Author: Jeff Hampton

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“In a world full of unending destruction . . .” That’s what I thought I heard Wilshire’s Katie Murray say at the beginning of the Prayers of the People on Sunday morning. A millisecond later I realized she said “unending distractions,” but now I can’t separate the two phrases. They’re welded together in my mind because I’m distracted from destruction.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say we’re living in a time of unending destruction. The pictures from Ukraine and Gaza are gut-wrenching. Thousands are dead and injured, and once vibrant cities have been reduced to piles of broken concrete and twisted steel. Imagine waking up one day and seeing downtown Dallas – or any place you call home – in ruins. It’s unimaginable, and yet it is happening in those cities “over there.”

Continue reading “Distraction and Destruction”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“Are you having a good day?”

That’s what I asked the woman sitting across from me behind thick layers of protective glass at the Social Security Administration office on Central Expressway. I was there Wednesday afternoon to deliver a document required to complete my profile for future benefits.

I asked the question after she had asked me a long string of questions to verify my identity: full name, birthday, place of birth, address, spouse’s birthday. She had stopped asking and was making keystrokes on her computer, so I asked my totally unrelated question to fill the awkward silence: “Are you having a good day?”

Continue reading “Human Encounters”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“Myrtle is blooming,” I said early one morning after I opened the shutters in the dining room and looked out to see a few tufts of deep pink. We went out a few minutes later to walk to the park but first stopped by the little crepe myrtle near the street to confirm what I’d seen. Yes, it had bloomed!

LeAnn and I have been in our house 13 years, and we’ve put a lot of work into our flower beds and raised-bed vegetable garden. We’ve had a lot of success, but we’ve also logged a pretty good list of missteps, mistakes and good intentions that just haven’t worked out, or at least not at first and not as planned. 

Continue reading “But it Bloomed!”