Spirituality: Sponging The Stone

SCROOGE'S SENSES ARE DEAD

The Carol's second principle involves the transformation of our possessions through an appreciation of embodiment. Scrooge's senses are dead. You wouldn't think this at first, due to his here-and-now attitude, but Scrooge, like all misers, can't enjoy what he has. He misses the value of creation through his narrow conception of worth being related to a price tag.

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Until this visitation Scrooge's vision is distorted. This inability is due to his obsession with the immediate; Scrooge can see himself, his belongings, and nothing much beyond. Scrooge's home, a miserly dwelling, reflects his character. When Scrooge encounters the ghostly knocker he is unwilling to believe. He tries to repress his direct perception. In his home Scrooge carries out a census of the senses, taking inventory rather than dealing with his encounter with the Ghost. Yet even in the midst of this mundane task, the face of Marley is projected on the tiles that adorn Scrooge's floor. When Scrooge locks the outer door he believes that he has kept the inner sanctum of his soul "secured against surprise."

Supernatural attempts to arrest Scrooge's attention include bells ringing frantically and the sound of chains. This saving judgement of the senses intends to wake Scrooge up from his insensitivity with the only faculty he gives authority to - his direct perception. Even the flames in his hearth leap up, a screeching witness to the reality of Marley. "I know him," the fire crackles.

Scrooge sees neither the poor nor their squalid conditions. Moreover, he fails to notice the spiritual values symbolized by the church bell chattering above his head. The description of the London fog points to the narrow vision of Scrooge's urban pragmatism. Dickens depicts a myopia of the senses through having Scrooge be so near-sighted. He is a spiritual Mr. Magoo of the cartoons.

The Ghost of Christmas Present imputes spiritual significance to physical reality. A sprinkle from his wand makes the most mediocre fare substantial. As in the Fezziwig episode, Scrooge comes to confess that while nothing of distinction reflects the gathering at Bob Cratchit's, there is a grateful happiness that marks the occasion. This rather meagre meal is described in superlatives: "Never was there such a goose!" Cratchit refers to the brandy pudding as the greatest success in Mrs. Cratchit's marriage to him.

The family is so full of life that it appears that even the food they eat is humanized: "The potatoes knock on a pot asking to be let out whereas the pudding sings in the copper." Physical reality is honored when the family is recognized.

There is also a heart-rending optimism on the part of Bob Cratchit, who believes his son to be getting stronger and heartier though the boy is later revealed to be getting more sick. This is a hopeful suspension of the senses. Although the Cratchits have an extraordinary ability to see beyond the literal poverty of their situation, Mrs. Cratchit's imagination is strained in considering Scrooge as a benefit in any way to her family. As the topic of Scrooge fades into the Christmas festivities the family's happiness returns.

Finally, the Ghost grows old and grey. His final gesture is to introduce Scrooge to a sensate appreciation of the children of his age, a girl called Want and a boy named Ignorance. They are dehumanized by neglect, revealing a ferocious wolfishness that threatens civilization. They are not merely the images of the poverty Scrooge passes by on the street. The prison-houses and labour laws create the downfall of community through the deforming effect of poverty on children. Just as Tiny Tim becomes a face of the surplus, these children become the faceless mob of violence that accompanies poverty.

Participation in community revives our deadened senses and brings worth to our physical world. Dickens' Carol, while not particularly religious, is profoundly sacramental. Paul Davis says that Dickens "contrives to make the stomach in some odd way an organ of the soul... the glutton idolizes meat and drink; Dickens idealizes them" (The Life and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge, p. 62). The Cratchit love feast is repeated when community eats together. It is not, however, only in eating but in working and acting together in the world that a community discovers the significance of physical reality. Is it any wonder that our myopia is overcome when we engage in a common task of building, repairing and turning chaos into creation. Instead of a work of isolated selfishness, the redeemed Scrooge transforms his vocation into charity. When our jobs become a service of transforming our world, our senses are awakened and we follow the founder of Christmas. The litmus test for the aliveness of the Carol is its ability to invoke action.

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