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The Mystery and Magic of Dreams

For Wilshire Baptist Church

I’ve been writing down my dreams lately because they’ve become so strange. I don’t know if that’s the result of age or medication or simply an overactive imagination. Whatever the reason, I’ve started a log — a late-night diary of sorts.

I’ve always had vivid dreams. My first published writing was in a Richardson ISD anthology of student stories and poems titled “Imagination ’67.” Written directly from a dream, my story told about getting pulled down the bathroom sink drain by the Devil and ending up as the main ingredient in a boiling pot of soup. I was in the second grade and the dream was not so much a nightmare as a Dr. Seuss tale of my own making.

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The Gift of the Spirit

For Wilshire Baptist Church

This past Sunday at Wilshire I wrote the Preparing for Worship essay in the weekly worship folder. Months earlier when I volunteered to write it, I didn’t know it would be for Pentecost Sunday. I also didn’t know the next Sunday would be Father’s Day. Most important, I didn’t intend there to be a connection, but there is.

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Finding Joy in the Hard Parts

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Hard things can be fun when you break through and learn how to do them. They’re even more fun when you learn how to do them with other people.

As the Wilshire Winds have been preparing for our annual summer concert on Sunday evening, there have been parts of the music that have been kicking my back side. Not entire pieces of music from start to finish, but in every piece of music we’re playing there is at least one section or even just a measure or two that challenges me to the point of total frustration. It might be a progression of notes that are difficult to finger, a rhythm that is hard to navigate or a tempo so fast I just can’t move my fingers, tongue or even my brain fast enough. And believe me when I say age plays a big part in all of that. I’m just not as physically or mentally nimble as I once was.

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