Bless Us, Everyone!

Christmas Eve 2002

The Rev. Gretchen Woods

In Ebenezer Scrooge, Charles Dickens created the fourth most known figure of Christmas, right after Santa Claus, Jesus, and Mary. As we are exploring Unitarian heritage this year, it makes sense that we remember Dickens, generally regarded as the greatest English novelist. Yes, Dickens was a Unitarian, an English Unitarian! Dickens wrote sixteen world renowned novels, and his enthusiasm for Christmas led to five books, including A Christmas Carol, and 23 published stories focused upon Christmas. Who was this man?

(from 1975 Encyclopaedia Brittanica)…Charles Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity than any previous author had done during his lifetime. Much in his work could appeal to the simple and sophisticated, to the poor and to the Queen, and technological developments as well as the qualities of his work enabled his fame to spread worldwide very quickly. His long career saw fluctuations in the reception and sales of individual novels, but none of them was negligible or uncharacteristic or disregarded, and though he is now admired for aspects and phases of his work that were given less weight by his contemporaries, his popularity has never ceased and his present critical standing is higher than ever before. The most abundantly comic of English authors, he was much more than a great entertainer. The range, compassion, and intelligence of his apprehension of his society and its shortcomings enriched his novels and made him both one of the great forces in 19^th century literature and an influential spokesman of the conscience of his age.

Dickens life was lived firmly in the middle of 19^th century England, and he was unafraid to write and speak of the difficulties of that society. A social critic of noblesse oblige, his Scrooge is far more than a nasty old man who “gets Christmas,” much as some people “get religion.” And here lies genius that John Corrado points to in his “”A Scrooge Wish.” Though humanly flawed and depressed, Scrooge lives the deepest of conversions and attains forgiveness as a perpetrator of evil. He recognizes, truly recognizes his flaws and shortcomings, however reluctantly. He repents, in that he truly turns his life around and begins to live anew with vigor and gusto. And he offers restitution, though the turkey may seem lame, it is something to make up for the poverty that he forced upon Bob Cratchitt’s family.

It is by facing his own shadow at the darkest time of the year that Scrooge finds redemption and vitality. This very Jungian story invites us to spend some time in this season, not only relaxing and enjoying our families and friends, but also facing up to the denied parts of ourselves that may mask our greatest power. We need to recognize the sense of powerlessness that underpins our struggles for domination. We need to acknowledge the love of conflict and confrontation, energizing as it is, as a limited way of finding creative energy. We need to examine how we might face our violence and practice internal disarmament so that we might find true inner peace, not fleeting quiessence. This kind of awareness brings true genius to one’s life, genius that sparks that of others as well.

Scrooge – and Dickens – invites us to action, to live fully and well however life unfolds for us with love and as agents of peace for everyone. As Unitarian Universalists struggling in a dark time, facing war, economic disaster, and wondering what gift Christmas may truly bring us, I offer words from Dickens, adapted:

We celebrate Christmas once again. God bless it! Let us by one consent open our shut-up hearts and think of people as if they were fellow-passengers to the grave.

Let Christmas be once more a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time. May we keep Christmas humor to the last.

It is required of everyone that the spirit within us should walk abroad among our human neighbors and travel far and wide.

This is required by our joyful allegiance to the spirit of Jesus, a spirit sustained by the best in humanity ever since his day.

The common welfare is our business; charity, mercy, forbearance are all our business.

Let us go forth while it is day, and turn human misery into joy.

Let us not be haunted at this season by the shadows of things that might have been.

If our past is marred by ill-will, let not the mirrors of our own yesterdays show us what we shall be in years to come.

Human courses foreshadow certain ends to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends must change.

The year is waning fast, and it is precious time to us. We have the power to render others happy or unhappy.

We have the power to make their days light or burdensome, and their work a pleasure or a toil.

Our power lies in word or looks, in things so small that it is impossible to add and count them up.

The happiness we give is no small matter. A good word is worth a fortune. Let no idol displace Love, even a golden one.

Let us carry the torch of good will, that it may banish hate.

Let us honor Christmas in our hearts and keep it all the year.

A Merry Christmas to everyone! A Happy New Year to all the world!

God Bless Us, Every One!

Indeed, So Be It! Blessed Be!