For Wilshire Baptist Church
I made an assumption, and I was wrong. That’s never happened before, right?
We have neighbors a couple of doors down and across the street who have a business hauling stuff in a large trailer. Occasionally there’ll be some noise as they come and go – and there’ll be an extra vehicle or two on the street – but it’s “over there” and so it’s not such a bother.
Continue reading “Getting Better Over There”For Wilshire Baptist Church
Memory is not neutral or static. It can be a tool for good by reminding us who we are, where we’ve been, what we’ve done, what we’ve endured and what we’ve learned. It can help us stay on the good roads and not go back down the bad roads. Memory can also be a burden, reminding us of our mistakes and failures. It can keep us frozen with fear and self-loathing.
It’s a topic singer-songwriter John Prine covered simply and yet deeply in “I Remember Everything,” a song I had never heard until attending Wilshire’s first-ever Songwriter Vespers on a recent Sunday evening. I won’t peel back all the layers of that song here, but as one who likes words, I’m intrigued by how the first verse seems to encompass the depth and breadth of memory:
Continue reading “Memories and Benedictions”For Wilshire Baptist Church
Driving home past a church in our neighborhood, we stopped at a traffic light and noticed a man lying on the sidewalk. He was in the shade under the live oak trees, face up, with his feet hanging off the edge of the curb. As we stared, we wondered out loud what was up and what we should do, but that was mostly a rhetorical exercise because we knew what we should do.
Continue reading “Samaritans – Good, Bad and Hesitant”