Hot take: My least favorite thing about this upcoming holiday season is the American cultural understanding of what is appropriate to eat on Thanksgiving and Christmas. If I’m honest, I’d rather have Mariano’s fajitas for Thanksgiving and Jimmy’s lasagna for...
For this morning’s prelude, the Wilshire Winds plays an excerpt from “The Promise of Living,” a piece American composer Aaron Copland wrote for his opera, The Tender Land. The opera tells the story of a Midwest farm family in the 1930s during the spring harvest. The...
Last Sunday evening I spoke at a CBF Oklahoma event. I rarely make my way up north, but when I do I make sure to stop and see my grandmother. I decided to surprise her for lunch. She did her usual, “You couldn’t call so I could at least have my teeth in?” As we sat at...
Last week we began a three-week emphasis, “The Stewardship of Memory,” and Timothy asked us to think about our favorite Wilshire memories. My mind has been wandering ever since and recalling moments from my time at Wilshire and throughout my life of faith. Many of my...
My mother recently found my first Bible packed away in her attic, a hardback, blue NRSV edition with my name, Heather Beard, engraved on the front cover. Inside the Bible, tucked safely away, we also discovered my first footprints, hospital card and baby bracelet....
This week we have collectively experienced or been mindful of Indigenous People’s Day, the lingering remnants of Columbus Day, World Mental Health Day and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has escalated to war. Mainstream news outlets and social media influencers...
By: LeAnn Hampton. My soon-to-be 100-year-old mother loves to tell about an incident that occurred many years ago when she was teaching Sunday School to a class of third graders. She noticed that many of them arrived on Sunday morning frowning and in a bad mood. One...
By Dorrell Brown. What happens when one prepares and one forgets? I’ll tell you: the outcome changes. My sister was preparing for her bake-off and had everything all planned out. When the cookies were almost done, the sugar was still sitting on the counter, so it was...
We live in a problem-solving, information-driven kind of world. Though we’re plagued by inconvenience, solutions never seem too far away. Not sure how long to air fry that frozen chicken breast? A quick Google takes care of that. Trying to decide if it’s appendicitis...
By: R.G. Huff. “Christ will gird himself and serve us.” This phrase from our opening hymn today brings with it a “picture this” moment of Jesus throwing on a white apron and scurrying about between tables when you’d think he should be in the place of honor — or at...