By LeAnn Hampton. In a perfect world, Advent is a time for us to slow down and contemplate the mystery of God’s great love coming to be with us in the presence of Jesus. Do you live in that perfect world? We don’t. Advent at the Hampton house this past week meant...
Today we begin the season of Advent. One of my favorite worship elements during this season is the children processing down the aisle at the beginning of each service with the various pieces to build our nativity scene. Each week a new element is added and gradually,...
By Katie Murray. Today is Christ the King Sunday. A relatively recent addition to the liturgical calendar, it was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. Pius wrote in his encyclical "Quas primas" (In the first), addressing the new feast day, that God “must reign in our...
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...