“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” ― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I’ve been walking about our city – this city of Los Angeles that I newly call my home – as many Angelenos have slowly but surely over the past few weeks. With a numbness you can’t quite capture in words, a heart so heavy it pulls your posture in tumult, a sadness so profound for people you know who have lost their forever homes, and a grief so untethered for people you may never know who have lost so much more.

“There are no words,” I find myself often saying to well-meaning friends who ask what it’s like.

When life serves you a tragedy you’ve never seen before, you must sit still to understand it, to try to make meaning of it, or to at the very least, take one step toward the way forward.

So today, I sit still.

With serenity, I realize I’m sitting still on the afternoon of Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

I look out my window through the branches of a beautiful olive tree, and I wonder if this tree is a sign. This tree — representing friendship and reconciliation, cleansing and healing, light and peace — reaches and stretches before me in this moment of stillness as a sign of the power this city can bring together if it chooses to root its recovery, as Dr. King so eloquently has compelled us to do, in love.

I see efforts of this everywhere – heroes picking up the pieces, sharing the meals, and offering the guidance to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other, especially when the literal floorboards you’ve come to know so well are gone.

These heroes are found widely in the employment social enterprises we partner with, particularly in the individuals they employ, who rise up time and again as essential workers — their unsung leadership keeping our communities healthy, safe, and clean. I see leaders like:

• Joe and Celia Ward-Wallace of South LA Cafe, who hold as highest among their titles: “community connectors.” True to their name, they have galvanized an army of volunteers and resources to come to the immediate aid of fire victims. Their version of celebrity is not me or mine, but how bright we shine when we lean in, repair, and rebuild community together.
• The amazing team at Suay Sew Shop, who immediately set up a free clothing store for fire relief, ensuring impacted families had the essentials they needed to start a new day. They did this while shining a light on lesser-known facts about the overwhelm of donated used clothing, using their platform to call for climate-informed disaster relief. As they powerfully said, “even in times of crisis, we need circular solutions.”
• The brave and selfless leaders of The Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, whose enterprise contributes to fire prevention for our state, while creating economic mobility for Californians coming out of incarceration. Not only have they dedicated their careers to keeping people safe and forests preserved, but they have also shined a light on the literal heroes who fight these fires – many of whom are employed through California Fire Camp, earning between $5.80 and $10.24 a day on the frontlines while incarcerated, yet face challenges securing employment in the field upon release. As bitterly ironic as it is, the LA fires have created space for this inequity to be visible and, we can only hope, for a new way forward to emerge.

And so I sit at the window, finding hope in the stillness of my olive tree, and holding in my heart these leaders who are living out power at its best – “love implementing the demands of justice”.

May we rebuild with humanity, in ways that elevate community and climate, ensuring the people most affected are central to the solution.

With love to the city I now call home,
Maria Kim