Jeff Hampton – Page 110 – Jeff Hampton, Writer

August 11, 2020

Give a Little

For Wilshire Baptist Church

With nothing happening on-site at church lately, we’ve been trying to patch some things together that look and feel like church. That has included Zoom Sunday school and committee meetings, YouTube worship, virtual Wilshire Winds performances, preparing meals for a shelter that our class supports, other things like that. I’ve missed our quarterly church blood drives, so I made an appointment at our local Carter BloodCare donation center and gave a unit of the red stuff.

August 4, 2020

Morning Walk

For Wilshire Baptist Church

It’s a quirk of the calendar that the two times I most want to walk the labyrinth are just 11 days apart and during the hottest time of the year. I go to the labyrinth and columbarium at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Richardson because my late wife Debra was a parishioner there and the labyrinth ministry was one of her favorite outlets for prayer and service. I go in late July to mark her passing, and in mid-August to remember her birth and life. It would be better if the dates were reversed, better if they were months apart, and better yet if they were at a cooler time of the year because the labyrinth can be as hot as a frying pan in the summer sun.

July 28, 2020

Sax Appeal

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Last week I took my baritone saxophone to a band instrument and music shop in Garland. The conversation went something like this:

Repairman: “She’s a beauty. What seems to be the problem?”

Me: “Nothing that I know of, but I’ve been playing it for 17 years, it’s never needed a repair, so I thought I’d bring it in for a check-up during this down time when we’re not playing.”

Repairman: “Seventeen years . . . really? It looks almost new.”

Me: “Well, we rehearse once a week and play in church just once a month so it doesn’t get a lot of use. And . . . I never march with it.”