Forgotten Spirits
Dickens knew; I wish we'd listened
My actress daughter is once again performing in A Christmas Carol, a seasonal favorite that has broadly defined “the meaning of Christmas” for popular culture (marketers and commercial interests aside).
Support the arts and get yourself to a theater for the feels that come from witnessing redemption wrapped in festive cheer! Or cozy up with the book or one of the many (less faithful) film versions. But be prepared for clear-eyed analysis as well. Dickens’ classic is not just about Victorian-era corporate greed, capitalist hoarding, bootstraps individualism, and miserly self-denial.
The story’s as relevant today as when it was published - more than 180 years ago!
In 2025 (or any year you want to name), we’ve hardly begun to escape our need for Dickens’ object lessons. We still have more than our share of tyrannical bosses, the rich getting richer at others’ expense, and folks ready to scoff at empathy, charity, or anything that doesn’t reek of “business sense.” Scrooge and poor, dead Marley learn their lessons, but the rest of us need reminding and reminding and reminding.
May I suggest we lament “the more we change, the more we stay the same..”?
My daughter first appeared in A Christmas Carol as a 12-year-old Belinda Cratchit, and I spent many a rehearsal becoming reacquainted with the story. Like most, I recalled crusty, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, “scared straight” by three visiting spirits. The ghosts of Past, Present, and Future jolt him into recognizing that life has more value than money, that relationships matter, and that joy comes from other than the veneer of commercial success.
The part of the story that I hadn’t known or remembered (some retellings leave it out) stopped me in my tracks.
In the closing scene of Stave/Chapter 3, the Spirit of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two ragged wraiths - homeless, impoverished children . They represent the fruit of Scrooge’s labor: while he hoards money he won’t spend, the world outside his tightly silo-ed home and business life starves and bleeds.
Dickens aptly named these silent spirits, Ignorance and Want.
As we have degraded the value of education, encouraged people to get their information from unvetted influencers, and outsourced learning to machines, we, like Scrooge, should “most of all, beware (Ignorance).”
I lament that we missed the memo. We are reaping the Ignorance we have sown.
I lament that we, like Scrooge, also find Want so easy to ignore.
If only most of today’s bazillionaires could receive a ghostly schooling. Oh, that we could “learn up” our modern tycoons before we suffer more of what they’ve wrought. Instead, it seems we await the too-late recognition of a legion of Jacob Marleys. Who among them might take to heart the cry of Scrooge’s too-late regretful former partner?
“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
— Jacob Marley, in Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)
I lament the self-belief and lack of insight that allows the most moneyed or fortunate among us to miss seeing how interdependence defines our humanity.
They may live large, protect their own, enjoy their spoils more than Scrooge, but they’re missing the point of the story.
As we enter this season of hope, peace, joy, love, wonderment…and reality, I will continue to lament. However, in the interest of focusing on more hopeful things, I will put this part of my writing aside until 2026. For hopeful insights and recognition of creative possibility for the rest of the year, tune into my other newsletter:
Excellent insights this week, roomie! I appreciate your weekly posts. Hope the performances go smoothly!
A Christmas Carol is one of my all-time favorite stories! I read it every year and watch any movie version that I can find. I like to think that I've learned Marley's lesson and practice it year round.