Movement Of The Spirit In A Canopy Of Rainbow Umbrellas

Twenty-five years ago my wife and I could pack four kids in the car, drive overnight ten hours to visit her parents, stay awake and play the entire next day, and be relatively unphased by the experience. Today, however, we find ourselves eager to break up an eleven hour trip for just the two of us into two roughly six hour stints. And we are completely phased by the experience. It’s good to stop and get rest.

Before we lay our heads on the pillow, though, we sought out some dinner in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC. The front desk attendant at our hotel told us to just turn right and go downtown. We’d be sure to find fireworks. So we did drive, but were more hungry for food than fireworks, thinking we’d still be able to do both. We parked and started walking. Very shortly we stumbled upon this lovely patio with the colorful umbrellas you see in the photograph. We decided immediately, without knowing what restaurant this was or what food they served, this would be our dining spot. It turned out to be Mellow Mushroom franchise. Something we could get back home. But that did not matter. We could not get this patio with these umbrellas back home. So we ate and enjoyed the food, the ambiance, and the company.

When dinner was finished and we had paid the bill, the waitress told us to “just go that way” and we’d be likely to find the pyrotechnics. We walked. While we walked we could hear the blasts and we saw the light reflecting off buildings, but we could not find the source. That is, until the grand finale. Just as the climax of the show ended, as we could tell from the sounds, we saw the blocked off street and throng of watchers starting to disband.

The drive back to the hotel yielded a few nice looks at some fireworks, but not as nice as the patio where we had dinner.

What happened in your ordinary life today where you can now see the Spirit at work?