Do you like hot air balloons?  I do.  A lot of other people must like them, for there are a number of hot air balloon festivals across the country.  Paulette and I have been to two of them.  There is an annual one at the airport in Statesville, North Carolina, which was about an hour from our home.  The newspaper would print these beautiful pictures from the festival, and one year we went.  The other festival we saw was accidental.  We were vacationing in Colorado and spent one night at a motel in Telluride, which is a small town nestled among the tallest, most beautiful, snow capped mountains of the state.  The town itself has an elevation of around 9,000 feet.  It just happened that a balloon festival took place the morning we were there.

If you go to a balloon festival, you have to get up early, for they release the balloons in the very early morning, when the air is still and cool (giving the balloons more lift).  There’s a little noise from the burners as they fill the balloons, but once they start to rise all is quiet and peaceful.  The sky becomes full of color.  I don’t think that man can improve on the beauty of God’s nature, but a sky with a full palette of balloons comes close.  The picture below is from the Telluride festival; it doesn’t show many balloons, but it does give an idea of the grandeur of the setting.

The largest festival in the United States is held at Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Last year Barb Kocha attended it, and here are some of her thoughts.  “It was a crisp fall morning and the blue sky was filled with a hundred plus brightly colored balloons of all colors and designs.  It was like watching prayers going up as gifts to the Lord.  Some balloons were sent up just for the fun of riding in that beautiful bright, pollution free, heavenly sky.  Others were sent up to remember someone who had passed, a thank you for a birth, a prayer for someone who was very ill, or a celebration of an event such as a birthday or wedding.  I imagined that these balloons were being lovingly sent up to heaven in hopes of the Lord receiving them.”

I also had religious thoughts when I watched the balloons rise and float.  The stillness and peacefulness of the moment makes it natural to meditate, and it turned my thoughts upward.  The grace of the balloons reminded me of God’s Grace lifting my sins away.  Please read Psalms 121 where the writer lifts his eyes to the hills and remember:  God loves YOU unconditionally.

Jim