Matteo Bocelli performs 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'
Recoding artist Matteo Bocelli shares his faith and music on 'Fox & Friends.'
It’s holiday season again, but instead of being filled with joy, we seem drained by a national sense of discontent. Most of us believe there is something very wrong with our country, even if we can’t agree on what it is or what to do about it.
Here's a modest proposal. This week millions of us will be on the move – in planes, trains and automobiles – traveling to spend the holidays with family and friends. En route, we’ll have hours to kill, which most of us will spend playing endless rounds of computer games and solitaire.
Instead, let’s use that time to revisit a yuletide classic – Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol." It’s easy enough to find: books, e-books, audiobooks, musicals and movies abound. If the original story is too old-fashioned for you, try one of the dozen remakes set in modern times.
It’s a tale of a single man’s redemption, but it ultimately inspired the redemption of the British Empire. These days, we could use some redemption here in America.
LOS ANGELES - APRIL 1: George C. Scott (at left) stars as the penurious, stingy businessman Ebenezer Scrooge, and Edward Woodward (at right) is the Ghost of Christmas Present, in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens classic holiday tale. Originally broadcast on CBS on Monday, December 17, 1984. Image dated April 1, 1984. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
Dickens’ story is set in Victorian London, where Ebenezer Scrooge, a misanthropic, money-grubbing miser, "Bah-humbugs" anyone who dares wish him a merry Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by three spirits. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future show Scrooge how miserable he has made others, and ultimately himself. Over the years, he has hardened his heart to love, friendship and compassion to pursue riches. He is now old and lonely, headed for doom and damnation.
Scrooge awakens, a chastened and changed man. He resolves to do good to his fellow man, and vows to keep Christmas in his heart, every day of the year. Scrooge is redeemed, spreading Christmas joy and generosity. It was a heartwarming story, perfect for Christmastime.
But Dickens’ book had a deeper impact the people of Victorian England.
"A Christmas Carol" changed the hearts of all who read it – which was everyone. Dickens was the most famous writer of the era when reading was the national pastime.
In Victorian England, many enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, but a good many more suffered widespread poverty and hardship. Alcoholism and illness abounded in the urban slums. Families fell apart, children and widows were abandoned to workhouses, or fell to prostitution. There were no safety nets for them, either public or private. Society had turned its back on the destitute, blaming them for their plight.
But just as Scrooge was redeemed when he saw the suffering around him, so was the British Empire. The country came to realize that: Mankind was its business. The common welfare was its business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all its business.
In many ways, we Americans are experiencing a similar sense of cynicism, loneliness and uncertainty that prevailed in the shadow of the British industrial revolution.
Choir students at a California high school were reportedly asked to perform at a school board member's adult holiday party, where they were allegedly offered alcohol. (Anastasiia Krivenok via Getty Images)
Although the specifics of what ails us today are different, we are in sore need of reconnecting with our national purpose. We may not all agree on what that purpose is, or on how to accomplish it. But we do know the road we’re on – of social division, political dysfunction, anger and vitriol – can only end in tragedy.
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America is great because it is here that people can reinvent themselves. It’s not what each of us were born with, what matters is what we make of ourselves during the course of our lives. But America is greater still because we have within us the ability to reinvent ourselves as a nation.
"A Christmas Carol" is the story of one man who found redemption. It helped lead an entire nation, ultimately the most powerful empire in the world, to find redemption.
America needs to rediscover who we are as a people. What are we about? What do we stand for? As Scrooge says, what is our business? There are no easy answers to those questions, nor quick fixes to heal what ails us. There is no pre-ordained roadmap to follow.
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But all journeys, even those of redemption, begin with a first step.
For Dickens’ England, it was "A Christmas Carol." This holiday season, give it a look. It’s not a bad place for us to start, too.
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This article is based on a series of lectures by Fr. W. Patrick Edwards, Rector of St John’s Episcopal Church and Vicar of St. Andrew’s Dune Church in Southampton, NY.