Love Came Down at Christmas

My house still doesn't reflect any Christmas spirit after our trip.  (I did get all the Thanksgiving "stuff" gathered up yesterday.) But even though our tree is still in the cardboard box and the Nativity sets are likewise cushioned safely in their plastic tubs, I've been thinking about Christmas ever since our visit to Morehead (KY) State University last week. 

The bell tower in the center of the campus was decorated for Christmas. When I saw the tower and the snow-dusted world on Thanksgiving Eve, a song kept going through my head:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

It's the only thing that there's just too little of.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

No, not just for some, but for everyone.

The bell tower was presented to Morehead State University in April 1997 as a tribute to Kentucky horse breeder William Paul Little by his wife, Mary Caudill Little, who was an advocate of education through the creativity of the arts. Each of the tower's four sides feature a virtue important to the Littles:

WISDOM

You can barely see WISDOM through the eagle's wing from this angle.

SERVICE  (and love) ...

JUSTICE (and love). 

When I got back home, I realized that LOVE kept showing up in my shots of the bell tower. How fitting was that! (The greatest of these is LOVE. I Corinthians 13:13)

As the carol says,

Love came down at Christmas

Love all lovely, love divine

Love was born at Christmas

Star and angels gave the sign. 

 

Maybe if we incorporated a little more love into our daily lives, we, too, could fly like eagles in the face of our too-busy lives. Worth a try, right?

Those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40: 31

That's a message I need to hear during this busy holiday season.

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Today, I'm linked to Jennifer Dukes Lee's Tell His Story and to Emily P. Freeman's Chatting at the Sky. 

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Another interesting fact about the bell tower:  The bell came from the Littles' Palmeadow Farm. Cast in 1886 by the C.S. Bell Company of Hillsboro, Ohio, the iron bell is one year older than Morehead State University.