(NOTE: Zionsville Radio Players is currently in production of an adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel A Christmas Carol. The script was adapted by co-founder Susan McClelland, was directed by Len Mozzi, rehearsed in Oct. and Nov. and is now being recorded in two sessions at the WICR studios at the University of Indianapolis. The following was written by actor Dr. Larry Adams, who plays the role of Jacob Marley. It will be presented in three parts.)
PART III
As I look
once more around this eclectic group of friends and new acquaintences, it
strikes me how strange it is we should all be working on this project together,
how different our perspectives on Christmas are. How some of us this year will
celebrate the birth of a newborn Savior found lying in a manger, while others
most certainly will not and cannot; and still others of us linger in between,
no longer hearing angel choruses or following mystical stars, yet somehow
unable to shake the feeling that there is something important, something true
lying just beneath the surface. These are the differences that stoke the flames
of the yearly battle over “the reason for the season.” It’s a tired debate, but
I suspect there are many reasons, or many facets to “the” reason,
whatever it may be. Perhaps, though, there is one reason upon which all of us
sitting here tonight can agree, the one Dickens envisioned so powerfully and
lasteningly in this classic tale, and the one I hope we can share with a
holiday-weary radio audience: the power of love- whether coming from the
divine, or simply from family, friends, or strangers. Or even from a decidedly
non-Jedi ghost. Surely love is the reason for the season, wherever one takes it
from there.
So perhaps
Dickens was right after all to set his tale in this time of the year and to
place “Christmas” in its title.
But still- why a “Carol”?
Maybe because a carol
is a song of joy. And what greater joy this season- and every season- than the
transforming power of love? The power to transform even an Ebeneezer Scrooge.
The power to transform a world.
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