I Heart O.B.

I was thinking earlier this afternoon about blogging and began to put some thoughts together. When I just created a "title" for this post, I didn't know what to type in, however, my mind went to thinking about a new student ministry at Point Loma that is called "I Heart O.B." Each week, a growing group of students meets to either share art or play music with the community of Ocean Beach and engages in prayer and other acts of service to this neighborhood of San Diego.

Right before the end of the semester after commiserating about bad haircut after bad haircut, my roommate, Jake had recommended that I take a trip down to Newport Avenue to The Electric Chair and get my hairs cut by a woman named Charly. So right before finals week, I made my way down to O.B. after hearing positive things from Marte and Amy and was pleasantly surprised with a clean and new haircut. Since it's been a bit over a month, I needed to get the hairs chopped again (especially before wedding #2 on July 4th weekend), so I managed to get in with Charly this afternoon before she went on vacation for a few days.

I spent about 15 minutes trying to find a parking spot, but was having an enjoyable time taking in the sights, sounds and smells of O.B. After finding an opening, I parked my car at the west end of Newport and made the walk down the long central O.B. thoroughfare to the Electric Chair. Over the last three years that I've been living in San Diego, I've managed to get over to O.B. a couple of times each month, whether it's to show some out-of-towner friends another unique part of San Diego or taking in the great deals on Wednesday afternoons at the Farmer's Market.

As I was walking down Newport, I was reminded of how much I enjoy being here. With about every third person passing me with some kind of tattoo, surfers fresh from their afternoon surf competition making their way home from the beach, an old hippy man cruising down the sidewalk on his beach cruiser, I realize how much cultures and worldviews and perspectives can collide and result in such a beautiful thing as O.B. I feel comfortable. I feel at home. I think of a clean cut, polo wearing, East Coast raised kid as myself who embarked on this journey called going to college cross-country (back in 2005) and where I'm at today appreciating yet another great neighborhood of San Diego, full of tattoos, organic nearly everything, surfers and of course good old granola. A place where I have grown to embrace recycling not just as an option, but as a personal value, learned to appreciate the beauty of simply cooked food with all the organic options imaginable and lived a real-life case study for this kid from Boston to have his worldview rocked, stretched and sometimes flipped upside down, all for the better. Who 'da thunk?