Christmas: A Time for Reflection and Love

It seems like yesterday when we were celebrating Christmas and welcoming a new year. Now the ghost of Christmas past has taken last Christmas and we have all committed it to memory. Some of us have happy memories and some of us have sad memories; the most unfortunate among us have no memories of last Christmas at all.

The new year is now the old year and we’re all getting ready to flip a calendar page and say goodbye to another year and look to the future with high hopes that the new year will bring us all health, happiness, and perhaps most of all: Peace. Peace in our personal lives and peace on Earth.

This is a time for gahtering together with our friends and family, for remembering why we celebrate Christmas, and maybe most of all it is time for reflection.

I just re-read “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens – for the umpteenth time. Every time I read it I take away a new feeling or a new thought. Today I spent thinking a lot about this passage from “A Christmas Carol” when Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present. The Ghost of Christmas present opens his royal green robe and beneath it are two starving children with sunken eyes and for all the world looking as if they were on the doorstep of death.

Ghost of Christmas Present: Look upon these!

Ebenezer Scrooge: [stupefied with horror] What are they?

Ghost of Christmas Present: They are your children! They are the children of all who walk the earth unseen! Their names are Ignorance and Want! Beware of them! For upon their brow is written the word “doom!” They spell the downfall of you and all who deny their existence!

Ebenezer Scrooge: Have they no refuge, no resource?

Ghost of Christmas Present: [smiles, mocking him from an earlier conversation] “Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?”

Ebenezer Scrooge: [looks down at the children] Cover them. I do not wish to see them.

Ghost of Christmas Present: I thought as much.
[Present closes his robe to conceal the children]

Ghost of Christmas Present: They are hidden… but they live… oh, they live

This passage made me think of the children who won’t have a chance to have a Merry Christmas because their parents can’t afford to buy presents, or a tree; they can’t even afford to make this special day different from the others.

It made me think of the children whose parents are ill and in the hospital, or whose parents are far away in the miliatary, or locked away in prisons; those children whose families are broken and cannot gather together in the Spirit of Christmas and love.

It made me think about the millions of people on this Earth who are starving, for whom Christmas Day is yet another day of struggle – struggle to find enough food for themselves and their children – struggle to find a warm, dry place to sleep – struggle to survive easily curable disease for want of medicines and medical car.

Most of us live in wealthy countries, but none so much as those of us who live in the United States.

As Christmas approached, I started paying attention to TV commercials, and the more I did the more I thought about the children we don’t want to see: Ignorance and Want.

I saw commercials for Lexus cars costing tens of thousands of dollars – all with ager-looking yuppies wearing scarves with the look of entitlement in their eyes.

I saw commericals trying to convince me that the only proof of love is a diamond, costing thousand of dollars. Can you actually buy love? I think not.

What if those eager-looking yuppies wearing scarves would purchase a less-expensive car and donate the rest ot the money they were going to spend on that $80,000 Lexus to the children, we all try so hard to pretend that they do not exist.

What if no one bought diamonds but instead showed their love by donating the money they were going to spend to help those in need.

These are some of my thoughts provoked by the writing of Charles Dickens. I wanted to share them with you. I hope these words make you think too.

We can hide these poor wretched children from our sight but they still exist – oh yes they exist. Just because we close our eyes and pretend they are not there, doesn’t mean they’re gone.

This Christmas, be thankful for what you have, be thankful for your family and enjoy this special time of year. But also be mindful of those huddled in dark places trying to stay warm, of the children with bellies swollen by hunger, of parents who are disconsolate because they cannot provide the bare necessities of life for their families. Think of families ripped apart by things they cannot control. And most of all think of those two dying children hidden under the robe…their names are Ignorance and Want. Think of them and never forget them for they live – oh they live!

Open your heart this Christmas and remember the Man whose birthday it is that we celebrate. And remember too, those who are less fortunate than you.

Wishing you all the best at Christmas and always!

Darcy & TC
December 24, 2014