Merry Christmas Eve, Ya'll!
The last several nights my family and I sat down and watched a Christmas movie. Last night I got to pick and I picked one of my very favorites. When I was a kid we had to pull out our VHS tape and watch our fuzzy, recorded TV version of A Christmas Carol circa 1984 starring George C. Scott. It was a tradition we followed most of my childhood.
It’s my favorite film version of the tale and all the other stage and film versions seem to pale in light of George C. Scott’s performance (Oh! The agony when he tries to sponge away his own name from his tombstone!) and the way that it just nailed what I think of as a Dicken’s Victorian era London.
I also enjoy the book and as I’ve grown older I only find it more and more relevant. Originally published in 1843, 6 years after Queen Victoria began her reign, Dickens was writing to an audience and a society that had and would become increasingly more industrial, more institutionalized and less and less aware of individual responsibility to their fellow man. The story inspires it’s readers to be accountable for those we meet and know; our neighbors. (Did you catch that right there? That’s God stuff. “Love your neighbor as yourself”, etc.) It’s been said that his fictional work really began to mark Christmas as a time of giving and a time of charity rather than simply a time to make merry without inhibition.
I enjoy it on an entertainment level but I also think it speaks to us as a society today even in the US; a society that has become increasingly distant from their physical neighbors and closer to their social media peers. It’s a great reminder and a big motivation for me.
In our efforts to spearhead social change via online revolutions we often forget to open our hearts to the people around us.
In the story, Tiny Tim’s life, as well as Ebenezer’s hangs in the balance. Without intervention the state of the two will continue to deteriorate separately; one alone, miserly, miserable, the other loved and cherished.
Ebenezer, when asked for a donation to the charities that contribute to the needs of the poor replies, “Are there no prisons? Are there no poor houses?”. When pressed, he then goes on to reply that if they die, they die and decrease the “surplus population”. Now, if you know much about industrialization you know that a multitude of individuals and families couldn’t find an acceptable source of income. So many people fell through the cracks.
In this day and age it is so easy for us to become so distant not unlike old Ebenezer Scrooge.
While we shouldn’t rely on a celebratory, charitable mood we have one day a year and we should “keep Christmas in our hearts all year long”, today I have a great reminder that I should not close myself off. One should never assume the government programs and wealthy benefactors of the world will take care of those less fortunate than myself nor should I assume I am meant only to survive in this world.
I was meant to show God’s love by loving those around me with intent and with an open heart. Regardless of what’s in our bank accounts we can love. We can open our hearts to each other and Love.
While that’s a pretty broad concept it’s going to look different to those in my immediate family as compared to say, a rough looking stranger I see on the street. I think it starts with letting our guard down in Faith. Cherish the time and opportunity you have with those closest to you and open your heart and mind for those that momentarily cross your path. I know God will use us to do great things.
So, this Christmas Eve, remember you don’t have to move mountains, God can do that. All you need to do is open your heart in Faith and know that God will take you where he wants you to be.
Merry Christmas, ya’ll. I appreciate you more than you know.
Love,
Texas Deb
