If you’re looking to extract your soul from the materialism of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the rest of this season’s shopping routine, then plan to revisit one of the great Christmas stories of the last 200 years — namely, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
Dickens’ original intention was to write a pamphlet asking generosity for the London poor, to be titled “An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child,” but “A Christmas Carol” proved far more lasting and universal than any pamphlet would have been.
Dickens embodied the greed-motivated conniving partners, Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley, to personify the very wealthy of his day. At the same time, he demonstrates their greed impoverishes most others — what today we’re calling the 99 percent. And since Christmas implies a season of giving, Dickens explores the contrast between good hearts and bad, between those who care and those who only take — and then take more.
Interestingly, Dickens achieves his goal without pointing attention to the birth of Jesus. He wrote this book to test the human condition apart from religious belief. Still, Dickens uses a faith in the hereafter, and a belief in rewards and punishments for our behavior in life. He also uses spirits — not only the ghost of Jacob Marley but the spirits of Christmas past, present and to come.
Who are these Christmas spirits? They are not Christian angels or pagan gods, and yet they seem to be more than the personification of the seasons. And they lay a heavy burden on Scrooge for the life he has led so far.
This year’s theological offering from the Union Street Brick Church is a play about the nature of those spirits — and of the possibility of redemption from sin even after a person dies. Can a ghost redeem itself from judgment by saving the soul of another person going down the wrong road in life? Can Jacob Marley shed the chains of sin he forged for himself during a life devoid of love?
Author Tom Mula’s award-winning play, titled “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol,” asks these questions and more. Is it faith or works that gains us forgiveness? Can faith even be spoken of, after we die and know the truth? Can once-human forces, now on the Other Side, have an influence on those still traveling through this life — and should they? And also, should such forces be listened to — by Scrooge, and by us, as well?
The play “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol” will be performed 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 11 and 12, and 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13. It’s happening at the Union St. Brick Church, at the corner of Union and Main streets in downtown Bangor. Admission is free.
Lee Witting is pastor of the Union St. Brick Church, a former religion columnist for the BDN, and host of the Internet radio show nderadio.org, a weekly show on near-death experiences. For more information, call 326-4520.