was influenced by my mom, who for most of my life has been involved in one way or another as a sacristan, lector and parish secretary at our church, and has deep roots there.

When I started working for the Valley Sun, I was assigned to curate the religion pages, updating them each week with various church happenings and writing stories of religious significance and the people involved with those stories, from Easter sunrise services to a story about a couple going on their first Muslim Hajj. Later, I took on the task of founding a new version of In Theory for what was then two Valley Suns. I continue to do that for the La Cañada Valley Sun, Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader. The Valley Sun religion section is still my little baby, I feel.

As such, I feel particularly close to the religious component of this town, and I have found that writing about other religions allows me to learn more about my own religion. And I don’t fear that I will never truly learn everything there is to know about it.

So I will approach this column with a sense of humbleness and a realization that I don’t know everything there is to know about religion. I would even suspect that my respected In Theory writers would admit to not knowing everything there is to know about their respective religions. I feel that religion is one of the greatest mysteries in life. My job here is not to dispense advice or churn out religious doctrine left and right each week. I am here to observe and comment, based on my knowledge of the facts as a reporter, the advice and work from those much more qualified than I, and my background as a young adult serving in a church whose ultimate goal it is to spread the word of God in whatever it does.

Wow, I guess now I know, if that last paragraph is any indication.

God does work in mysterious ways!

MICHAEL J. ARVIZU is regional coordinator of the San Fernando Region Ministry With Young Adults. Reach him at (866) 304-0341, or e-mail michael.arvizu@sfmya.org.