There Goes the Neighborhood ~

This afternoon the Three Jolly Coachmen finally tried our long-discussed, never-done foto shoot in Colonial Williamsburg. Greg's son Ryan took the primary pix but M did a mean job shooting (97!) backups, a substantial number of which turned out really well. The first one here is one of hers, the others are by Ryan. There are many, MANY more.

It was a perfect Fall afternoon in the Burg and CW was hummin'. One thing we frankly didn't anticipate was that when you show up with instruments and stage togs, people start saying, "Oooo, you're going to sing, right??" Well, twist our arm . . . after the opening shots you see on the top here, we broke into "Three Jolly Coachmen" and immediately drew a substantial and appreciative crowd, so we did another one. They loved it; cameras and flip-phones were firing everywhere. The coaches we were seeking as our prime backdrop began to appear, back from their luncheon rest period, so we gained permission of a couple of the drivers to shoot some pix around their carriages. "You have to sing for us," one said, so guess what? We did. And again a gratifying crowd immediately formed.
I felt a leetle uncertain about our activities since we had no license and were not exactly a colonial act -- though we could note that we were playing at two upcoming CW functions (Grand Illumination and First Night). Greg spied some CW cops and marched right over to talk to them. They said as long as we weren't accepting money or passing out handbills, things were cool.

We worked our way on down Duke of Gloucester (DOG) Street and back up again, stopping at about half a dozen venues and usually doing a couple songs at each after some posed stills. Several people drifted along with us so as (they said) to hear more. Lots of locals wanted to know when we were performing again and it was nice to have three big dates to give them.
After about 90 minutes we called it an afternoon. As we walked back to the car I said to M, "Do you have any idea how much fun that was??" She said yes, she did, she could see it. What a wonderful blessing.
Friday I wound up spending most of the day doing stuff in the office, though I did get out to enjoy the perfect Friday by doing a jog with my resuscitated body and iPod. I also kept two of the big sound systems (office and family room) cranked up for the day on the cable Classic Country station and poor M was almost flattened by the Wall o'Sound when she came in the door from her day in DC about 9pm.

Saturday was a rainy day as the big cold front eased thru and so we stuck pretty close. I spent several hours drafting my first posting on the public forum maintained by the dissident Club members. Lowering myself into the tar pit, fer sure, but it was time for an Opposing View. At night we had Gourmet Group and it was a nice group of four couples.
This morning I hit the Chapel for the 0900 service and then met M for the 1045 at New Town UMC, where they were featuring a healing minister from New Zealand who's doing services for the next four nights.
He has quite a story; had his entire stomach removed over the course of three cancer surgeries and wound up a walking skeleton, desperately traveling from one healing practitioner to another all over the world. Finally he encountered a Messianic Jew from Richmond who'd become an Episcopal minister in London (!) who was featured at a Methodist conference in Pensacola. Got that?? To make a long story short, this Jewish pastor and a bunch of charismatics lurking in the conference audience laid the healing hands on him and he began feeling blast after blast of power coursing thru his body over about a 30-minute session. Within a couple hours, he ate his first meal in four years, piling his plate high with fried chicken and mashed potatoes, things he'd only dreamed of eating; when he was eventually re-checked by his doctors, they found all the organs that had been removed -- stomach, gall bladder, etc etc -- were back.

He received an explicit message from the Almighty that he was to give thanks for his gift by being a healing agent for others, so that's what he and his wife have done, world-wide. Some of the stories he told, backed up by local newspaper accounts shown on the overheads, were real New-Testament style healings; sight restored to a man long blind, Alzheimer's gone in an instant, folks walking out of wheelchairs. While I believe God is fully of capable of doing such things, and did regularly in early NT times, I am quite circumspect about "healers" these days. This guy seemed to me to be the Real Deal, from everything I could tell. Plus which, I find that the presence of the Spirit is evidenced, in my case, by unbidden tears and goosebumps that can come even if I'm sitting there thinking about the weather. And that happened today when they began the laying on of hands. It sure looked and felt like the Lord was doin' bizness there today.

We had our small group this evening and that went well. Some of our folks are dealing with difficult things and are comfortable sharing 'em with the group, which of course is an honor.

This will be an interesting week; inthe morning some LPBA friends from the West Coast who have family here are dropping by for brunch. They're interested in maybe doing a house swap from time to time. Thursday nite we have the Shakespeare in DC, Friday noon I have a retirement party to attend downtown, and then that night we're going to the new Lord of Life West facility to see their production of "The Music Man."

Have a good week, everyone ~