Three Beautiful Things 12/24/10: Learning to Fly, Have Seen A Great Light, Black and Tan Christmas Pondering

1.  I bought some holiday cheer at the liquor store and as I exited, somewhere, above me, around me, some business's sound system played Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly".  It stopped me in my tracks and leaned against a post, still, and listened and the best memories of dancing in Diane's living room with my Kellogg friends and the way I was learning to fly growing up in Kellogg washed over me.

2.  I'd forgotten how beautiful St. Mary's Episcopal Church looks in candlelight with the greens hanging and I loved reading the Old Testament lesson (Isaiah 9:2-7), which begins: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light."  That's it.  Christmas.

3.  I arrived home from church at 12:30, early Christmas morning.  The house was still.  I opened a bottle of Guiness and a Bass Ale and used my new Black and Tan Turtle to pour Guiness over Bass Ale in my new Guiness pint mug.  I turned the Chrismas music back on, sat in our comfortable chair, and pondered the worship I had just been moved by, Christmas Days over the years, and the Christmas Day that lay ahead.  Everything beautiful converged in my early Christmas morning solitude.