Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Redemption and Recovery

Ebenezer Scrooge

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail…This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story.” ~ Charles Dickens

The classic Christmas Story is “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. It has been told over and over, filmed, cartooned and lampooned. Most people know it well. There is a special message for living life in this tale of death. The opening lines, captured above, set the stage for Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemption based upon his friend’s miserly demise. He is visited by this most important ghost forthwith. Jacob Marley wants for Scrooge to avoid the heavy chains that he has been doomed to carry. He warns, “I girded them on of my own free will and of my own free will I wore them.”

It takes a lot for Ebenezer Scrooge to change his life. He is an unwilling subject and comfortable in his misery. How many of us can admit the same sad condition? We seem to make the frequent choice to just keep doing what we have always done. Sure we have regrets. But it is too late to change now. Is it really? I think not. My own personal transformation from alcoholic to recovery is a testimony to this. In addition, I am surrounded by dozens and dozens of people who are making those hard changes every day. It is inspirational. Lives are not only saved but redeemed in ways that are almost unbelievable.
Redemption is a process. The 12 Steps that were discovered by Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob Smith and Alcoholics Anonymous are a means for achieving such deliverance. They closely match the journey of Ebenezer Scrooge. On the morning of his awakening, Scrooge finds that he has another chance at life. The Albert Finney musical version of “A Christmas Carol” delivers these lyrics in the song “Begin Again”: Scrooge says, “I’m alive! I’m alive! I’ve got a chance to change and I will not be the man I was.” Then the song starts:

I’ll begin again, I will build my life,
I will live to know that I’ve fulfilled my life.
I’ll begin today, throw away the past,
and the future I build will be something that will last.
I will take the time I have left to live,
and I’ll give it all that I have left to give.
I will live my days for my fellow men,
and I’ll live in praise of that moment when
I was able to begin again.
I will start a-new, I will make amends,
and I’ll make quite certain that the story ends
on a note of hope, on a strong amen,
and I’ll thank the world and remember when
I was able to begin again.

He then sets out to do the work of repairing his wrongdoing and carelessness. He sends a Christmas turkey to his clerk and his poor family for a feast. Then he dresses and goes out into the town heading for church. Scrooge finds one of the gentlemen that he has berated in his shop the day before. The man had been taking up a collection for the poor and only received a lecture on the folly of his endeavors. Scrooge approaches him, asks forgiveness and makes such a generous contribution that the man is overwhelmed. He tells the man “A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.” Afterwards he goes to church and wanders about the streets patting children on the head, assisting beggars and enjoying every sight and sound of the day. The Alistair Sim version of the story has him approach his nephew’s house. He encounters his nephew’s wife saying, “Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool with no eyes to see with and no ears to hear with all these years?” Scrooge makes direct amends. He then goes about the business of living life differently. Dickens puts it well in the closing of the story:

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

This Total Abstinence Principle was not a way of life that Dickens endorsed. But he was well aware that it was necessary for those who have the mission of redemption in heart and mind. It is necessary for us because we have so much to do. We are beginning again.
New beginnings are not just about avoiding negativity and wasting time. They are about the death of our old selves. They involve identification with the highest part of us. We are called to live out an expression of goodwill, joy, compassion, generosity, forgiveness, wisdom and peace. When we make this kind of change we will have discovered the touchstone of our souls. We will be able to understand and celebrate with Scrooge as he says, “I am a light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man.”

Merry Christmas!