San Francisco is my favourite city in N. America, maybe the world.
We fired guns in Ohio, in S.F we did something also very American, we went to church.
But not some conservative, old testament, you're going to hell church. We went to a gospel church called Glide. Check it out at www.glide.org
Glide is deeply involved in the social justice movement in the S.F area. It's a community of people from different backgrounds and religions who get together to make a difference, but most important to sing their hearts out. Most of the Sunday service is taken up by singing.
Our Sunday in San Francisco went something like this.
Coffee house culture has moved from Europe to America. And it's the europeans who brought it here. We had our morning coffees at Caffe Trieste, which has been a landmark in S.F since the 1950s. The walls are covered with pictures of famous patrons over the years. Bill Cosby had a cup of Joe here.
From Caffe Trieste we headed to Church. We arrived at Glide half an hour early to get a seat. And lucky we did, because the place was packed for the 11:00am service. People were sitting in the aisles by the time the choir took to the stage and the band started up. The whole place, us included, sang out, "This little heart of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." That was just the opening number. For the next hour we were overwhelmed by the quality and vigour of the choir and the musicians. After each song, everyone assembled broke out in wild applause.
Glide is about people coming together and changing things in the temporal world. If you are secular or even agnostic you'll find your spirts will be lifted by this place and its people. When you're in S.F make sure you check it out.
1 comment:
yes, i remember glide. i went there with mark singer and maybe charlie blakemore. indeed, it was really something. i'm impressed that the two of you sang your heart out. at the time, i didn't have a heart so i not only didn't sing loudly i didn't sing at all! in fact i had to go down to the lower rooms where you can see the service on tv because something about it bugged me out. i wasn't the religious zealot that i am now. i think then (i'm talking about four or five years ago) i was too much of a misanthropist to sing with abandon about letting my heart shine out. i really think that i could do it now, however.
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