“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.”
THE words of Charles Dickens regularly crop up this time of the year when we delve into the world of Ebenezer Scrooge and the manner in which he spent one well-written about Christmas Eve. Of course, the story is to be enjoyed in its own right, but the lessons encompassed in the tale of ghostly gatherings and human interaction are vast and all-encompassing.
On the exterior the tale describes how petty and mean-minded some people can be but like all good stories it shows that mature reflection may melt even the coldest hearts. At the end of the tale, the main character, Scrooge, is able to defeat a lifetime of selfishness and the worship of money to become a new man with an entirely new outlook on life.
Many of us could do with similar transformations in our own lives. I'm not saying that we're craggy old misers who go through life with a lack of empathy and understanding, but many of us have a somewhat negative view of the world and those who inhabit the planet.
However, there are moments in life when a door opens in the soul and the beauty of people makes the day sparkle. On Thursday last, I was blessed to experience my own Christmas Carol moment, thanks to the generosity, courtesy and kindness of people I was blessed to encounter.
The day began on a bit of a downer. A broken screen on my phone hit hard. The inability to use WhatsApp was like losing the power of speech for this writer who almost constantly communicates on the application for business, pleasure, sporting and personal life. Madly, my phone is a rare model and parts are hard to find, but a quick visit to IT Worx in Castlebar soon put my mind at ease. Liam and the crew have extracted me from more scrapes than I care to recall over the years and they came up trumps again on Thursday. They went out of their way to ensure a screen would be delivered within a few hours and in the meantime gave me a phone and transferred my sim into it. They were life-savers and went out of their way to help and be kind. It was a good start to the day after all.
The afternoon, found me tapping the lap-top keys when the phone rang. It was John Kelly, barber-extraordinaire, wondering where in the world I was. I had an appointment for a hair cut at 1.15pm and John rang at 1.33pm. I nearly fainted. The booking had completely slipped my mind and with no access to emails or WhatsApp, the reminders had been missed. I apologised profusely and told John I would rebook for another day but he wouldn’t hear of it. He rearranged a few things and told me to get to him as quick as humanly possible.
I literally ran to John’s famous barber shop on Castle Street and was a breathless, hairy mess by the time I sat in his famous chair. Over the following half hour we had fun, set the world to rights, spoke about family, football and the best and worst of times. The fact that John was working his artistry from a very poor palette failed to deter him and he definitely made a silk purse from a …. You know the rest.
Twenty minutes later, I was walking up Main Street in the town when a stranger ran up behind me and handed me a €10 note. He had seen it falling from my pocket further down the street and generously took the time and effort to return it. I was gobsmacked. It was a lovely moment and I thanked him accordingly.
Those three interactions would be wonderful in isolation but coming so close together, they made Thursday last very special indeed. The negativity in the world sometimes creeps into the soul and makes it seem a little darker but on Thursday the kindness and generosity of good people shone a lovely bright light on proceedings.
As Dickens said in his famous book, “Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
It’s a timely lesson for all of us.
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