What is Marley’s ghost teaching us?

At this time of year, I usually reread the Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. The timeless wisdom of this story helps me remember that the heart-felt essence of joy comes from within and automatically grows when shared naturally without hesitation.

But this year, I’m going to read this classic from a slightly different perspective. Instead of focusing on Scrooge’s journey, I’ll be examining Jacob Marley’s and applying his teachings to my life.

There are a few powerful lines in the story where the ghost of Marley laments to Scrooge what he’s learned in his afterlife. He says, “Not to know that ages of incessant labor, by immortal creatures, for this earth, must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused! The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

If viewed from a certain perspective, Marley is explaining to Scrooge that his immortal soul had a plan he was unaware of while alive on earth and only after he died, he found out he squandered his opportunities for the good that was necessary to his soul’s plan and no amount of regret would change this knowing.

It’s easy to feel sorry for Marley as it seems he’s doomed to an eternity of hell, until you realize he’s not saying he’s being punished by someone for what he didn’t know, but that he is suffering at his own hand because at this point in his afterlife journey he has not been able to move past his human experience into self-forgiveness and self-love.

Instead, out of his love for Scrooge he comes to help him understand that he has also gone sideways on his soul plan. It’s Marley’s desperate hope that Scrooge can avoid the suffering he currently endures by ending the karma created through misuse of life opportunities the soul desires for evolutionary expansion into the greatest remembrance of Self. 

This is a wonderful story of remembrance of the eternal beings we are, and the real possibility of waking to that knowing through experience while in physical form. No longer must we wait until we’re dead to experience this truth. How each of us feels about our own life and the opportunities we’re given, does have an effect on our afterlife and the whole of humanity.

Marley seems to be saying his work was just a minuscule portion of what his soul was here to do. There’s so much more. Doing good has its real rewards on how we feel now and apparently how we will feel about ourselves in our afterlife.

But Marley also teaches there are many who suffer at their own hands like he is. In the story we are shown many such ghosts wailing and moaning in the night. We end up like these pitiful creatures when we torture ourselves needlessly through hateful self-talk and lack of self-appreciation. How tight and heavy our heart feels under this constant onslaught of self-punishment and unwillingness to love and forgive ourselves and each other for where we are right now.

There’s no room for compassion, understanding, and joy when the life force is being squeezed from the heart by the nonending put downs, recriminations, harsh judgments, and debilitating guilt the mind of insanity loves as its favorite form of communication with you.  

And like Marley, you may suffer into eternity in just this way if you’ve a mind to.

Or, you can use this beautiful time you have on earth to remember who you are. The waking soul remembers its responsibility to the truth of its divinity and will not doom itself or anyone else for anything.

But it will remember its eternal divine nature and act according to the answer to this one question: What would love do?

In my opinion, love would let go of the pressure you put on yourself that everything outside of you is so important. It would also let go of the perfectionism and self-victimizing as that is what it means to become your own worst enemy.

Love would tell you to release yourself from judging. Judgments create blocks in your energy field. It stops your flow as quickly as if you pinched off a water hose. You are called to authentic alignment which is not judgment. Alignment feels good and right to you. It feels like easy flow. Judgment creates fear, ignorance, and illness—exactly as is written in the Christmas Carol.

Love would tell you to love who you are right now just because you’re you—uniquely crafted by your Soul, by God. You don’t have to have everything all figured out. Life and its plethora of opportunities will help you with that, and love will help you remember what it feels like when in alignment with your soul.

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