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Sponging The Stone - continued

SCROOGE'S VALUES NEED CHANGING

The silent gloom of the mysterious ghost of Christmas Future is welcomed by Scrooge who now shows a spiritual inclination to saving judgement. The final lesson, the hardest to confront, is the transformation of Scrooge's values through intuition. Scrooge queries, "Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?" He learns the lesson that moral means and ends are ultimately linked. Scrooge is shown now his own poverty of spirit that results from his mistreatment of himself and others. His business partners callously respond to news of his death by mocking his miserliness. Those he thought respected him because of his frugal image actually despised him, considering his death trivial and humorous.

In the vision of the Ghost of Christmas Future, the most brutal treatment Scrooge will receive will be at the hands of the distorted poor, the adult descendants of Want and Ignorance. At the Beetle shop, the charwoman, the undertaker and old Joe, not unlike the soldiers at the crucifix who rolled for the robe of Christ, barter Scrooge's belongings. Scrooge's vile empiricism is revealed in the vulturous greed of these low-lifers. They take inventory of Scrooge's belongings. Property rather than personhood, or even respect for the dead, is the code of these fiends. They steal the curtains of his death bed and show no respect even for his corpse by removing his night clothes and dressing him in cheaper attire.

pullout quoteScrooge half-knowingly confronts his plundered corpse but cannot bring himself to face his death. He pleads for a revelation of tenderness in reference to his death. The Ghost escorts him to the home of a debtor and then the Cratchits'. He is shown how Tiny Tim's death is full of the warmth of human compassion and grief whereas his own death is a mere riddance. Tiny Tim's burial place is green whereas his own is full of gloom. Bob Cratchit kisses the corpse of Tiny Tim whereas Scrooge's cadaver is plundered.

Scrooge is ready for repentance. He pleads for mercy in exchange for a reformed life. As the Ghost disappears, Scrooge's bedposts and curtains reappear. Ebenezer is reborn. He says as much when he declares, "I don't know what day of the month it is!... I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby."

The Carol's conception of conversion involves a transformation of consciousness through living simultaneously in the past, present and future. The actions of gratefully uncapping our memories, joyfully reviving our senses, and humbly reorienting our lives through intuition, are all the spirits need to make the myth of the Carol's conversion come true in our lives. If we live in the Past, Present and Future, allow the spirits of all three to strive within us, and not shut out the lessons they teach, then we may sponge away the writing on the stone and be reborn along with Ebenezer.

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