Soulful Muse

“A Christmas Carol,” 1951, Alastair Sim, (The only version worthwhile)

 Spirit of Christmas Present: says, My time with you is at an end, Ebenezer Scrooge. Will you profit from what I’ve shown you of the good in most men’s hearts?

Ebenezer: I don’t know, how can I promise!

Spirit of Christmas Present: If it’s too hard a lesson for you to learn, then learn this lesson!

[opens his robe, revealing two starving children]

Ebenezer: [shocked] Spirit, are these yours?

Spirit of Christmas Present: They are Man’s. This boy is Ignorance, this girl is Want. Beware them both, but most of all, beware this boy!

Ebenezer: But have they no refuge, no resource?

Spirit of Christmas Present: To quote you, “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”

First Collector: At this festive time of year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute.

Ebenezer: Are there no prisons?

First Collector: Plenty of prisons.

Ebenezer: And the union workhouses – are they still in operation?

First Collector: They are. I wish I could say they were not.

Ebenezer: Oh, from what you said at first I was afraid that something had happened to stop them in their useful course. I’m very glad to hear it.

First Collector: I don’t think you quite understand us, sir. A few of us are endeavoring to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.

Ebenezer: Why?

First Collector: Because it is at Christmastime that want is most keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. Now what can I put you down for?

Ebenezer: Huh! Nothing!

Second Collector: So, that’s fine, you wish to be anonymous?

Ebenezer: [firmly, but calmly] I wish to be left alone. Since you ask me what I wish sir, that is my answer. I help to support the establishments I have named; those who are badly off must go there.

First Collector: Many can’t go there.

Second Collector: And some would rather die.

(My second favorite quote from the movie:)

Scrooge: “Is that you Marley or you may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

Marley: I wear the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link and yard by yard! I gartered it on of my own free will and by my own free will, I wore it!

Ebenezer: But it was only that you were an honest man of business!

Jacob Marley: BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business! Ah! You do not know the weight and length of the strong chain you bear yourself! It was as full and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago and you have labored on it since. Ah, it is a ponderous chain!

Spirit of Christmas Past: Your sister, Scrooge, was always a delicate creature, of whom a breath might have withered, but she had a large heart.

Ebenezer: My sister, indeed, had a loving heart.

Spirit of Christmas Past: She dies a married woman and had, I think, children.

Ebenezer: One child.

Spirit of Christmas Past: It’s your nephew, I believe.

Ebenezer: She died giving him life.

Spirit of Christmas Past: As your mother died giving you life, for which your father never forgave you, as if you were to blame for her death.

Ebenezer: [to the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come] Am I standing in the presence of the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come? And you’re going to show me the shadows of things that have not yet happened but will happen? Spirit of the Future, I fear you more than any spectre I have met tonight! But even in my fear, I must say that I am too old! I cannot change! I cannot! It’s not that I’m impenitent, it’s just… Wouldn’t it be better if I just went home to bed? No? Well, very well. Lead on.

(To his nephew’s wife,) “Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool with no eyes to see with and no ears to hear with all these years?”

(To Bob Crachet in the office on the day after Christmas late as usual:) “Well, my friend, I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m simply not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. Which leaves me no choice…but to raise your salary.”

[starts laughing hysterically]

Ebenezer: You’ll want the whole day off tomorrow, I suppose.

Bob Cratchit: If quite convenient, sir.

(My favorite quote from the movie:)

Ebenezer: It’s not convenient. And it’s not fair! If I stopped you half a crown for it, you’d think yourself ill used, wouldn’t you? But you don’t think me ill used if I pay a full day’s wages for no work, hmm?

Bob Cratchit: ‘Tis only once a year, sir.

Ebenezer: That’s a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 25th of December.

Bob Cratchit: Yes, sir. I’m sure…I’m very sorry, sir, to cause you such an inconvenience. It’s the family more than me, sir. They put their hearts into Christmas as it were, sir.

Ebenezer: Yes, and put their hands into my pockets as it were, sir. I suppose you’d better have the whole day. But be back all the earlier the next morning.

Bob Cratchit: I will indeed, sir. Thank you, sir! It’s more than generous of you, sir.

Ebenezer: Yes, I know it is, you don’t have to tell me.

(That’s why we have unions)

Ebenezer: [grumpily] I don’t deserve to be so happy.

