Singing and Sharing in South Los Angeles

South Los Angeles has been my home for twenty-one years. Like many predominantly black and brown neighborhoods, it is a place where underinvestment and injustice cause harm. It is also a vibrant and resilient community where my wife and I have the privilege of raising our twelve- and nine-year-old daughters. Miss Joyce, who lives next door, immigrated from Belize. For decades, she was a service worker at the University of Southern California. She raised a daughter who not only graduated from that same prestigious university but is now an educator in our community. Another neighbor, Señora Hernandez, arrived from El Salvador in the 1980s, fleeing a civil war partially funded by the US government. She so effectively navigated our byzantine public school system in Los Angeles that her children graduated from four-year universities, permanently altering the family’s trajectory. It is a deep joy that my family and I are journeying through life with friends like these. 

My path from the middle-class suburb of my childhood to adult life in South Los Angeles began in college. There, I was confronted with a vision of Jesus that was extravagantly expansive: offering incomprehensible grace, remaining counterculturally close to the margins, seeking justice and loving neighbor at great cost (and joy!). After graduation, I joined a community of like-minded folks trying to live this out in LA. I had the opportunity to advocate for unhoused families, contribute to policies advancing educational equity, and pastor our local youth group. It was a season of adventure, growth, and foundational formation. It was also a season—in my early twenties, newly married, and armed with a well-intentioned yet unhealthy desire to “save” and “solve”—of deep struggle. Burnt out, overwhelmed, and frequently feeling like a failure, I experienced new and needed grace through spiritual direction, personal prayer, retreat, and learning contemplative Christian practice.

At ReVision, I was reminded of the powerful and mysterious way in which the Spirit of God inhabits our contemplative practice and action in the world. I felt it profoundly as Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher led us one morning, putting the words of Matthew 11:28 to rhythm and melody as 1,500 attendees sang in unison. We learned of Mother Buschbeck, who taught Carmen and others to sing so that “if they are ever under the rubble of a building, [they] have songs to sing.” Later, Fr. Greg Boyle, my fellow Angeleno, shared of the shame, disgrace, and other rubble so many in his community are buried under. I was so moved to hear the songs of tenderness, mercy, and kinship that he and Homeboy Industries are singing with the Homies, and his call for each of us to “receive the tender glance of God and become that tender glance in the world.” In my own special way, during ReVision in the desert of New Mexico, I experienced the song and glance of God and am encouraged again to sing and share together with those in my community.

Elliot Ling has served as CAC’s Chief Financial Officer since February 2025. He lives with his wife and daughters in South Los Angeles, surrounded by neighbors whose resilience and community spirit continue to inspire him. On weekday evenings and weekends, you can find him cheering from the sidelines of his daughters’ soccer games and running around the ultimate frisbee field.

The Center for Action and Contemplation’s mission is to introduce Christian contemplative wisdom and practices that support transformation and inspire loving action. In this issue of the Mendicant, we are honored to share with you articles from five members of CAC’s community about what loving action looks like in their lives. Download a PDF of this issue.