Jeff Hampton – Page 114 – Jeff Hampton, Writer

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020

Together Alone

For Wilshire Baptist Church

If you saw the Wilshire worship service online this past Sunday, you saw the Wilshire Winds performing an arrangement of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” in one of those video collages that instrumental and choral groups have been doing around the globe during the pandemic. The first one I saw and still my favorite is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing an excerpt from Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.” My favorite moment is at the very end when a percussionist shows up in the collage with giant headphones and a triangle to play one single “ting.”

May 6, 2020May 6, 2020

For Those Who Serve

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Did you know that Sunday was the World Day of Prayer for Vocations? I didn’t either until this morning when I watched the weekly Sunday mass from St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Victoria, Texas. That church, like Wilshire and many others, has been live streaming their weekly services, and my brother-in-law Jim has been sending me the Facebook link the past few weeks.

April 29, 2020

Isolating in Plain Sight

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Saturday morning LeAnn and I jumped on our bikes and rode the Cottonwood Creek Trail. It’s a bike/walk trail that forks off the White Rock Creek Trail just north of Royal Oaks Country Club and meanders for 3.6 miles along Cottonwood Creek north to Spring Valley Road. We’ve been exploring a lot of the Dallas area’s urban trails in recent years – on bike and on foot – and we hadn’t ticked Cottonwood off the list and it was time. I grew up in Richardson and swam at the pool and played in Heights Park on Cottonwood Creek. And as an adult writing about local history, I learned that outlaws once camped along the creek between what is now Central Expressway and Texas Instruments. So, I was excited to give the trail a ride and see the creek up close, but it was not what I expected.