Reveling in Modern Rainbows of Diversity

It was a picture-perfect day, with a sky as blue as heaven and the ocean a sea of diamonds.

Snow capped the distant peaks and, nurtured by recent rains, new fields of grass brushed the slopes of lower elevations with shades of emerald green.

It was a day that crackled with the effervescence of chilled champagne. The temperature on our deck that icy Topanga morning stood at 28 degrees. Nearby, there were traces of snow in places where there had never been snow before.

I have lived in Los Angeles for 30 years, but never have I witnessed a day so perfect. L.A. wore the rich colors of winter like Joseph’s dream coat. The very air shimmered.

I could understand as I drove out of the canyon, along the ocean and into town what attractions had drawn the millions to this basin of jewels. Despite today’s drab suburbs, relentless traffic and tangle of freeways, there is an exquisite elegance to our city on a morning like this.

Even the towers of downtown, shown in iridescent profile against a background of snowy mountains, added depth and texture to the adornments of this flawless day.

The wonder of color and weather was contagious. If ever children squealed with delight, they were squealing on this day, as snow dusted their yards. Adults, too, the jaded grown-ups of weather-funny L.A., were caught up in the magic.

And as I absorbed it all, driving through the corners and the centers of a city dressed in rainbows, I said to myself, if only....

I had just come from church. This is a statement as unreal as if I had said I just came down from the moon. Organized religion is a foreign country to me. I don’t believe in the ritualistic hocus-pocus or the hypocrisy that often characterizes churches and church people.

But I would never question your right to believe otherwise. Whatever gets you through the night. And I have no compunctions about being in church for special reasons.

On this particular day, I had attended a service at a Seventh-day Adventist church in Canoga Park to witness the baptism of a beautiful young friend. The “dunking” was performed by the pastor, Rockne Dahl.

It was his final day of an eight-year tenure, and in his valediction he praised his congregation for its racial and ethnic diversity. A gentle and amiable man, he told them that the church is no longer “white, Anglo and Republican,” but a mixture of races and beliefs that embraces everyone.

In that sense, he said, “The church in a special way mirrors Southern California.”

Then he walked around the large room, its interior tinted by diagonals of sunlight through stained-glass windows, and proved his point. He asked members of the congregation where they were from.

They answered: the Philippines, Haiti, Ceylon, Mexico, Guatemala, Denmark, Switzerland, Peru, Nigeria, Tonga.

Then this wise and thoughtful man said quietly, “Please, notice the people.”

Dahl will move on to Lancaster to minister to a congregation much larger than the one he has served in the Valley. But if he never gives another sermon, his words of departure in Canoga Park ought to be chiseled in stone.

“Please, notice the people.”

I sat absorbed by his sermon, by the diversity of the congregation and by the scope of the mix that is indeed Southern California. It was on my mind as I drove through that perfect, water-colored day in a city still trying hard to be all that it can someday be.

We come from all over the world and bring with us special pieces of language and culture to form a tapestry of humanity unlike anything imagined 30 years ago. Racial or ethnic isolation is no longer an option in a world too small for hatred. This is especially important now as, hunkered down, we look around for the enemies who commit murder in the name of a god who, if he exists at all, would wither in shame at the blood spilled in his name.

The threats brought to us by madmen are real enough, but it wasn’t a whole people or a whole religion that brought down the Twin Towers. It was a band of misanthropes to whom power and hatred are the only real icons.

To those who listened carefully, Rockne Dahl was addressing the differences that both divide and unite us. Fortifying his sermon with quotes from the Scriptures, he was asking his congregation to consider the hearts and souls of those who occupy our world. To glory in the mix of colors and languages that flow through our history.

“Carpe diem,” he said. Seize the day. Be the leaders in a quest for a mutuality of spirit that will inspire others. Meet the beauty of perfect days with a beauty from the very core of our beings.

“Please,” he asked in endearing simplicity. “Notice the people.” Yes. Please.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com