The Countdown Is On

Tomorrow is the last Sunday in 2012; it's the day when Pastor Steve will first speak to the congregation about this Year of Gratitude theme. Then the mission will get fully underway the following Sunday, the first Sunday in 2013.

As the Christmas season comes to a close, and I finish re-reading A Christmas Carol, I think Charles Dickens was no stranger to the year of gratitude. Every year at Christmas all the various versions of his ghost story are played out on the many cable tv networks. My favorite is the "Muppets Christmas Carol" for its brilliant casting of Fozzy Bear as Mr. Fezziwig and Miss Piggy as a saucy Mrs. Cratchit. At the finale, Gonzo as Dickens says if you liked this story, read the original. So I did, one year, and I have been doing so every Christmas since then. I personally find Patrick Stewart's Scrooge to be the most faithful to Dickens's text. His first laugh upon his rebirth is just as Dickens describes: "Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh." Stewart gives us the sense that he has been drowning for years and has surfaced at last.

So? Well, Scrooge promises to "honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." He lives out his days with the thankful heart of a man cast out of Hell into God's Kingdom on earth. This requires more than just feeling thankful or even saying "thank you." He lives out his thanks in acts of kindness and generosity. "He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or as any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world."

So I am ready to get started. I want to try this year of thanksgiving. I hope it will become a year of thanks-living.