What We Should See, and What We Should Be Doing

Perhaps no modern story tells the reality of what a soul should see, what a soul should know, better than Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.”

Not seeing any other as anything other than an other, that is the sin of the age, of most ages actually.  We don’t see the injury done by our words or our silence.  It’s not enough to be not racist, we must be actively aware of, and against racism.

Being neutral is not a virtue in the moral life.

Likewise, it’s not enough to be not actively against the poor, we must champion them.   We must not be against others, but their advocates, their community, their friends, their family, their servants.

Before we think, it’s too much, remember, Christ knelt and washed the feet of those who followed Him.   Should we live it out, we still can only say, “We are only unworthy servants.” who have done simply what was asked.

I saw a meme that it seems too many have not received the visits from the three spirits of Christmas lately.

We should always see ourselves as being called as Scrooge is, to honor the spirits of Christmas, past, present and future in our lives.

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

—A Christmas Carol

Everything else, is tertiary.

Recently, an Indiana Senator spoke up against the President and his use of a slur because the senator is father to a child with Down Syndrome.   That’s good.  It’s a beginning.  However, would that he had spoken up before the slur ever was uttered, for those who have been slurred and slandered as a matter of course.   We need to speak up more, for those called stupid, for those called piggy, for those called all the names that have been uttered.   We need to speak more, to do more.
Though I admit, I might start speaking more like this…

We should identify with those who are being treated poorly, with those who do not have the platform our president does, to air his grievances and slights and irritations.   We should identify irrespective of whether we have a personal reason for identifying, because the other is our brother and sister in Christ simply by virtue of being.    Darn it, I’m going to have to…

Saint Mother Teresa understood the call to serve “Christ in his distressing disguise.”  What that means, is Christ is visible in everyone suffering.   It is our job, to know Christ on the cross enough to see His face whenever we encounter someone carrying a cross.   As disciples, it is our job to respond to our neighbor in distress, as we would hope we would respond to our Lord and Savior were we to find ourselves on the road to Calvary.    Do we help carry? Do we wipe the face?  Do we weep along side?  Do we stay at His feet?’

Or are we part of the crowd shouting, “Crucify Him,” and “He saved others, let Him save Himself.”  and spitting?  Are we running to Christ, or away from the suffering?  Are we shutting ourselves into our comfortable homes, so that there is no room in the inn?

Following Christ means always giving thanks, always making room, always hoping that one more will come to the table.  It means recognizing that we may have to be the reminders to others of those three Christmas spirits by how we act, and to be an army of Freds in a world where it’s very easy to despair over all of the bah humbug and humbugs out there.