After joining Stewardship Capital about 10 years ago, one of the first columns I ever wrote for the Examiner was a character study of Ebenezer Scrooge from the Charles Dickens holiday classic A Christmas Carol. In the column, I really analyzed Scrooge as the tragic hero he was, and not just the miser he became.
In my opinion, Scrooge is one of the most complex and three-dimensional literary characters of all time. Much like an onion, there are so many layers to him that I could write about this character every Christmas without ever running out of material to analyze. While I have no plans to do that, with my weekly column falling on Christmas Day this year I felt it was the perfect time to revisit old Ebenezer.
Like many of you, we have a family tradition of watching various retellings of this redemption story over the Christmas season. This year, while watching the British musical version starring Albert Finney, a line caught my attention. In the classic scene where Scrooge’s fiancé Belle ends their engagement and leaves him forever, she says to his younger self that he “fears the world too much” and implies that this fear is the cause of their failed relationship. Since I found the line to be so profound and did not remember ever hearing her character utter these words in other versions, I went back to the original book to see if Dickens had written it.
I discovered not only was the line penned in the original masterpiece, but Dickens expanded on this hypothesis of how Scrooge became obsessed with money. In the novel, Belle actually says “You fear the world too much. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion, gain, engrosses you.”
This line serves as such a powerful word of warning not only to the people of the author’s time but to us as well. Fear has the power to not only overshadow our hopes and our dreams, but to also eliminate all noble aspects of our character until only greed and lust remain.
My advice to all of you this week is the same advice that angels delivered to lowly shepherds and to both Mary and Joseph when declaring the arrival of the Messiah. Fear not!
I know, much like Scrooge, many of us have had things happen in life that shaped our worldview to make us fearful. Whether it be in our relationships with people, possessions, or even God, I realize our past experiences play a huge role in determining our present situation. However, as was ultimately true for Scrooge, they do not have to determine our future actions. We can choose to let go of those burdens, let go of that fear, and to choose to live each day as the blessing that it is.
That is my Christmas wish for all of you on this special day. Merry Christmas!
(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)