Why California

These days my Facebook feed is full-up with stories on why you should leave California. Here are the reasons why I stay:

1. The weather is freaking awesome. I've lived in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic and have spent extended periods of time in the Northeast and South. Every one of those places (including Texas) is unbearable in summer. Everyone spends their days (and nights) locked away in stale, air-conditioned environments. That moist, hot air also attracts thunderous clouds of insects which we don't have here in Southern California. Our nights (even in summer) are dry and mild.
2. I like variety. Where I live in Santa Clarita (north Los Angeles County) I can drive to the beach in 45 minutes and to snow-capped peaks in 1 hour. I can sit on the banks of a cool stream 15 minutes from my house and hike unreal desert geologic formations that have been featured in every film and TV show from Star Trek to the Twilight Zone with a quick 20 minute jaunt up the freeway. Try that in Missouri or South Carolina.
3. Food. You can get AUTHENTIC Japanese sushi and ramen (not Korean knock-offs), street tacos, Indonesian Nasi Goreng, Korean BBQ, and amazing Italian - that's right, Italian. Why? because chefs from Jakarta to Florence ain't moving to Charlotte, NC in droves to set up shop. I know Charlotte probably has a great restaurant scene but Cali has it in spades!
4. Chill factor. We're weird and laid back but that's something I actually appreciate about California. We traditionally got all the creative non-conformists from the rest of the country. I'm an ironic non-conformist: a traditionalist high-church Presbyterial-Anglicany Japanese-American clergyman. Where else would I feel at home?
5. The buck stops here. In the 1980's, when I first became a Christian, all the conservative Christians were leaving California for the Northwest. Oregon and Washington were going to be the new Christian Meccas. How did that work out? I've caught up with allot of these folks who didn't take liturgy, worship and the church seriously. They put their kids in public school up north and hoped all would go well. It didn't. Now their kids are a bunch of angry, pot-smoking apostates. What if they just stayed down here and got serious about discipleship and transforming the culture around them? That's where I'm at. I'm tired of Christians running away like frightened sheep. Besides, Christians still have kids while everyone else spends their money on vacations and tiny houses. We'll be taking over this joint around about 2050.