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The man who invented ChristmasSaturday, December 9, 2017
From Isaiah 30 From thence, in 1839, came Oliver Twist. Dickens quickly became the world's most popular story-teller. Of course he overextended himself, buying a large house for his large family and filling it with fancies from Italy. Amid all this faldarol, his story-telling took a turn for the worse. Writer's block destroys confidence and cash flow. It doesn't always end in a day. Dickens lost track of the last good character he had created. His father's history shadowed him. Charlie, like his dad, could convince everyone around him that things were just fine. For awhile. And now, in the fall of 1842, his debts are drowning him and his imagination needs a swift kick. No one has written much fiction or anything else about Christmas, which seems to be a dying holiday. Charles steps out. And within days his character emerges. He can't figure out the guy's name. Scrimge, Scrum, Scromp, Scratch, Scrounger, Scr ... Scr ... Scr ... Dickens tells his friend Foster, "When the name appears, so does the character." And finally, quietly, the name appears. Ebenezer Scrooge it is, and within a moment or two there is Ebenezer in Dickens' study. They will spend the next six weeks together, meeting many others, ghosts and such. There is no room in the studio for them all to sit, so they lie on the floor, look out the windows, and always they smile at Charles. The story's five staves (chapters) don't come easily. Scrooge does his cynical best to discourage his young creator. "You're just like your father; neither of you matter to anyone else." Dickens tells his friend Foster, "The characters, they won't do what I want." Will Tiny Tim just die, and take the whole point of the story with him? Mr. Scrooge must help him get well. But can anyone turn his life around in just one night? Dickens listened, as did Isaiah, and "from behind, a voice sounds in his ears: 'This is the way, walk in it.'" Dickens remembers his father's words, "No man is ever lost if he can do some good for another." The Lord gave Charlie the bread he needed; in that remembrance his story found its hope-filled climax, and very soon the book found its way to stores, every copy sold by Christmas Eve. Scrooge "became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world." Dickens continued to overspend, but he also continued to write some of the most wonderful novels the world has ever known. We put our hands in yours, O Lord, yours that stilled the water, calmed the sea. Show us each the good that we can do today. Give us each ears to hear, eyes to see, and hands for larger service. We all matter to you and to each other. You made us, and your joy in our hearts need know no bounds. |
Charles Dickens spent part of his childhood in a workhouse. Twice when his father was sent to debtor's prison, he became a factory boy to earn his father's way out. To the other boys he said, "My father is a gentleman!" The other boys gave him a dead rat for Christmas and laughed in his face.