Jeff Hampton – Page 112 – Jeff Hampton, Writer

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.”

July 23, 2020

Floyd and the Lesser Saints

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“Look, it’s St. Floyd Church.” We were watching the local news on TV and they were reporting on several Catholic priests who risk their own safety by visiting and praying with hospitalized COVID patients whose families aren’t allowed into the wards. I don’t know the priests but I recognized the interview setting. It was St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Richardson. For some reason I have always had trouble remembering that name and I call it St. Floyd because it is on Floyd Road. But I have to confess there’s some warped humor to that misnomer because the name Floyd puts me in mind of Floyd Lawson, the gentle, goofy barber on “The Andy Griffith Show” from the 1960s.