In "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, we think of Ebenezer Scrooge as being lost to the meaning of Christmas because he is selfish toward the world. He refuses to donate money to the poor and needy; "Are there no workhouses?" he asks. He makes poor Bob Cratchit work late hours in a frigid office that he's too cheap to heat adequately. He even begrudges the poor man one day off a year:  Christmas day.

But really, Scrooge's stinginess toward others is only a reflection of his stinginess toward himself. He's wealthy, yet his lifestyle doesn't reflect it. He refuses the company of others, including his own loving nephew. In the Alastair Sim version of the movie, they added a lovely scene in which Scrooge is eating alone at an Inn and asks for more bread. When told it would be tuppence more, he says, "No more bread." Stingy, yes, but the poor man couldn't even be nice to himself. And with that deficit, he could hardly find it in himself to be kind to anyone else.

It can be very painful to let self-love into your heart. When true divine love begins to come into a heart, it can hurt, paradoxically. The healing, the shedding of pain, takes courage. In order to feel love, even Great Love, it means you have to feel. It means you have to feel all of the other stuff you didn't want to feel up until now. Once you go through that, then you can get to the Love. But you have to go there. You have to feel your pain, even if for only a few moments.

Scrooge's journey is a journey through his pain:  his lonely childhood, the cold father who blamed him for the death of his mother in childbirth, the death of his beloved sister, the loss of his only true love. In order to heal, to have that moment of transformation at the end, he has to open his heart to emotion again, including his pain. Once he honors that, he can begin to find love for himself, and in finding self-love, he can give it to the world.

"A Christmas Carol" is beloved because it speaks of our collective journey. We can't neglect our inner child's needs and ignore its pain if we want to live a happy life. If we do not give to ourselves, we either project our pain outward on the rest of the world, or we turn it inward on ourselves. Either way, we live a life of deprivation:  we lack joy and love, because we cannot accept it.

In the end, Scrooge doesn't hold onto his past. He moves on into the glorious present, where he discovers a rich abundance:  the love of his nephew's family, the promise of friendship in Bob Cratchit, and the joy that comes with helping others according to your capacity to do so. But mostly, Scrooge finds the most important gift of all:  his joy. Little Ebenezer finally learns how to play and to accept the love that was available to him all along.

Such transformations are not just the stuff of fiction:  they can and do happen. Scrooge's journey is a healing journey, and we can all walk that path. We can all discover the gifts of Now, the love of our friends and family, and most importantly, the knowledge that we are loved, that we are lovable, and that we are worthy of that love. The barometer of our worth does not lie with other people:  it must come from within. God does not judge one person to be more or less worthy than any other; this is a judgment of man, not God. God loves us unconditionally. Our only task is to accept this love and share in it.

'Bear but a touch of my hand there,' said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, 'and you shall be upheld in more than this!'
—Charles Dickens, from "A Christmas Carol"

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