The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one.
From A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, Chapter 1
I just saw this fantastic 1984 version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol.
This story breaks me in pieces every time I see it or hear it.
I find myself holding back tears within the first fifteen minutes.
It’s everything at once: Gothic Horror, Faith vs Materialist Atheism, the Gospel,
Social Justice, Near Death Experience, Regret and Rebirth…
in short, everythingwe ought to be brooding upon obsessively every single day of our earthly lives.
“The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one.”
I just saw this fantastic 1984 version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol.
This story breaks me in pieces every time I see it or hear it.
I find myself weeping like a fool within the first 10 minutes.
It’s everything at once: Gothic horror, Faith vs Materialist Atheism, the Gospel, Social Justice, Near Death Experience, Regret and Rebirth…
in short, everythingwe ought to be brooding upon obsessively
every single day of our earthly lives.
I don’t know this YouTube artist from Adam – but he’s pure genius!
Santa Claus is a fat excuse foisted upon children by atheists and religious folk alike who, consciously or not, have aligned themselves with a culture of mindless consumerism. He is the last bloated burp of a shopaholic glutton who began overindulging on Halloween, right through so-called Thanksgiving into the tinseled, beribboned present. Santa is a tacky old man of dubious origins and intentions.
Tragicomic/ironic that a season held sacred by pagans and Christians can be reduced to soulless marketing and propaganda to buy more stuff. But it remains a glorious holiday with a vibrant past worth exploring. I love the Roman/Nordic heritage from Saturnalia/Yuletide as well as the medieval elements of Christmas. For several years my grade-school music teacher was John Langstaff who founded the Christmas Revels. As a wise-ass kid I mocked and derided the show every time well-meaning parents dragged me to see it. Now I love the Revels (The 1980’s pre-PC version that is… available on CD). For me, the Christmas Revels showcase the best and truest of what the holiday contains. Christians and pagans ought to work together to protect the essentials of the season from the infernal data-driven marketing machine. It is wrong and it is evil to make a spiritual tradition into a materialistic blow-out. One way to resist this phenomenon is to analyze it.
I used to teach 7th graders. I was surprised at how upset many of them were when told about the formulation of Santa Claus and the accompanying shopping-mall trappings of Xmas in the U.S.A. These were spoiled suburblings for the most part – they were peeved that anyone would dare inform them of any reality beyond their distracted lives of plenty. I felt like sending them to Southern Sudan most of the time.
Saint Nicholas Saves Three Innocents from Death
The role of the Coca Cola corporation in consolidating the image of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas) more than a century after his makeover in the 1823 poem“A Visit from St. Nick” by a Columbia professor of ancient literature is well documented. But behind these recent pop-culture ploys looms the figure of an old bishop in a conical hat (not worn in the magnificent painting by Russian Ilya Repin at left) who was known for his acts of faith and for helping the poor of his native Mysia in Asia Minor during the 4th century.
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (or for God-hating PC progressives “A Winter Celebration Fantasy“) was published 20 years after Moore’s St Nick poem – which I did not know until researching this post. One of the highlights of Christmas for me is hearing the entire story read on the radio. Blessed be NPR for that, at least… Dickens’ fable captures, in a more overtly Gospel way, what Christmas should be about. I always get teary during the visit of the spirits and when Scrooge gets saved at the end.
Christmas is about what is Holy and what is Profane. It an ineffable recurring mystery and the light of eternal Truth invading the present darkness. It is defined by the concept of a freely-given Gift.
That’s why Istill loveChristmas. Have amerryglobally diverse human-centeredwinter festival.
PS: I couldn’t care less when He was actually born
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