Second to the original and true Christmas story, The Nativity Story, perhaps the most adapted Christmas story ever created is the great Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Scrooge McDuck, Jim Carrey, Michael Caine, and many others, have all brought this classic redemptive tale of Ebenezer Scrooge to the silver screen and the small screen for decades.
Yet, out of all the movie and television adaptations, of all the plays performed across the world of A Christmas Carol, did you know that yours truly once attempted to bring this story to life, but to a couple of fourth grade classes?
Well, I did, and today I am going to tell you of my attempt and what I learned from it.
From a very early age, I had a great love of movies and books. I would watch movies constantly at home, forcing myself not to blink, because I was afraid I would miss something. I would read at least a book a day and love going to the library and bookstore to get new books to read.
As I got older, I began to dream of wanting to write books, songs, and one day perhaps movies. So, it was only natural, that in the late fall of my fourth grade year, I wrote a very basic play based on A Christmas Carol. Once it was completed, I asked my teacher if my fellow classmates and I could perform it in front of my homeroom class. Surprised and supportive of my decision, she said we could and then told me we could also act it out in front of all three fourth grade classes at school.
The weeks went by, and then during the final week before Christmas vacation, it was time for my classmates and I to bring my version of A Christmas Carol to all three fourth grade classes at my school.
My production had only three or four actors, including me. We were as ready as we could be. The first performance to my homeroom was being to go well, until I had somewhat of a breakdown.
My friend wasn’t doing his lines right. I didn’t turn on the music at the right time. I tried to act and direct simultaneously. I began to pace back and forth between the hallway and the classroom, reading my script out loud, saying “This is terrible! This is awful!”
We maybe made it to one more class that day. I was embarrassed and told myself I never wanted to do anything like that again. I wasn’t comforted or encouraged by the fact that I even had the boldness to produce and perform a play, when no one else in my school was doing anything like that.
My problem though, was that I was trying to do too many things, all at once. I wanted to direct, act, produce, and literally be the soundman all at the same time. Yet, even multi-talented directors such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, JJ Abrams, or Tyler Perry, can’t do everything at once. They need actors, producers, a team, and literally everyone you see listed in the end credits after every
movie.
Every doctor needs his nurses. Every principal needs his teachers. Every contractor needs his construction workers. Every airplane pilot needs his flight attendants. Every restaurant owner needs his cooks and waiters.
Every one of us is a part of a team, or teams, in our daily lives. We also need a team, of friends and loved ones, to help us and be there so we can help them. At times, we may want to go it alone, yet time and time again, we find it is better to live life with others than it is to live life alone.
After all, it is even declared and referenced in Scripture.
I Corinthians 12:12-26 ESV
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves[a] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts,[b] yet one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
I have tended to be a loner through much of my life, with the need with some consistent community throughout the week. Yet, over the course of the last year, I like many of you, have realized the need of having others in my life. Living life with family, friends, and loved ones, helps us to be more positive, loving, and willing to grow. Through Christ binding us together, we can be secure, and tell every lying voice to go to the depths of hell, where it belongs. The power and process of being in community, may not provide overnight change like Ebenezer Scrooge experienced, but in God’s timing it will. It always will.
Until Next Time,
Jacob McGowen
The Adventures of A Warrior 