The Perfect Stranger

Last night, after a series of great dinners with great friends, we watched The Perfect Stranger, which is the ultimate great dinner! A cynical lawyer gets an invitation to dinner at her favorite restaurant with Jesus Christ, and He answers all of her questions, quite profoundly. I highly recommend it!

I posted about the dinners and the movie on social media, and almost immediately my friend Katie Lentz commented: Rich! In The Perfect Stranger, Nikki is played by my friend Pamela! You met her when we saw you in Revelation. Cool connection!

I'll say it's a cool connection! I got to thinking about it, and when Pamela saw Revelation she watched my character interact with Jesus. So, my mind kept going on this. I first saw The Perfect Stranger in the Philippines while performing and teaching some workshops at Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary, where I just found out our host for one of our dinners had taught a few years before I was there. The man playing Jesus with my character in Revelation was played by a Filipino.

So I had a little whoah moment, but my brain kept noodling. That cool God wink wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been in Revelation, which happened because I "happened" to be at the only combined gathering of Mastermedia and The Hang that I'm aware of. That was where I shared that I do a 1-man play about The Revelation, and the producers later called to see if I'd perform the role of John in their Off-Broadway musical.

But Pamela wouldn't have seen Revelation the Musical if Katie hadn't invited her, and Katie wouldn't be alive if it weren't for a series of extraordinary miracles after an extreme car wreck (main miracles, follow-up).

I wouldn't have seen The Perfect Stranger in the Philippines if I hadn't met the folks who invited me to perform there while I was in Indiana, and I wouldn't have been there if I hadn't been invited to teach for one week... that turned into 16 years at the MasterWorks Festival. I wouldn't have been invited to teach for that week if I hadn't been a member of Christians in Theatre Arts.

And you wouldn't be reading this if I wasn't pondering it hours before I'd planned on getting up for my last work day before leaving town for seven weeks. I felt like the Lord wanted me to take the time to write this up. Maybe it was for you.

If you don't notice the profound things the Lord is doing all around you, I invite you to have dinner with Jesus.

I write more about that at www.RichDrama.com/MyPassion.

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I play a lead in Providence, which you can bring to your area or watch at home.