[starts laughing uncontrollably again]

Ebenezer: I can’t help it!

Housekeeper: “Merry Christmas, Mr. Scrooge! In keeping with the situation!”

To the ghost of Christmas Past: Ebenezer: What is your business here?

Spirit of Christmas Past: Your welfare.

Ebenezer: My welfare?

Spirit of Christmas Past: Your reclamation, then. Take heed, rise, and walk with me.

Spirit of Christmas Past: And as your business prospered, Ebenezer Scrooge, a golden idol took possession of your heart.

Ebenezer: What do you want with me?

Jacob Marley: Much.

Jacob Marley: It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men! If it goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death! It is doomed to wander through the world! Oh, woe is me! And witness what it cannot share but MIGHT HAVE SHARED on Earth and turned to happiness! In life, my spirit never rose beyond the limits of our money-changing holes! Now I am doomed to wander without rest or peace, incessant torture and remorse!

Ebenezer: But it was only that you were a good man of business, Jacob!

Jacob Marley: BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business! And it is at this time of the rolling year that I suffer most!

Ebenezer: to his housekeeper, [Giggling] No. Mrs. Dilber – I’m not mad. I want to raise your salary from 2 shillings a week to 16.

Housekeeper: Do you want to see a doctor?

Ebenezer: A doctor? Certainly not, nor the undertaker!

Ebenezer: I’ll send this turkey to Bob Cratchit, and he shan’t know who sent it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim!

Ebenezer: (Here’s the essence of religion and belief…somber voice:) “I don’t know anything, I never did know anything, but now I know that I don’t know, all on a Christmas morning.”

Ebenezer: Go, and redeem some other promising young creature, but leave me to keep Christmas in my own way.

Tiny Tim: God bless us, every one!

Ebenezer: I don’t deserve to be so happy.

Ebenezer: But I can’t help it.

Ebenezer: I-I I just can’t help it.

Ebenezer: Shall I stand on my head? I must stand on my head.

The pizza guy is coming or so the girl told me on the phone. She’s the girl who sounds like she just graduated from grade school and my phone call is an inconvenience in her pending but unplanned life.  We rumble through our conversation often repeating things three times, but the plan is finally set.  “One hour,” she tells me as I suspect she tells everyone who interrupts her cell phone fumblings.

But now what? The “what” is that I need to wait one hour.

What to I do during this forced “time-out” awaiting a delivery that their website promised “quick service?” This is my unknown-time between hanging up the phone (Who does that these days, anyway?!) and the delivery.  Dust?  Vacuum?  Tolstoy? Run to the store and buy a pizza and be back in time for “delivery boy?”  I just wait just like I’ve always done for those delivering services to my humble abode.

Cable guy is the best person to wait for.  Do I shake his hand and welcome him or just direct him to my dysfunctional TV box? “Coffee, water?”  After all, it’s not a dinner party but I’m thinking I also invited this guy to my house.

Plumber guy is the worst person to wait for.  I would pay top dollar if he (rarely a “she”) would just quickly arrive and do the magic to my toilet so I can stop pacing with my legs crossed.

I’m told that U.S. folks love to wait in line more than other countries but you’d never know it at a traffic stop sign. We’ll wait to save some money on a television at 5:00 a.m. on a Black Friday but will dart out in traffic at the one-second sighting of the yellow light.  We’ll patiently stand in line for hours for tickets for a show but will wait (but not “wait”) for the phone to ring about your cancer diagnosis.  “Two weeks,” the doctors tells you.  Doctors love to say “two weeks” before they know the results.

Waiting is the emptying of the mind when it is usually full of thoughts and activities.  We’re left with nothing except that damn ticking clock and this expected person who has not arrived yet.  The clock marks nothing except that we are still waiting.  (I’m writing this only to kill time until the clock stops ticking; alas, it has not.)

“My daughter said she’d call me tonight, I guess she was busy,” says the mom who waited. “My son was all set to visit me but something came up at work, he told me,” says the dad who was waiting for that visit for two months.

We have a automatic disposition about waiting, I guess.  We either “blank-out” or are energized by this timeless period which actually has a set “time.”  We don’t mind waiting for those things that are important, fun and exciting for us at a particular time and we dread the hour that felt like two, waiting for those things that we need.  Like a cancer diagnosis and a pizza on a Friday night.

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Faith’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

“I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and king,” sang the guy who knew what each word meant in his own life.

