Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
For many years now, almost every year during Christmas, I’ve enjoyed making Charles Dickens’ venerable A Christmas Carol part of my Yuletide celebration.
When I was a child, our family always watched a television version of that great tale sometime during the holidays. My sister, an unabashed lover of all things Christmas, made sure that each year our old TV was tuned to the appropriate channel at the appropriate time.
As an adult, I’ve enjoyed watching many of those varied adaptations. I have my favorites, and they are the ones most true to the original.
At some point, I decided to add to my own holiday traditions an actual reading of the delightful book.
Dickens’ word pictures are, no surprise, better than even the best images Hollywood could ever produce.
During recent years, I’ve also very much enjoyed listening to some well-done audio book performances of the story. Again, I want the “real deal,” unabridged and un-messed-with. And, as I write at this moment, I’m taking a break from listening to my favorite of those.
And now, I’m afraid that I need to make a confession. I’m chagrined to admit that this year, as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future have haunted their way through my head, I’m seeing not just word pictures but some troubling similarities between myself and old Ebenezer Scrooge before his reclamation.
I won’t go into too much detail, but suffice to say that as Scrooge and “grouch” are words that, sadly, go well together, I’m afraid that, far too often lately, my name has fit with both of those words far too comfortably. This needs to change. And it needs to change from the inside out.
Charles Dickens didn’t write his wonder-filled tale as Christian theology. Had he done so, it would have failed miserably.
The Apostle Paul is writing about the work of one Spirit in our lives when he urges that we be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The change we need is far too important, too integral, too vast, and too deeply real to be made simply by our resolving on our own to gut it out and “do better.”
The effort we need to make is to put our trust in the only One who can change us from within.
As we stand on the cusp of a new year, I affirm the truth of G. K. Chesterton’s words: “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.”
As much as I love Dickens’ great story, his delightful depiction of those amazing “spirits” and Scrooge’s transformation, what we humans truly need for real change is something that only one Spirit can pull off.
Let’s invite God’s Spirit in for the new year, for each new day, and for every new moment of life God gives.
Curtis Shelburne writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at:
