February 19: Ghost of the Future, Fear, New Cartoon

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any Spectre I have seen.  But, as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart.  Will you not speak with me?"

I guess I'm sort of picking up where I left off with yesterday's post.  Yesterday, I wrote about death.  Scrooge changes as a result of his walks with the Ghosts of Christmas.  Of all the ghosts, the Ghost of the Future is the most terrifying to him.  Rightfully so.  A sort of black shrouded specter of death, the Ghost conducts him to some pretty unsettling scenes and places, including Scrooge's grave.  I know I wouldn't want to party with this particular phantom.

Of course, Scrooge's fear touches upon a primal fear in all of us:  fear of the future.  None of us knows when we're going to die.  In fact, none of us knows what's going to happen tomorrow or tonight or in the next five minutes.  The future doesn't speak.  That's the fear Charles Dickens is playing with in this portion of the book.

I can tell you that the future is something that usually fills me with dread.  I spend a lot of my waking hours worrying about the future.  I worry about having enough money to pay my mortgage.  I worry about having enough money to pay for the utilities.  I worry about outgrowing our small house in a few years, when my son gets too old to share a room with my daughter.  I worry about strange noises in my car that may indicate mechanical issues.  I worry about what I'm going to have for dinner tomorrow night.  I worry about losing my jobs.  I worry about Hostess going bankrupt, and Twinkies going the way of the woolly mammoth.

That's a lot of worries, some of them legitimate (the mortgage payment) and some of them ridiculous (Twinkies have the half-life of uranium).  It's a terrible thing to have the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come always looming over my shoulder.  If I had a little more faith, I wouldn't spend as much time worrying about possible catastrophes.  Faith would give me confidence.  Faith should let me feel safe, sure of the future.

That's what Scrooge gains by the end of A Christmas Carol.  Faith.  He wants to change his future for the better.  He knows what he has to do.  The future is not something he fears anymore.  It's something he embraces because he sees it filled with the possibility for good.  He has faith in that.

I, on the other hand, envision a future filled with the possibility of sadness and strife.  I spend my time planning to avoid this future.  Of course, these plans are my way of trying to control things, which is absolutely idiotic.  I can't control the future.  Nobody can.  Not Scrooge.  Not Charles Dickens.  Not me, no matter how hard I try.  I know this fact. 

However, Saint Marty likes the illusion of control.

Confessions of Saint Marty

January 7: Ghost of the Future, Resolutions, New Cartoon

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any Spectre I have seen."

Of all the ghosts Scrooge encounters, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come terrifies him the most.  The future is scary.  For Scrooge, it contains loneliness, disappointment, and death at this point in the novel.  Of course, Scrooge is given a gift that most of us will never receive:  a vision of what his future holds.  Sort of like George Bailey and Clarence, old Ebenezer is taught a lesson by the ghost.

I spend a good portion of my time worrying about the future.  When I had my Ebenezer moment yesterday afternoon, I was gazing into the future and seeing poverty and bankruptcy and foreclosure.  It was a ridiculous thing to do.  I have no idea what the future will bring me.  For all I know, I may publish my book of poems (you know, the one that didn't win the Phil Levine Poetry Prize) and be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.  Then, the university will offer me an instant tenured professorship along with an office suite and my choice of classes to teach.  It could happen.

My point is that the future can be frightening (all graves and darkness), or it can be wonderful (all Pulitzers and sun).  Or it can fall anywhere in between those extremes, and usually does.  I will never be given a vision of the Yet to Come, like Scrooge.  I will never be allowed to see what life would have been like if I'd never been born, ala George Bailey.  I just have to trust that things will work out well.

That's the plight of all Christians.  It's called faith.  We can do everything to insure success.  Good school.  Good job.  Hard work.  Long hours.  New Year's resolutions.  There are no guarantees.  The only guarantee we have as Christians is that God/Jesus will be us, through fire and rain, summer and winter.

Saint Marty still has a lot of work to do, faith-wise.

Confessions of Saint Marty