A surprise picture

A good weekend thus far. Yesterday's two morning charge conferences went well. The one for the Bogard/Mandeville charge (Bogard has 10 in worship regularly, Mandeville, 5) was at Bogard this year, where I have never been before, I am sorry to say. It is a pretty sad little town. It did at one time have a downtown...every one of the buildings is now dilapidated and I was told they are to be torn down. Bogard UMC used to have lots more folks than they do now, and they know the future isn't very bright for them. After charge conference I went upstairs (after eating not American cheese and Ritz crackers, but ham on white bread and homemade peanut butter cookies) and saw a church that reminded me of a couple of other buildings we have. BUT, what really caught my eye was a piece of art framed on the wall. Yes, there were the pervasive Head of Christ with the wavy hair in profile and maybe even a Last Supper picture, but there was another as well. Salvadore Dali's St. John of the Christ. Numbered in pencil (132 of 175) signed, yes I said signed, in pencil, by Salvadore Dali. I kid you not. I stood there and stared at it for a while. And then went downstairs to ask my questions. Where did it come from? Oh, Richard gave it to us a long time ago. Who's Richard? Oh, he comes sometimes. That is about all I got out of them. I tried to explain that they had quite a treasure up there. I even said, without thinking, that if their financial picture got really bad, they could sell it on ebay (WHAT was I thinking???) then I tried to quickly cover by saying, "but of course, the neat thing is that you have it and I am sure you wouldn't sell it..." The good Bogard folks (5 of them) and the one Mandeville folk (1) didn't seem offended at all, but did look a touch puzzled by my excitement over the print. AH well.