gardens of heaven
05.30.03 // 7:23 p.m.

Sometimes, I have so much to write that I don't know where exactly to start. I don't want to get into the stuff that makes me feel like I really screwed things up, not yet at least. I'll just start with the things that have inspired me in the past week figurative and literal garden's of heaven.

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I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon in Atlanta's Piedmont Park with Will and my sister. Actually, it was two afternoons. The first time we took a stroll around the booths at the jazz festival and the little lake. We looked at the ducks and walked through the grass trying to stay cool and avoid the Atlanta heat.

The next afternoon, While Will and I were chilling in the hotel, Yoyi discovered the Atlanta Botanical Garden hidden in a corner of the park. So we left the barbeque and the jazz festival and headed to the gardens. I wish I had the pictures already so I wouldn't have to worry about describing in words what I could show you through a picture. Would it suffice to tell you that I've never had so much fun in a garden as I did with Will and Yo? We played in the children's garden and took silly pictures in a butterfly cocoon and on a fake cow. We posed like the silly girls we are next to a fountain before heading over to the conservatory where we found a simulated rainforest in a tropical rotunda, desert house, and poisonous frogs from Costa Rica (don't worry, they were in tanks). I only wish I had more time to explore the other gardens there... what a shame we only had an hour.

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On Wednesday evening, my office (the CPO) held it's annual end of the year banquet to honor the work of the volunteers and staff who put in countless hours to benefit students on campus and the greater LA (and beyond) community. As usual, it was a lot of fun, and the keynote speaker was an inspiration. However, I think this year's speaker touched me more. See, for the last 5 years I've been a part of the CPO family, but I never really saw it as my home until I started working here about a year ago. It wasn't until then that I really realized what a rich resource this place is.

Anyway, back to the wonderful keynote speaker. LS worked in the office as a student and now works as an administrator at a free clinic in South Central LA which was started by students who worked in my office. She tied in the reason she commits her life to service for others to her religion, Islam. In Islam, if you see something wrong in your community, you must go out and change it with your hands. If you cannot do that, then work to change it with your voice. LS did that as a student and she continues to do that. Then, she spoke of an Islamic parable in which a man was told that if on Earth he found a garden of heaven, he should never walk past it without being part of it. A garden of heaven is any place where a group of people are gathered together aspiring for something greater. [Wait, I don't think I have the definition correct... but I think the gist of it is still in there.]

My office, the CPO, is a garden of heaven... not just 'cause it sounds cool, but because people here are really working for something bigger than themselves.

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It's been 10 years since students at my school participated in a hunger strike to demand that the administration establish a Chicana/o Studies Department. I read this article and it brought a tear to my eye. If you don't read the whole article, read these lines at least:

Today, Chicana/Chicano studies isn't just about "doing," either. It is spirit. It is what one is. What one becomes. It has always been an energy bigger than the university. It exists outside its walls and definition. It can be found in East L.A. as well as San Salvador. In a sense, it begins upon graduation.

It is what one does with one's education. Its definition: To place oneself at the service of humanity. It is to build community. And to do that requires but cara y corazon, a good character and a good heart.

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