Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors (his Tale of Two Cities ranks only behind Don Quixote as the best-selling novel of all time). Dickens endured a poor upbringing in England, working at a blacking factory and labeling boot polish at the age of 12, following his father’s sentencing to debtor’s prison. Dickens’s upbringing in poverty profoundly influenced him. Reading a parliamentary report on the harsh conditions associated with childhood deprivation in Victorian England moved Dickens to write a story to expose these terrible conditions. The story, about a wealthy misanthropic miser who was transformed in one magical night into a philanthropist, was intended as a call to empathy and justice for endangered children in the workplace.
Dickens’ story, A Christmas Carol, became a seasonal classic. In the famous climax of the story, the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, has been visited by three spirits, who have taken him on a supernatural journey through his life. He has witnessed all the pivotal moments that shaped him into the self-centered, resentful man he has become. The final visitation is from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who takes Scrooge to a snowy graveyard and stands him before a tombstone. As Scrooge peers through the snowy haze, he sees that the name on the stone reads “Ebenezer Scrooge.” He recognizes that, barring radical change, he will die a lonely, unmourned death, an insignificant end. This vision leads Scrooge to repent, vowing to live life starkly different in an attempt to erase this possible future.
While I’m a bit peppier than Dickens’ protagonist, I experienced a poignant Ebenezer Scrooge moment last week during my father’s funeral. Standing before his burial site, I stared at his headstone and read the name, which he and I share: “John Winston Ferguson.” In that moment, my life flashed forward to a day probably closer than I’d like to admit, when my children will be standing before another stone bearing that name. Needless to say, a moment like that inspires reflection, and I wondered what will be said about me on that day.
About a year ago, a friend of mine shared with me the idea that there are “resume virtues” and “eulogy virtues.” Resume virtues are those achievements and accomplishments that mark one’s career. These are the things we casually slip into cocktail party conversations, desperately hoping they will make the person we are talking to believe we are somehow more intriguing and important than we inwardly suspect we are. Eulogy virtues are something different. They are our greatest dreams and hopes for ourselves, not what we achieve, but the kind of person we hope we are or will one day become. These are the things we pray will be said about us at our memorial service because they are actually true, rather than mere platitudes.
Given what I do for a living, I’ve been to a ton of funerals. In most cases, if the person being memorialized has lived long enough, it’s mostly the children or even grandchildren who deliver the eulogies. I’ve been to the funerals of CEOs, politicians, and people who have accomplished a great deal in their lives. Ironically, however, almost none of that ever matters when you’re dead. In virtually every eulogy I’ve ever seen, what you did for a living, or how amazing you were at your job, how high you climbed the corporate ladder, what bill you got passed, or what company you ran—they don’t get mentioned. Everyone forgets those things. You know what gets talked about? Your character. People talk about how much you loved your kids and grandkids, and the stories they tell that demonstrate this love. Their testimony of you includes all the ways you led them as a family, guided them towards Jesus, and that one wise thing you said that completely changed the course of their lives. What matters is whether you were someone they could model their lives after, and in what ways.
I’m reading the newest book by Peter Greer: How Leaders Lose Their Way: And How to Make Sure It Doesn’t Happen to You. Greer discusses inner mission drift, explaining that before an organization deviates from its mission, its leaders first experience this drift. He discusses the pitfalls leaders face along the way, citing research showing that only 30 percent of leaders actually finish well. He encourages people to avoid drift by beginning with the end in mind, using an interesting exercise to do so. He invites readers to actually write their eulogies, to imagine what people would actually say about them at their funerals. He tells his readers to be truthful about what people might say, even if it’s hard to hear. Then, he encourages them to write aspirationally: what would they like people to say? This exercise helps clarify the discrepancy between what we would like to be true about us and what is actually true. It helps us identify those “eulogy virtues” we would like to develop.
While I love A Christmas Carol, its tale of transformation rings somewhat hollow. I wish a transformation like Scrooge’s happened literally overnight, but it rarely, if ever, happens that way. True transformation begins with taking stock of who you really are and being brutally honest with the state of your life. It starts with asking the Lord to shine the light on the inner recesses of your heart. What’s there that you’re afraid to talk about, that you’d rather not know? Transformation takes courage because it begins with deep Holy Spirit-led introspection. In some sense, the story of Scrooge rings true, because it may very well require looking at the course of your life, seeing where you went wrong and how you got here, so that you can be fully healed.
As we review our lives and see where things are and may not yet be, we have the opportunity to submit them to the Holy Spirit. Our part is pressing into the Lord, spending time in his presence daily, in prayer and in His Word and in all the practices, the means of grace we frequently discuss here. We must practice God’s presence and abide in Him. And, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He transforms us by His grace, making us into someone we once were not, someone we hoped to become.
The other thing about A Christmas Carol that doesn’t follow the spiritual development of most people is that, by the time we reach Scrooge’s age, we’re fairly set in our ways. We are the people we’ve allowed ourselves to become over the course of our lives, and it’s virtually impossible to become someone else (even if we’re visited by three ghosts!). My friend Jeff died suddenly of a heart attack in his early 60s two days ago. He was supposed to retire at the end of this school year. We don’t always get 80 years, and if it takes 10 to 20 years for God to mold and shape our hearts to develop eulogy virtues, the math is working against us if we don’t get busy right now.
Eulogy virtues do not develop overnight; they require time and a deep commitment to pressing into Jesus. However, over time, the transformation can be as profound as that of Scrooge, leaving us unrecognizable to our former selves. Someone our grandkids can proudly memorialize, because we’ve left them the greatest legacy there is.
Christmas is the perfect time to be still and write that eulogy. Who do you want to be when you grow up and grow old? Now’s the time to begin.
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