This Week’s Theme: Altered States of Consciousness

I’m in DC again. Things that happened since last I posted:

• I met an evangelical preacher in West Chester, and remembered his “thousand yard stare” from my own time working with missions organizations.
  
• I saw a number of five-to-eight-year olds hacking at a pinata at a picnic. The kids had their game face on, and after their three swipes they would turn around and you could see the red mist of battle gradually clear from their eyes.
  
• I almost met international motivational speaker Anthony Robbins, when I went to drop off The Ultimate Water Gun at the Meadowlands Exposition Center. Instead, I met some of the four hundred and seventy-five crew members that will staff his “Unleash your Personal Power” weekend. Some were at least half volunteer, I think, and others had standard Broadway-show-issue wool jackets with “TONY ROBBINS M.E.A.T. TEAM” embroidered on the back. It wasn’t “m.e.a.t”, actually, but it was something like that.
  
• So, as a joke, Kate brought home the 12-CD Tony Robbins “Personal Power II” set that her mom had bought on QVC five years ago and never opened. (Everyone buys a Tony Robbins set at one point in their lives, I’m sure. I know my dad did; I’m glad I didn’t have to pay three hundred bucks for mine.) And I listened to the first disc on the way down.
  

Altered consciousness? You betcha! More to come, all about MASSIVE CHANGE and PERSONAL DYNAMIC FORCE and having a really, really, really big head.