A Fertile Ground to Build Relationships: Pastor Tom and the United
Methodist Church of Venice
By Suzy
Williams
“Hi, Honey, blessings!” greets
Pastor Tom Ziegert with a gap-toothed grin, the early March wind riffling
through his longish wavy locks. He stands in the little green courtyard holding
a handful of papers, and is preparing for a seven o'clock event at the
church.“Not quite the conflagration we were banking on!”, he says,
letting out his goofy abandoned chuckle that explodes into a cartoon
hiccup-guffaw.
Behind him, in the stately and huge wooden
sanctuary, a small crowd is slowly filing in. They’re here to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the U.S. hydrogen bomb blast that devastated the
Marshall Island people in the South Pacific. Hundreds of people were displaced
and women were rendered barren or mothers of "jellyfish babies."
Pastor Tom and a smattering of sister
Methodist churches organized this touching remembrance, brought together by
internet video hook-up, courtesy of The Linux Public Broadcasting Network
(LPBN), whose base is here at the church. After songs and prayers and a riveting
reading of a Marshall Island native’s firsthand experience, we gather in
the “fellowship room” and write outraged letters to our
representatives and empathetic letters to Marshall Islanders.
What makes the world go round? What
makes a legend most? What profoundly affects you in a lifetime of tears and
laughter? For me, it is Pastor Tom. Yes, something remarkable is happening at
the United Methodist Church at Victoria and Lincoln. Ever since Pastor Tom took
over the helm there a couple of years ago, an amazing conduit of blissful,
humanitarian energy is flowing there. Under the kind auspices of this bright,
right-on minister, well, let me count the ways that this church’s space
has become, as Pastor Tom intones: “a fertile ground to build
relationships.” He has helped establish, or expand and encourage the
following organizations (not in any order of importance) under the church's
inclusive roof:
1. Inside-Out – A
wonderful arts program for at risk and underserved Junior High Schoolers. About
125 youth utilize drama, painting and music to help cope with today's pressures.
Much of the colorful murals, giant painting and odd- shaped two-dimensional
sculptures now seen in the “Peace with Justice Center,” the enormous
hall across the parking lot from the sanctuary, are made by these kids.
2. Easter Seals – A program for
building social and working skills to developmentally-challenged folks in a kind
learning environment. About 50 people learn and have fun here throughout the
week.
3. Head Start – The
non-profit preschool. Lots of art, stories and games, and teaching kids to enjoy
reading. Forty or so darlins, with great big eyes.
4. Food Not Bombs – The
politically motivated hungry person’s food program. The ample, shiny
kitchen is a fantastic step up for FNB volunteers from the tiny kitchen we
worked out of before for chopping and cooking fresh, mostly organic vegetarian
food to serve the hungry (about 200 each week) on Venice Beach and the Palisades
in Santa Monica. It’s a
pleasure.
5. City At Peace – The
High School version of Inside-Out.
6.
The Indo-American Cultural Center – Cooking and language classes and a
place to schmooze for folks from or interested in
India.
7. Linux Public Broadcasting
Network (LPBN) – Ray Steding’s brain-child. The goal is to provide
free access to information and entertainment around the world. A potential of
millions!
8. The Spiritual Growth Group
– Headed by Pastor Tom, this program seeks to integrate personal
experiences with the Biblical
tradition.
9. The Diversity Fest
– On December 7 every year, an entertainment, arts, crafts, and food
festival. Local organizations are invited to have a booth, the Fire Department
brings a truck, and everything!
10. The
Grassroots Venice Neighborhood Council Town Hall – Many readers have come
to know the welcoming Peace with Justice Center as the latest place where the
GRVNC met and broke bread with the community at the Town Hall meeting Feb 26.
The big, equipped kitchen was a swell place to launch a delicious meal from,
made by St Joseph’s Culinary
School.
11.Code Pink – Recently
Jeff Norman helped organize a couple of swell anti-occupation-of-Iraq events in
the dramatic sanctuary of the church, one with Dustin Hoffman and two Iraqi
ladies, and one with Michelle Shocked and Medea Benjamin.
12. Narcotics Anonymous –
They’ve been meeting at the church for a long time. Hundreds served over
the years.
13. On the agenda: The
University of Venice. Pastor Tom is fascinated by Jim Smith’s revival of
the idea of an educational forum for the general public to learn about bills
before Congress, the propositions on the ballot and for studying the pros and
cons of our representatives and potential representatives in the local, state
and federal government. He envisions a study program of issues of racism,
sexism, gender identity, and living wage and healthcare entitlements, all U of V
staples.
Yes, it is all really,
really beautiful. Ah, but what I would l love to proselytize is that you come to
church to hear Tom Ziegert speak! No kidding, he is inspiring, even to an old
pantheist like me.
Pastor Tom has the
humor, the homilies, and the Big Stuff to move the least God-fearing amongst us.
He always tells a joke each sermon (usually good!) He's apt to throw in some
quarks from his knowledge of physics, oh,yes. From him I learned “Time is
a figment of our dimension.”
He
is the most politically savvy minister I have ever come across. His philosophy
is anti-fear and pro-humanity. And now he is doing his sermon in a service that
compassionately starts at a less un-Godly hour – 10:30am, instead of
10:00am.
Posted: Mon - March 1, 2004 at 05:35 PM