Sixteen Annual Peace Flotilla, and a good time was had by all!

Last night at the Nature Center marked the 16th time that the little floats with candles in them were launched down the Mighty Arkansas River here in Pueblo, Colorado!  I had not been for a couple years and was just amazed at how much the event has improved.  This is all thanks to a little guy in our town named Doug Gale. You will meet Doug and his lovely wife Dorothy probably next week. I want to take pictures of them and do them full justice, because if God ever touched a man and said "Bring peace to the world and feed my people, it is this man."  I am inadequate to do justice to a man of this stature but I will give it my best shot!

But last night was the Peace Flotilla.  There were girl scouts, boy scouts, McClelland School children, Martin Luther King Center, and more floats then you could shake a stick at.  Someone said there were 83, but that was before I threw mine in the mix.  School kids are more organized.  They had blocks of wood about 10" square and their candle set in the middle.  Then they wrapped it up the sides with butcher paper which had been decorated with peace signs!  Very neat.  I wove some New Mexico Sunflowers into a circle and jammed some purple candles in the thing and called it good. Gave it to some sad looking kid who didn't have one to launch and made him all happy.  Made me happy too cause then I did not have to walk half a mile in the dark through the willows to the launch place!

Usually I run into lots of my friends at something like this, but they were sadly lacking last night. My pastor, Jeanine Lamb and another preacher friend, Steve Parke was there so I kinda hung with Jeanine.  Steve had his guitar and a friend or two and they were the music for the evening.  Gotta' love that Steve!  He does the folk songs and what ever it is us old hippies used to sing.  So they played and we sang at the top of our lungs, "If I had a Hammer!", "Where have all the Flowers Gone?", "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land." 

Now I need to interject here that I had a lovely visit with Pastor Lamb, which I shall call her out of deference to her vocation.  Yesterday she had given a sermon that really made me think that I may be a good person.  Not perfect by a long shot, but my Lord takes me like I am.  It is me he wants, just like I am so it is me he's going to get!  Aside from the preaching thing she is also a very interesting person. Oh, yeah, and a very good listener.  Knows when to nod and everything!

Then they released the Great Horned Owl into the night sky and launched the floats. These were then caught by the Sheriffs Dive Team right before they went over the rapids and returned to their owners.  I am a thinking that my little float with the 3 purple candles might have gotten by unnoticed in the dark and made it's way to the sea.  At least that is the dream I shall hold on to as I once more, in my idyllic world think that peace may actually be a reality some day.

This is Pastor Lamb!