Friday, January 12, 2007

Sister Act III



Currently I am taking a religion class in school, it's required otherwise I would not be taking this class. I am not the most religious person and I have strong opinions about religion that I have expressed in my class. I strongly feel that out of all the religions in the world, not one religion holds all the answers and is 100% correct. I was raised by my grandparents to believe in the Catholic religion and my mother was a practicing Jehovah Witness, couldn’t be more of a contrast, one celebrates Christmas the other doesn’t etc. Anyway, I don’t consider myself to be either religion. Back to the point of this post. A friend of Paul’s and mine from Boston moved out to San Francisco last month, James White. He was on our bowling team back in Boston and played in the softball league, he's a barrel of laughs. He also loves to sing and is part of the choir that was featured in the new movie, "The Pursuit of Happiness." James invited Paul, Zach and me to church this past Sunday. I warned him the walls might catch on fire and crumble to the ground if I walked into a church. He assured me it was the most accepting church AND he was going to be singing a solo. How could I miss that!?

Yes, that's James White singin' at church!


The church is in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. The Tenderloin is an interesting place. I have nerve seen so many homeless people in my life in this neighborhood. I was holding onto Zachary for dear life, it was really a sad site to see the vast amount of homeless people strewn around the streets like discarded trash. Very very sad. In the middle of all this was the church that James invited us to. I could here the clapping and singing from the street as we made our way into the building. The church was packed! Zachary's eyes were like saucers as he scoped the crowd; I have to say I was probably feeling the same reaction as Zach. After being in for a short time one of the members of the choir started talking about acceptance and how this church accepts everyone no matter who you are or what you believe in gay, straight, black, white, transgender, green or blue, you are all welcome. I was not expecting to hear that at a church. He also said we are all here to believe in something, make a change, be a better person and love one another. Made sense to me! After his speech, which I was impressed with, James White flew out onto the stage like he was the star of Sister Act III and started to belt out a gospel tune like Ms. Patti Labelle! The entire crowd was on their feet and James noticed us up on the balcony watching him and he threw us a smile and a wave. We all had a great time clapping and singing. I was pleasantly surprised at how I felt after leaving this church. It was a feeling of happiness that this large mix of people all came together under one roof, joined hands and got along. If that's what "church" is all about than you will find me there every Sunday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well written article.