For Wilshire Baptist Church
While our associate pastor is away on sabbatical, our pastoral residents are taking turns performing many of his tasks, including processing and posting these weekly blog submissions. I’m thinking this is a great opportunity for the residents to fill up on new experiences while they’re filling in — as it was for me in the summer of 1980 when I was an intern at the Sherman Democrat newspaper.
For Wilshire Baptist Church
“Do you know who I am?”
The question makes my skin crawl because of the way it is often used by people with power and prestige to taunt people with no power or prestige.
I heard it most recently in the news reports of a local politician who allegedly got into an altercation with a teen and allegedly spoke those words, “Do you know who I am?” I’m using the word “allegedly” here because I’ve recently written here about waiting for the facts instead of rushing to judgment, and the facts are still being sorted out in this case.
For Wilshire Baptist Church
We were settling in for the Ash Wednesday service at Wilshire, and I looked up to see one of our pastoral residents at the front of the chapel making the sign of the cross in ashes on the forehead of a young woman. His lips moved with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” and she nodded, turned and walked up the aisle toward the door. I knew she was scooting off to work with the children and she had asked for ashes early because she was going to miss the service.
