Ignorance and Want

This weekend I saw Disney's A Christmas Carol in 3-D on the largest screen I have ever viewed a movie on. It was an IMAX Theater and it cost me over $20 to see, but it was worth it. However, as much as I enjoyed the movie- the graphics and sound- it didn't really get me in the holiday spirit as much as I anticipated.

A Christmas Carol is a pretty raw, sad, heart-wrenching tale. If I were a child under the age of twelve I would have been bored up until about twenty minutes into the film. I would have been pretty much lost in all the thither's, and thus's and ye's. And those ghosts. Yikes! - I mean I don't think most children would be scared to death of this movie, or even very frightened, but there is no way they could glean all that there is to learn from this classic story.

What continued to resonate with me were the characters Ignorance and Want. Early in the story Scrooge says that there are "prisons and Union workhouses" to take care of persons with these problems.

And I often, too, look upon people with these assumption, and these stereotypes, and these pre-conceived ideas of why things are the way they are- for them, anyway, not for me. Until last spring when I was awaken suddenly to the fact that we can't control everything. Sometimes, there is no cure, there is no warning, there is no fairness or reason or time to prepare before the world as it has always been comes crashing down.

I realized in those days and weeks that sometimes people are not to blame for their poverty, or physical conditions or mental ailments. I learned empathy, even on the days I was angry. Angry at the man with the healthy baby girl. Angry at the person who probably didn't complete high school working behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts. Angry at God. At unfairness. At circumstances that don't turn out like I think they should.

And in Dicken's A Christmas Carol, we are reminded. To give, but more than simply money and more frequent than just at Christmas. But often, and cheerfully. I did tear up, twice during this movie. It's such a great lesson and reminder, even for those of us who already know it.
....
"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit.

"As good as gold," said Bob. "And better. Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas Day, who made the lame to walk, and blind to see."
....
And do we, see them in our church? The adulterer. The anorexic. The coke addict. The depressed. The pregnant teen. The one who seems to have it all together. Are we not them? I hope we can remember, as we enter into the Christmas Season, who can change us. Who has changed us.