Day after day, during this run-up to Christmas, Jung and I kept talking about how we hadn’t watched any Christmas movie, so last night we finally sat down to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol together. Jung and I were taken aback when our daughters told us they weren’t familiar with Dickens’ original story but then we thought maybe this would be a good way to introduce them to it. They had some apprehension about the various Spirits—especially because it was past their bedtime when we were watching—and they wished Miss Piggy had a bigger role (I’m sure she did, too) but by the end all four of us had enjoyed it.

When I asked J why she thought Scrooge had changed his ways, she thought it was because he thought he could avoid his own death that way. I think she was overly influenced by his last sentence while looking upon his own gravestone before awaking in his bed on Christmas morning:

“Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

Of course none of us can avoid our death. When it comes, it comes. I think I’ll have to open this discussion with J again to help her see that Scrooge was not trying to avoid his death, but avoid the consequences of the life he feared he would lead until he died.

Another realization I had today about the Spirits is how they didn’t actually tell Scrooge anything he didn’t already know. The first two guided him to re-examine his past and his present, and the last challenged him to look at the logical consequences of his life. It was this last, the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come which I found to be the most fascinating when I experienced the story again last night.

If you’re familiar with A Christmas Carol, then you know that this last Spirit never speaks, but only points silently with his long, skeletal finger. Unlike the other Spirits who transport Scrooge directly to the scene that they want him to observe, this last Spirit points Scrooge in the direction he must go to face the truth, but does not force him there. Scrooge is left to choose to follow where the Spirit points and look upon the truth.

The irony is that when Scrooge chooses to face the truth, he also finds hope embedded there as well. He understands that facing the truth of the consequences of his actions gives him the hope that he can change his actions and avoid those consequences. He expresses that in the following monologue. (It ends with the line which threw my daughter off, probably because she interpreted it too literally.)

“I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!…I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

He understands that these events are not yet certain, but there is power in looking at them—not the power to fret and worry, but the power to make new choices and to be a person he can feel proud of. Once awakened to see the truth with the help of these Spirits, Scrooge becomes a different man: courageous enough to face “the lessons that they [taught]” him and to integrate them into his future life.

The depiction of the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come as a fearful apparition aptly reflects the fact that we only have fears about our future. Any fears we harbor about our past and present are restricted to how our actions might come back to haunt us in our future. The past and present are facts, the future is unknown, and it often scares us into staying small and safe in the life we know rather than breaking out into another way of being. I believe that this was the case in Scrooge’s life. By surrounding himself with money and humbug, and distancing himself from the people around him, he felt safe and protected.

This, however, was a big, fat lie. The truth was within him and by ignoring that truth, he was slowly poisoning himself. The Spirits shook him out of his denial, and helped him to finally look at and accept the truth which he always knew in his heart. In her post, “Day 14: The Power of Choice,” Jung had a similar experience when she took a long, honest look at the past and present of her work life and projected it into the future. In that post, she observed:

“The shift happened for me, however, when I turned to my heart and started an honest conversation. My heart asked me, “How is that working for you: your current paradigm of starving your soul while feeding your family?” In the course of this conversation, my desire to live wholeheartedly overtook my fear of the unknown.”

Scrooge feared the visits by the apparitions of the Marleys and the three Spirits, but in the end the Spirits guided him to free himself from his fears by choosing to live a different life. These days when fears of the future rear up in front of me, I examine them to learn if those are fears of things outside my control, or fears of the consequences of my actions. If they are outside my control, then I let them go and be as they will. What will be, will be. If I am becoming afraid of the consequences of my own actions, however, then it’s time to take a close look at my choices, and if necessary, to choose a different path that is in closer alignment with my vision.