During the last several days of this Christmas season, my thoughts once again, turned to Charles Dickens and his literary masterpiece, A Christmas Story. “There was no doubt that Jacob Marley was dead – dead as a doornail.” But, somehow, Marley had bargained for the chance to revisit his old, selfish business partner, Scrooge, and give him one more thin chance to mend his greedy ways.
During the scary encounter between the two old buddies, Scrooge begged ghostly Marley to “Speak comfort to me Jacob!”
“I have none to give. . . No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!” Scrooge couldn’t deflect the message, so he tried a little flattery: “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”
“Business!” the ghost cried, wringing his hands. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Then old ghostly Marley went on: “I am here tonight to warn you: that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.”
The message of Jacob Marley should remind us that the chains of life that we forge link by link, day by day, should not be chains that shackle us to the greed and avarice in this world; but rather, the crafted links should become chains that bind our hearts together with kindness, justice and righteousness on this earth. We should be spending our life engaged in experiencing and promoting goodness.
Next Week: A Working Definition of Goodness