Variations on Salvation

On Sunday, our family is impressively UP and OUT the door to catch the 9 AM service at Glide Memorial Church. Mark brought Jen here on their San Francisco trip 20 years ago, remembering his visits 20 years before that. Glide is now a legit tourist stop, and listed in Jen's Lonely Planet guidebook.

Let's just say it's not your everyday church. When they say Walk the Walk, they mean it. The focus is on social service. Here's a sample of what they do:



The preacher speaks on the text that warns "There is Death in that Pot", exhorting us to recognize the practices in our society and our country's politics which - even though they are accepted by others - can lead to decline instead of rebirth. She's talking about addiction and funding cuts to education.

Throughout the service, the wall where you might expect to find an altar is instead a backdrop for a slideshow. At one moment, it shows a bumper sticker that says "I support Obama" with the word "still" handwritten in as the second word.

At Glide, the music is pure gospel....here's a snipet of the Glide Ensemble singing "I've still got a long way to go."



After Church, we do some sightseeing...



At the end of Haight Street, we have a brief picnic outside Whole Foods, and then head to the new playground in Golden Gate Park. It's called the Koret Children's Quarter, and Kobi has a blast climbing around and trying all the different playscapes.



Meanwhile, Jen takes a professional interest in the playground design. The slide conforms to the new built-into-the-hill style, and it's made of non-slick concrete - kids are sitting on bits of cardboard to get enough speed up to actually slide.





There's a great little spring emerging from a boulder, creating a wet puddle in the sand pit...



And a few artists have been let loose in creating a toddler sand play area with a fossil theme:





Rising out of the playground surface, a wave scupture provides a thrilling (or petrifying, depending on whether you are the parent or child) place to climb to a high perch:



We're soon on our way to have dinner with Thelma & Sydney at their cliff-hugging house which hangs over Berkeley. Thelma & Sydney are prolific do-it-yourselfers and natural teachers. Sydney shows the kids how to peel avacado...





...and then shows us the dragon mural they built in their bathroom out of handmade tiles. Because of the angle, it was impossible to photograph the length of this thing, but it curls all the way through the shower too.



The whole house is like a warm symphony of craft and intentional living. After dinner, we hike to the top of the mountain so we can gasp at the view.