Last Wednesday I had the privilege of attending a church in the city called Glide Memorial, which is located in the Tender Loin District (famous for being one of the poorest parts of town). Glide is often referred to as "a last stop for people seeking a higher order". One of their main philosophies, after loving God and accepting Christ, is loving and accepting all people of all types, backgrounds, social standing etc. They wish to achieve a community where the marginalized are accepted. After they pray they finish with "amen, praise God, right on, namaste, shalom". All this makes for a very interesting mix of people and a very unique church experience.
The first half of the service was pretty much what you'd expect from any charismatic church environment, but about half way thorough, things go interesting. The pastor was well into his sermon, when a man walked up and asked if he could have a seat next to me on the bench. I of course, told him he could, trying not to show any reaction to what he was wearing, which included the following: grey slacks, a blue dress shirt, a black and white floral print dress over top, a plastic lei of green leaves around his neck and some in his hair. But, the best additions were the bright pink wig over his long dread locks and a button pinned to his dreaded beard, reading "I heart trans". If his attire wasn't enough, he had the personality to match. As he sat down and situated his three large purses, he turned to me and said "I'm Edmund Juicy! What's your name?"
As we prepared for a song, he grabbed one of his handbags on the floor and begun digging through it. He pulled out a maraca and commanded me to hold it for him. He re-closed his bag, set it on the floor and took the maraca abruptly from me, then getting up to dance around the room with it, shouting "Hope" at the top of his lungs. When the sermon resumed, Mr. Edmund Juicy sat back down and began digging though a bag again. He turned to me saying, "I was looking for my peppermint gum and instead guess what I found instead?! My marijuana breath spritzer!" He then lifted it up and said "Thank you, Lord", sprayed it into his mouth, lifted again thanking Jesus and put it away. I didn't even know that existed...oh well.
The fun didn't stop there. As we began the final song, Edmund commanded everyone in our row to stand up, pulling out some pom pom's from the depths of his bag. He handed one to Becky, who was on the other side of me and then grabbed my left hand, forcing me to dance around the room with him and his pom poms. What an experience...
The unusual encounters weren't over for the day. Becky and I were walking down Market St., where we ran into Barrett (I run into her all over the city...it's really weird) and decided to try out this breakfast place called Dottie's. We'd heard good things about it and it always has a line out in front, indicating it's worth the wait. We got in line and the man in front of us began chatting. He was with his high school aged daughter and they had just come from serving in a soup kitchen downtown. She was really not into talking with us, where as he acted ecstatic to have people willing to talk with him. She eventually went inside to sit down, loosing interest in the conversation. At this, he goes "Alright, now we can have some fun."
He pulled out a folded up piece of paper and asked me when my birthday was. "April 25", I replied, very confused. He looked at the piece of paper, and told me that my "archetype" was a Queen of Diamonds, meaning I am the "Master Teacher". He then did the same for Becky and Barrett, who are apparently the "Ultimate Giver" and also "Master Teacher". He was thrilled to learn that Barrett and I were the same thing and began to tell us what our vocation in life should be. We must watch out for other because we both have the gift of assessing situations and we have a great capacity for dexterity and the ability to teach through our actions and words. We also apparently are able to finish each other's sentences, know what the other person is thinking and could talk every night and never run out of things to talk about. We thought we could attribute some of that to the fact that we have been living with each other for a year haha. Becky apparently cannot go into Criminal Justice (her major) because she can't stand to see people suffer and her ability to give will get in the way-generous to a fault is what he said.
At that point, his daughter and him were called to sit down for their meal, but not before he wrote down a website with natural precautions you can take to protect yourself against radiation poisoning because "the world needs people like [us] to stick around a little longer."
Wow, all we wanted were some pancakes and we ended up getting our fortunes read in line. Oh, San Francisco, you never fail to surprise me.
The pancakes were delicious and we spent the rest of the afternoon taking advantage of the free day at the Asian Art Museum. What a day.
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