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For Wilshire Baptist Church

On a recent Tuesday evening I went to talk to our neighbor two houses down about the vacant house between us. The owner is renovating it and getting it ready to sell, and the fence he promised that separates our back yards is finally going up. After our chat, I was going to continue down the street and meander through our neighborhood or maybe to Central Park, which would be normal if LeAnn were with me instead of at the weekly meeting of Wilshire’s minister of music search committee. But when I got to 10th street and looked toward the right, my eye caught the corner of the labyrinth at First Presbyterian Church and that’s where I went. 

Continue reading “Prayers Underfoot”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Sunday we closed worship at Wilshire by singing “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” by Doris Akers. I was not feeling well and watched at home on live stream, but I texted LeAnn: “Just stay in your seat until it ends.” As far as I know, nobody got hurt.

I say that because one of the near-folkloric tales in our family is that sometime in the 1970s at the height of that song’s popularity and before it made it into the hymn books, my grandmother had her fill of it being sung in their service every week and decided to walk out of church. She stepped out the front doors of First Baptist Sherman, took a tumble and broke her arm.

Continue reading “Sweet Spirit”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

I often stream our local classical music radio station as I work at the computer, especially in the afternoon. But I got impatient with the station recently because they were having their first-ever public-radio-style pledge drive. That makes perfect sense for them since they merged with our local NPR station and are now part of that world. But they were talking more than playing music and it was cramping my style. 

Continue reading “Listen for Pentecost”