What do Jim Carrey, Kelsey Grammer, Susan Lucci, Beavis, James Earl Jones, Fred Flintstone, Albert Finney, and Tori Spelling have in common? Give up? They have all portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in variations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
There is something about an old, miserly curmudgeon obsessed with money and power acknowledging the depths of his misery and awakening to a lost sense of generosity that embraces the heart regardless of age or nationality.
During that fateful Christmas Eve night when confronted by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, Scrooge remembers how to love. And his love is embodied in giving. And his generosity changes his whole demeanor for the better.
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An infestation of bah-humbug thinking pesters all of us from time to time. Helplessness, hopelessness, poverty, despair, and a host of pesky doubts can swarm us and even compromise our health. It turns out generosity can snap us out of the humbug funk and improve our well-being.
“Beneath our culture’s obsession with wealth and power, status and celebrity, millions of Americans are quietly engaged in a deeply religious struggle to wake up from petty selfishness and to embrace a life of benevolence and compassion,” according to Stephen Post, researcher, author and Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics in the School of Medicine, Stony Brook University (SUNY). He began his research career at Case Western Reserve.
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Post and two colleagues, Dr. Matthew T. Lee and Dr. Margaret M. Poloma, associated with the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love and the University of Akron, collaborated on a book, The Heart of Religion: Spiritual empowerment, benevolence, and the experience of God’s love.
The book’s centerpiece is a national survey conducted to establish data about Americans experiencing God’s love and its impact. It reports that over 80% of respondents acknowledge they “experience God’s love as the greatest power in the universe.”
A similar number report feeling “God’s love increasing their compassion for others.” That consensus backs up a well-read Bible passage: “anyone who does not love others does not know God, because God is love.”
Generosity is more than a fuzzy, warm feeling. Bigheartedness has an effect on health. Participants in the Do Good Live Well Survey, released by United Healthcare, report that “volunteering made them feel physically healthier”. Other findings include:
• 89% report that “volunteering has improved my sense of well-bring”
• 73% agree that “volunteering lowered my stress levels”
• 92% agree that volunteering enriched their sense of purpose in life
“Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us,” writes Mary Baker Eddy, who studied the measurable effects of God’s love on health and well-being. And while the concept of giving to enhance life might seem counterintuitive to a Scrooge-like mentality, evidence supports the notion that a generous lifestyle has healthy benefits.
Dickens sums up his Christmas tale with some thoughtful advice. When referring to Scrooge he writes, “And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!”
Steven Salt is a writer and blogger covering health, spirituality and thought. He is a Christian Science practitioner, curious about everything. You can follow him on Twitter @SaltSeasoned.