If you think about your life as a musical composition you might appreciate what Sinatra was singing about.  A symphony is comprised of movements that savors where you presently are or moves you on to life’s next movement.

We can luxuriate being “king” but that title definitely has a “shelve life.” As of this writing, Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning leader in the world (with little power or authority but still lots of pomp) right behind Fidel Castro who recently passed away. (Both of them governed islands. Coincidence?!)

The magic of life in all its musical notes teaches and reinforces; teaches again and then reinforces once more – complete with sharp and flat notes that either others intone upon us or they’re the notes loudly playing in our own heads.  (“Growing Pains,” anyone?)

Don’t worry about me taking each of those nouns apart and boring you with a list. But how about those times (As in, all the time?) when all those “Sinatra Nouns” play in our head.

“Puppet, Pauper, Pirate, Poet, Pawn, King.” (Should have chosen “Prince” for the last noun – symmetry, oh well.)

You’re at work and I’m at the altar at Mass and we enact a daily symphony of six movements in one resounding, unrepeatable performance.

Puppet, for the corporation we represent; Pauper for the payment we never think is enough; Pirate for retelling stories others told us and making them our own; Poet, we do have moments when the words spoken are truly ours; Pawn, who else can do our job either better or more cheaply and King, we’re the one doing it right now, this very moment and we love it.

All of this is accomplished in one or two sentences and said to a fellow employee on a typical morning and you walk away singing Frank’s next verse…

“I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself layin’ flat on my face
I just pick myself up and get back in the race..

Interesting rendition of an old Frank song

Around 5:00 p.m. the soft, fluffy white stuff slowly begins falling and a ballet can be heard in the background as the whiteness waves and winds itself to the earth joining other like-minded whitenesses – all done against an early evening’s dark gray.

She told the doctor that she found a small lump and he told the doctor that he feels great but his tests show otherwise. Both admit that something can happen with this fragile life – at any age.

He calls his wife to the window and says, “Honey, isn’t this beautiful?  What a great way to begin the Christmas season.” She smiles back and says, “Yes, it’s that special time of the year.” (Ballet music continues in the background.)

“We can run tests to see what’s going on,” the doctor says to her while the doctor in the next room tells him that “This is common for men your age, you feel fine but it’s more enlarged than I’d like it to be.” (The doctor has an opinion about the inside of his butt!)

Around 10:00 p.m. he calls his wife to the window again and this time he uses the Son of God’s full name although we don’t know what the “H” stands for. “This is just getting crazy,” he says as the imaginary ballet music suddenly becomes Pink Floyd.  She returns to watch the TV weather to find out the predicted accumulation of these “whitenesses.”

With Pink Floyd still being heard, he hears the doctor tell him about “options,” each with risks along with a percentage as though he’s in Las Vegas with chips in hand pondering his wager. The doctor tells her that, “It’s not as bad as we thought but it is serious.” (Read that sentence again and then tell me what that means!)

At 6:00 a.m., he’s outside shoveling and wearing all the clothes he could rustle on himself but now he doesn’t call on the Son of God but instead goes to the top guy demanding a curse upon the once beautiful 5:00 p.m. version.  His wife is safely inside still watching TV and waiting for the heap’s final number. (As though a final number means anything, except proudly announced at her next cocktail party.)

The music of Pink Floyd drifts away and Metallica takes over at full volume as he shovels for over an hour and even begins to sweat with sub-zero temperatures. The third person of the Christian Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is never summoned during this experience. Some would say the Holy Spirit is that whiteness.

She decides on chemotherapy and he decides on radiation with both musical sounds playing: lots of ballet (“Hope”) with an undercurrent of Metallica (“Oh, well”).

The sun comes out the next day and the whiteness becomes whiter although “slush” will be its name in a few days.

He brags about his early morning shoveling at work and she gets the final snow total that no one will remember.

The doctor told her that, “You’re lucky, we caught it in time and you’re fine.”  The doctor in the next room told him that, “We got this under control but we found some other issues.”

The ballet music is lowered and Metallica takes over at full volume along with the “H” added to the Son of God’s name.

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Faith’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

The hygienist does her magic as she does three times a year for the 32 friends I need to enjoy a New York Strip.

