The Last Christmas Carol Post For 2005

I promise, really...

This will be the last post about "A Christmas Carol", for this year anyway. In the scene with the Ghost of Christmas Future and the covered corpse, the book has a section that explains how all men can be immortal, how we all have a shared purpose in this world, no matter what our destiny is.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought
of it,felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

Then Scrooge hears something in his heart, like the voice of God, explaining how death is cheated:

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved,revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought,if this man could be raised up now, what would be
his foremost thoughts? Avarice,hard-dealing,griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end,truly! He lay,in the dark empty house, with not a man,a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

People and what we do in their lives is one of the few things that will last beyond death. The call centers and other corporations will disappear, their profits fade away, the awards and goals set by management will be forgotten, the name of the top performers and CEO's that made the big salaries will remain beyond the reach of our failing memories, just on the tip of our tongues, but the good done in the lives of others is what truly makes us live forever.

Thanks for reading,

AC

  ¶ 1:25 PM