Tonight I watched Freedom Writers on DVD. (If there’s a new release I want to see, I try to get to Blockbuster the first week it’s out. I can’t prove it, but I believe there’s a little Blockbuster gnome who creeps into the store on Franklin Road late at night and strategically scratches each movie so that it stops playing about 30 minutes before the end.)

I nabbed this one on Tuesday so it was scratch-free and I enjoyed the heartwarming, if somewhat predictable, plot. What really struck me was the sense of family that room 203 came to develop over two years’ time. Black, white, Cambodian and Latino students who previously hated each other developed tolerance, then grudging respect, then true friendship, and in that one classroom found a refuge from the gang warfare and racial tension that marked the rest of their lives.

I found myself jealous—not of living in LA after the Rodney King verdict or losing friends to drive-bys, of course. But I was jealous of the sense of safety and belonging that each person felt in this class. No matter what was happening outside, the students knew that the others in 203 understood their journey, and they felt safe to be truly themselves.

I have a small circle of friends, developed over time, one at a time, scattered around the country, that comprise a safe “place” for me. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But I do wish I could belong to a small group—or a church—that wrestled through hard questions and encouraged each other’s uniqueness and bonded the way that class did. I’d never leave a church like that.