Navy Band San Francisco was my first duty station. I arrived at Naval Station Treasure Island, where the band was located, in January 1982. As a twenty-year-old, it was slightly mind-altering. I didn’t have a car and lived in the barracks on base. I knew I wanted to find a Lutheran church. St. Mark’s in S.F. was my choice. I could take the bus and only have to walk a couple of blocks (uphill, of course). My mind was fully blown by the context, all new to me in my life of churchgoing. Street people on the steps and wandering their way into worship. Diversity of ethnicity and sexual orientation. In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, I started off admittedly guarded and wary. I’ve never been one to make the first move toward someone either.

I had my first awakening and integration with gay people. I found them to be so hungry and thankful for God’s unconditional grace. I not only imagined what the church could be, I saw it lived in reality. The cultural backdrop of the city by the Bay (cue the Journey song “Lights”) included the first-time Super Bowl champion 49’ers, and protests at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Berkeley. It was all radical and yet refreshingly liberating. I loved my tour of duty there so much that when offered the option of extending a year, I jumped on it.

God knows how to position us in the right place at the right time. My four and a half years there grew me up, helped my turtle head peek out from its’ shell, and opened me up to relate with people I might never have done on my own. My discipleship was given wings to fly. I realized that the unconditional love of Jesus introduced a judgment-free way of living.

Pastor Art