My dentist enters to examine both her work and my teeth while leaning over me. The teeth part works to my continuing advantage but he launches into a story he wants to tell me. (Leaning over someone is not the best angle for a meaningful conversation between two people – along with a beaming light, like the one the police use.)

He tells me that at a fancy club he attends, a bartender shares that he found his way back to the Catholic Church because of some guy named “Fr. Joe.” My dentist says that he told him, “I know a ‘Fr. Joe’ but how many are there and I was wondering if it was you?” I reply without all that stuff in my mouth, “How would I know?” My dentist continues with accolades that I hope are mine but have no idea who he’s talking about. (I now have clean teeth and I want to go home.)

Couple of years pass and the parish where I sometimes helps calls asking if I’d visit a man with a name unknown to me in the hospital. “It’s serious,” the secretary says. I go to the hospital and have a wonderful visit with a bartender who loves music as much as I do. We share concert stories and I anoint him with the Sacrament of the Sick.

I return to work and the Church’s fulfillment is fulfilled. Weeks later the bartender passes away at a younger age than mine and the same secretary calls me asking if I’d have the bartender’s funeral. I agree. (“Seemed like a nice guy,” I say to myself, hanging up the phone.)

After the funeral mass today, my dentist comes up to me and introduces himself as my dentist. (I’ve only seen his forehead for years.) He proceeds to tell me that the “a” bartender is the guy he told me about. He says, “You probably don’t remember the bartender I told you about,” which I didn’t forget because compliments are not always forthcoming. “Tom was the bartender!” my dentist tells me.

Driving home I’m thinking about the cycle of life without the Disney frills and Elton John singing. In reality, the “this” leads to a “that” which often encounters another “that” leading to a new “this” which now  becomes a “then” which was neither expected nor planned.

My dentist and I both smiled at this circular rotation of both the earth and our lives.

I smiled at this coincidence while hoping for free dental care for the rest of my life. I suspect, however, I’ll still only see his forehead at my next visit but my dentist and I now have more in common than just my aging teeth. We have a beloved bartender.

(The church was packed, by the way.)

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Life’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

A Great Gift Idea

A new book by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Available at Amazon.com
Paperback or Kindle is $14.95.  Enjoyable reading.

After an angry parishioner stopped me after Mass at a Catholic parish were I have help twice a month, it finally hit me – a revelation that I’d missed all these years later.

The Tridentine Latin Mass was changed to the local’s vernacular in the late ’60’s after the Second Vatican Council.  It was a shock to many people who grew up with its formal, mystic-like rigidity and to many others it was a relief to hear what the words meant and become more involved in the Mass.

The Latin Mass demanded gestures, motions and movements by the priest to be performed exactly the same way each time the Mass was offered.  Any deviation from the established form could dismiss the efficacious graces that the Mass provides.  (Remember, that these actions are all done by the priest.  What the pew-people did or didn’t do didn’t matter.)

The priest’s back was presented to the congregation each time.  Even though unseen; those gestures, motions and movements by the priest affected the success of the Mass.  Gestures: I’m talking about exact height and width of extended arms, talking directly to the bread and wine and combined thumbs and index fingers after touching the bread and wine for a long time.  (And these are the things I can only remember but I’m sure there were more.)  My revelation is that the priest was visibly invisible to ensure that he was the “Alter Christus,” the person of Christ while presiding.  (No congregation needed.)

The presiding priest during this Latin Mass was not a person or an individual.  With his back toward the congregation he was not “representing” but was the “person of Christ.”

Well, that was the late ’60’s; fast forward to my recent experience.  After Mass last Sunday, a man suddenly stops me, red-faced and carotid arteries bulging and says, “It’s my own opinion but your jokes at Mass are wrong and you consistently do it every time.  I’m going to write the pastor,” as he walks away without waiting for a response from me.

A jokester since grade school with always a hint of sarcasm, I’m a priest who allows my personality to connect and relate to the congregation with this new Mass in humorous and serious ways (which is not that “new” anymore).  I suspect he wanted the kind of Mass and priest that ended when I was a high school sophomore when performing the correct ritual was more important than celebrating community and relating to the people I can now face.

We are both right, but I felt sorry that we didn’t have a chance to talk about it.  (I wonder if he’ll really call the pastor?  Detention, stay after school?  There’s that darn sarcasm again.)

A Great Gift Idea

A new book by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Available at Amazon.com
Paperback or Kindle is $14.95.  Enjoyable reading.