Monday, December 27, 2010

A message from God in an un-holy city

My family doesn't gamble, but for some reason, we enjoy visiting Las Vegas--strange, I know. And, it just happened to work out that for our family trip to Colorado (between Christmas and New Years), my parents and I found a good travel deal that would route us through Vegas....and then, through an unplanned turn of events, we ended up spending the night in Vegas. On Christmas Day.

After a morning spent opening gifts with my niece and nephew and the rest of the Kappes clan, my parents and I flew out to Sin City. We arrived in early evening and though Dad elected to stay at our hotel (off the strip and near the airport), Mom and I decided to hop the shuttle and head down to the action.

And action we found. I've been to LV several times, but I've never seen the strip as busy as it was that night. Wall-to-wall people and most of them were foreigners! Bring it on! Help us boost our American economy!

Mom and I had two stops we wanted to make (three if you count a stop to eat dinner). One--we wanted to stop at Tiffany's to check out their 'charm bar' to see if there were any have-to-get charms (to add to the charm bracelets we purchased during a trip to New York City a few years ago). And two--we wanted to stop at the Bellagio Hotel to see their dancing fountains (set to music) as well as their arboretum (decorated for the holidays).

After we left Tiffany's and were waiting for the dancing fountains to start, Mom turned to me and asked "Are we bad?" I immediately knew what she was asking...were we bad to be in this city on Christmas Day, shopping at expensive stores and standing in front of expensive hotels? I said, "No, we're not bad...we do good things, we give, we love others...." It was a pretty flimsy answer--which we both pondered for a few minutes.

But then the dancing fountain show started--the fountains at the Bellagio are amazing, choreographed, shooting high into the sky, turning and twirling. It's hard to explain (or justify) if you've never seen it in person, but of all the sights and sounds in the Las Vegas--this one is a must see. They do different "shows" every 15 minutes, and the show we just happened to see was set to the music of....the Hallelujah Chorus. Yes, that's right. A secular hotel in a very secular city choose a very non-secular piece of music for their dancing fountains display--and it wasn't just the orchestration--the music included the lyrics, drawn from the book of Revelation.

It was amazing and my pictures do not do it justice. Suffice it to say that Mom and I were in complete awe. The flash mobs and silent monks have nothing on the fountains at the Bellagio.










After it was over I joked that the musical choice was God's message to us that we were "ok" and that "He's here too."

Hallelujah Chorus by George Handel, from Handel's 'Messiah'

|: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! :|

|: For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! :|

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
|: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! :|

The kingdom of this world
Is become the kingdom of our Lord,
And of His Christ, and of His Christ;
And He shall reign for ever and ever,
For ever and ever, forever and ever,

King of kings, and Lord of lords,
|: King of kings, and Lord of lords, :|
And Lord of lords,
And He shall reign,
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings, forever and ever,
And Lord of lords,
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

And He shall reign forever and ever,
|: King of kings! and Lord of lords! :|
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

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