Stormeyes Enchanted

A holiday reminder that money still isn’t character.

It’s that time of year again.

Lights twinkle. Music plays. People talk about generosity, goodwill, and giving. We dust off old stories about redemption and kindness and pretend – for a few weeks – that we all remember what really matters.

And yet—
I met a Scrooge.

Not the one with the counting house and the goose.
No, I met a modern version.

He had money.
He had comfort.
And because he helped someone, he believed he had earned the right to judge her.

In his mind, generosity gave him authority.
Authority gave him superiority.
And superiority gave him permission.

⛓️The Modern Scrooge Doesn’t Wear Chain⛓️

Chains don’t rattle behind the modern Scrooge.

No, they wear confidence instead.
Success. The perfect smile. The newest everything.
That sense of “I’ve earned my place.”

And just like the original Scrooge, they mistake wealth for worth.

“My” Scrooge looked at a woman and decided—instantly—that she was beneath him.
Not because of anything she said.
Not because of who she was.
But because of who he believed himself to be.

What Scrooge Never Asks

A Scrooge doesn’t ask your story.

They don’t ask if you have buried a child.
If you have lost a partner, best friend, parent, or even a job.
They don’t ask if you are fighting an illness they can’t see.
If you once had everything and lost it.
If you are educated, intelligent, or simply exhausted.

Scrooge never asks those questions—because curiosity requires humility.

And humility is something money can’t buy.

Help Without Compassion Isn’t Charity

Here’s what Dickens understood, and what we still forget:

If your kindness comes with judgment attached, it isn’t kindness.

True generosity doesn’t need to feel powerful.
It doesn’t keep score.
It doesn’t require someone else to feel small so you can feel tall.

Scrooge doesn’t just withhold money.
He withholds humanity.

The Ghosts We Refuse to See

In the original story, Scrooge needed ghosts to show him what he had become.

But today?

The ghosts are all around us.

They are the stories we don’t ask about.
The pain we dismiss.
The people we reduce to a single moment instead of a lifetime.

We don’t need supernatural visitors to remind us that people are more than appearances.

We just need to look longer than five seconds.

The Real Lesson of the Season

The irony isn’t lost on me that this happened now—
in the season of giving.

Because the true message of Christmas isn’t about money changing hands.
It’s about hearts changing posture.

People are more than their finances.
More than their hardest season.
More than the help they need.

And the truest measure of wealth isn’t what you have in excess—
it’s how you treat those who cannot give you anything in return.

Maybe that’s the modern Scrooge’s redemption story waiting to happen.

Or maybe it’s ours.

Maybe that’s the quiet lesson of this season.

Not that we all need ghosts to visit us, or grand moments of redemption, but that we pause long enough to remember that every person we encounter is carrying more than we can see. That kindness isn’t proven by what we give, but by how we give it. And that humility has a way of warming places money never can.

We don’t need to know someone’s story to treat them with dignity.
We don’t need to understand their struggles to choose compassion.
And we don’t need to be perfect to be better than we were yesterday.

Perhaps the real invitation here isn’t to judge less—but to see more.
To remember that people are not problems to be solved, or moments to be measured, but human beings worthy of grace.

And maybe, in choosing that kind of kindness, we rewrite the ending—
not just for a modern-day Scrooge, but for ourselves too.

Before I move into reflection

I try to remind myself of something important: just as I hope others will look at me with grace, I also try to extend that same grace outward. I don’t know the weight that man carries, the losses he’s faced, or the quiet battles he fights when no one is watching. He is just as human and imperfect as the rest of us—whether he recognizes it or not. 😉