A Story of Spiritual Transformation
Charles Dicken’s story of Scrooge (A Christmas Carol) is a Christmas favourite for both young and old. We watch as Scrooge makes the transition from ‘Bah! Humbug!’ to the patron for Christmas kindness. A closer look at the details of the story reveals key information for understanding ‘spiritual’ transformation. Let me first take a minute to discuss the concept of spiritual. If we think of physical, it relates to the material (world of matter), emotional to feelings, mental to thoughts and spiritual to desires.
Desires produce momentum which becomes the spirit of outcome. Think of team spirit, school spirit, national spirit etc. We often talk about someone displaying real spirit, in the sense of their motivation to achieve. A broken spirit is when the will to achieve has been damaged in some way. Spiritual in this context is about momentum, and desire is what fuels momentum.
The spiritual nature of Scrooge is evident in his name. He desires wealth, where his wealth is an end in its self, not a means to an end. Things begin to change when three ghosts appear through the course of Scrooges’ sleep, on Christmas Eve. It is no coincidence that the second ghost reveals two starving children hidden under his cloak just prior to his departure. One was named Ignorance and the other Want. These are indicative of Buddha’s three poisons and Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, where they explain what stops the highest expression of human consciousness. Both explained that expanded awareness was necessary to remedy the situation.
Obviously Dickens understood this since it is intrinsic to how the story unfolds. Scrooge gets to see how his past, present and future consciousness ends up not serving him. He is made aware by being forced to step back and be the observer of his own life. It is only in this place of awareness that his desire (Want) for accumulating wealth, and the ignorance that sustained that is transformed into the desire to use his wealth to bless the lives of others. “He desperately implores the spirit to alter his fate, promising to renounce his insensitive, avaricious ways and to honour Christmas with all his heart.”
Take a Moment to Consider
So, at this Christmas, I invite you to reflect on those things that you desire and like Scrooge, take some time to consider what impact that is having in the lives of your family, friends and colleagues. Is there something that you could be doing differently? And if you are unsure of how to change what you desire, that’s what we at EAP do well, and we can show you how.
Merry Christmas to all.
Russell and the EAP Team
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