Today’s Daily Lesson for Christmas Day comes from the final stave of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol:
Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!
"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!"
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.
Today is a day for glowing. It is a day for rejoicing, and giving thanks, and making amends, and truly being alive. It’s a day for charity. It’s a day for Justice. It’s a day for declaring intentions. We have made it once again. The darkest days of the year are behind us. The past is the past. The future is the future. But this one day of Christmas present is ours and ours to keep.
So let us commit ourselves to Love. To forgive. To seek forgiveness. To watch over widow and orphan and welcome the stranger. Let’s even pray for Scrooges. And, when necessary, let us trample on snakes — but only for the sake of the simple and vulnerable.
It’s Christmas. No more let sin and sorrow grow; nor thorns infest the ground.
It is Christmas. So let us keep it; and keep all the year long.
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