Music is an amazingly powerful thing.  John Fogarty's Center Field still causes me to daydream of playing in the majors.  At 51, I must admit this dream is looking less and less likely, but not when CCR's former head boy is painting an inspiring word picture with references to Tyler Cobb, Say Hey Willie, and Joe DiMaggio, all with a rock and roll back beat.  Music moves us to worship, to activism, to tears, to romance.  After all,  music originated in heaven itself, and has the ability to touch hearts in ways nothing else does.  We saw this truth come out in our local nursing home the last time we did a show there.  ( Center Field video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04KQydlJ-qc  )

Prior to starting our show last weekend, our i-pod turned itself on: My 11 year old Rose tells me there's a reason why this happened, but I think the i-pod is a living machine with a mind of its own.  Rose then says I need to get out of the stone age.  This is not unlike conversations I had with my dad when trying to explain how I could copy record albums onto cassette tapes without picking up any outside noise, but I digress.  My magic music machine suddenly came on, playing "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight"  by Mississippi John Hurt - not even a song we use in our show (but you can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbWIdInNRQ  )  As soon as Mississippi John began his bluesy finger picking, an American Indian resident hopped up out of her seat and and began dancing beautifully and in perfect rhythm.  Linda, the activity director, later commented how it's remarkable that this woman, essentially at a stage in her life where she is nonverbal and unresponsive to human language, dances so sweetly every time there's music playing.

Later that morning, Rose and I did a diabolo routine, Rose's first time performing with this particular prop ever. We use pan flute music we purchased from street musicians 14,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains.  A nurse on staff came running into the show, eyes shining and smiling broadly.  "That's the music of my country!" she blurted out.  It turns out she is from the Quechua tribe of the Andes mountains and she recognized this traditional folk music.  Without planning to, we made her day.

So often we look to see a direct way God uses us to minister to the audience.  This show, two people were blessed unintentionally, simply with the music that played through our