Image via Wikipedia
Dear Glide Talk, Pastoral Team,
As many of you know I am experiencing deep transition. Those of you who have had conversations with me about my circumstance know I am experiencing substancial material instability. I am currently without permeant residence or income, and I am accepting what I have denied for some time – that I am addicted to marijuana. All these dynamics are complex, and at the core of this deep transition is a calling. In moments of safety and clarity, I have expressed to a few of you my hope to become a leader at Glide. I am a teacher/preacher – to come. My dream is to preach and teach at Glide – to continue the legacy Cecil has built. I have a mighty dream. It is a dream to recover the Tenderloin, to rename it as a model for global sustainability – a site of social and ecological justice. This dream is shared among our community and we will live it.
With the absence of Donald Guest – my faith sees his return in a year – we lack one of our profound speakers/ministers/liberators of spirit. I am Glide, and I have fashioned my whole life to fulfill this position. It is my calling, and I have seen visions of becoming the most powerful Minister of Liberation on the planet – aiding the coming Planetary Era and our collective transition through the current ecological, economic, and political bottleneck. I know this sounds very weird and for those of you trained in secular discourse… my voice borderlines on crazy and in the least, it definitely reflects the instability of my material needs. This is the reason I need you. You are my ground, my hope, and my beloved community. We go together or not at all…
2011… I have experienced intense recovery. As I let go and let God – with complete abandon – I have grown in Spirit and in Faith. Following the suggestions of my care-givers (recovery groups, you all, my sponsor) I now reach out to you with humility. For years I have been co-dependent on my academy for financing. My formal education is over and my true education begins – of asking, envisioning, and receiving. (Ode to the Secret)
My needs:
Phone - I must have a phone to continue my recovery and enhance my ability to stay connected with you. $67.51
Transportation - Bicycle Repair Cost: $225.52
Housing - If anyone is willing to provide residency for any length of time in the city that would be a great gesture – I was offered a mobil home in the East Bay just yesterday which was such a blessing, but I don’t have the money to Bart back and forth from the East Bay to SF and I must stay near CIIS and Glide.
Food - I have $50 in food stamps, and that will run out within the week, but I always have food at Glide – though, Glide’s food is sometimes rotten and unsanitary. I don’t know how many of you have been dependent on the food program? After many conversations with clients and from personal experience I believe that if just 1 person out of a 1,000 turns ill from our food program that is enough evidence to insist on change – My dream is to increase recovery programs, which will increase independence so that we are able to reduce and redirect the funds going toward meals to build jobs and empowerment…
Income - Seeking a Sustainable Position to Teach and Preach at Glide. This is an appeal to democracy and my most important request. I am asking that you give me a chance to lead through democratic appeal – I am asking that you all ‘vote’ me in…so to speak… In my most humble opinion, I do not have a chance of being hired by Cecil or Janice or Karen. Their role is to Baptize me. It isn’t that I don’t believe in them to ‘hire’ me – it is exactly the opposite – I am not for ‘hire’. Our pastoral team is accountable to the structures of both church authority and institutional processes that ‘qualify’ ministry. It is a very important role. We stand in the Methodist tradition and that tradition is very important. We are also a large social service institution that is regulated and dependent on hierarchical, bureaucratic management for sustainable survival. My role is accountable to the Spirit of God… a Spirit that often defy’s conception, rationality, linearity, and Earthly authority with Divine Love and Grace. The Spirit of God is also the Presence of the People – you are a collective will whose hope is contained within the word: democracy. Cecil’s attentiveness to the Spirit of God is the solitary reason we don’t have a cross up behind the choir – which will be the center ‘peace’ story to my first sermon. (under construction)
Again, I know that this seems really weird, maybe insulting to some, inspiring to others, and definitely counter-rational. In the past I have mentioned to some people that I aim to preach at Glide – the general response is to tell me about going to seminary. This is the general trajectory of clergy today: a rational, linear process of seminary – appointment. It is a vocation, a job. I am not this – I am becoming One with the Father. I have no formal creed. I am bound to the bio-psycho-social inheritances that make possible the present. I Am Love – like you. I am deeply critical and highly constructive which makes me incredibly conscious. My work is the evolution of consciousness. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ and follow Him in His instruction – “No one enters heaven without being born again.” This is why I must beBaptized. I cannot lead without this transmission of the Spirit. I must be Baptized by my community – by Cecil – so that our collective legacy is not lost. We will not falter because the Spirit of God is upon us. The whole world watches inspired by our collective empowerment. It is of no coincidence that our celebrations are increasingly, intense and international. We prepare for 2012 and beyond – a collective, globally conscious, planetary transition…
Let me Preach. After a few times of practice I will out-perform the choir, it will be deeply complementary, super conscious, resonant and healing… and you will have to keep up with me! Haaha! oh… 
Attached you will find a resume!
In Faith of God’s Presence and the New Eden…
Grace and Peace,
Adam
