With the bombardment of all our media senses with 24-hour war
coverage, I find the need to escape to moments of peace.
With the bombardment of all our media senses with 24-hour war coverage, I find the need to escape to moments of peace. It’s good to keep track of basic information, but I don’t need to drown in details. I turn the TV on for five minutes; if I don’t see anything other than bombing, I turn it back off.
For peace in our local area, nothing beats a quiet trip to San Juan Bautista. It is so close that in fifteen minutes I can be sitting and watching chickens in an open courtyard.
Or relaxing in the dining room of a home built in 1858, such as La Casa Rosa. To sit in the charming and nostalgic surroundings of this warm home while having a gourmet lunch of Old California Casserole or savory chicken soufflé, I feel as if I have stepped back in time. Or perhaps I’m in the mood for the new Basque Restaurant, Matxain Etxea, on Fourth Street and Mariposa (Wednesday to Sunday 11 to 9 p.m.), where I soak in the warm chatter and cheer of people filling the tables as we all eat from heaping dishes family style. No one can leave here hungry!
No trip would be complete without a visit to the bakery on the main street, which has been in San Juan forever, as far as I know. People come from miles around to purchase fresh homemade bread there each day, but it’s not just about the great dark German bread or the cinnamon bread, the mission Indian, the garlic rosemary, the Swedish rye, the Portuguese orange, the buttermilk, the porcito or the melt-in-your-mouth potato rolls. People come to the bakery for the angel food cookies, the butternuts, the orange coolers, and the chocolate Dutch boys. They’ll send bread, bears and bunnies anywhere in the USA for you. A sign advertises the next big community event: “Easter Parade and Hunt 4/13 at Abbey Ball Park.” It’s a town where everyone can know everyone, a community that is really owned by its members, a town where people really care about each other.
As I sit in front of the Mission doors, there are birds in the trees around me busy nest building. I watch as they fly back and forth with long pieces of straw held carefully in their beaks. It is so peaceful to see them in flight from tree to tree, gracefully depositing their strands of straw as they create a safe and welcoming future home for their Springtime baby birds. They really know what life should be all about: building, nesting, growing, planning, creating for a future.
Gazing at the breathtaking statue of John the Baptist in front of the Mission with hands raised to the heavens and vibrant green hills as backdrop with a clear blue sky above, I am reminded of the tall white alabaster Christ figure whose face is turned away from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. You rarely hear about it, but the statue is a memorial to all who died in the bombing, and it touched me more than the impressive multi-million dollar memorial built on the actual bombing site.
As I stood on the site of the Oklahoma bombing and looked across the street, I could see the beautiful soaring statue of Jesus Christ shining against the indigo blue sky with his face turned away from the unbearable sight of man’s inhumanity to man, his head buried in his hands, and two words carved at the base: “Jesus Wept.”
