A Special Visit For Those Claiming Christianity

In "A Christmas Carol," written by English author Charles Dickens, his main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, a nasty old miser, is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. Scrooge had lived his life in a lust for money, while being totally deaf and blind to the suffering going on around him. His accumulation of wealth left Scrooge the same bitter man he had been through the years, even as those in need took great solace in winning little victories for themselves and their families. Now you have to admit, being visited by one ghost could make a person take note of their life, but to be visited by THREE ghosts would be enough to scare Donald Trump out of his nightshirt ..... well actually, that would likely scare the ghosts. The ghostly visits changed Scrooge, and he saw life in a new way, free from his incessant worry about making more money. He found happiness in sharing and in making others happy.

In the classic movie "It's a Wonderful Life," based on a story by Philip Van Doren Stern, the main character, George Bailey, is visited by a caring, but unsuccessful angel, named Clarence, who hasn't yet done anything significant enough to win his wings. Clarence grants George's despondent wish to have never been born; setting off a series of events that show how the world would have been without George Bailey. Like Scrooge was changed by the visits of ghosts, George is changed by the angel's visit, as he sees that he is not a failure, and that, indeed, he has had "a wonderful life" by helping others, often suffering some consequences to himself in the process. When George needs help, people from his past rally to him, as they remember him for the good person he has been.

Religion and politics are funny things. It is tough to "completely" separate the two. But for individuals, including politicians, invoking Christianity; in more recent times, mainly, but not always, Republicans, how would they deal with a visit from none other than Jesus Christ? For those of you who scoff at the idea of Jesus Christ, you miss my point, because these individuals do believe, or at least, say they believe, in such a religious figure. What might happen?

If Jesus Christ paid a visit to Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who has often touted his Christianity, would he congratulate Ryan for working to cut help for poor people? Would he say, "Paul, you keep helping those rich folks with tax cuts and subsidies, they need help. I'm glad you're so concerned with the plight of billionaires and millionaires. Ebenezer Scrooge forever! None of this George Bailey stuff in the U.S., selfishness is a virtue, not a flaw. And keep working, too, to make sure that EVERY American owns at least one gun, but hopefully several. Maybe you can give people a subsidy to buy weapons? Hey, there's an idea."

So... what do you think, Mr. Speaker?

WORD HISTORY:
Visit-This word, closely related to "vision," "video" and "visa" (more or less literally, "a visit permit that has been 'seen' and verified"), and also distantly to "wit," ^ goes back to Indo European "weid/uyd," which had the notion "to see, to know from seeing." This gave Latin "videre," a verb meaning, "to see, to look at." This then produced "visere," meaning "to go to a place to look, to observe." From this developed the verb "visitare," meaning, "to go to see someone or something." Old French, a Latin-based language, had "visiter," with the meaning, "to go visit, to visit to inspect or observe." English then borrowed the word (verb), seemingly as, "visiten," in the early 1200s.^^ The noun form lagged behind, and it took a couple of centuries before it was derived from the verb, likely with reinforcement from the French noun, "visite." ^^^ 

^ For the history of "wit," see my article at this link: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-friend-in-west-virginia-part-three.html

^^ English verbs were conjugated differently in those times, with the infinitive forms "often" ending with "en." These forms did not need the additional word "to" as part of the infinitive (example: today in order to express the infinitive form, we have to say, "to visit," but back then, one needed only say "visiten" to mean "to visit.") Close English relative German still uses this basic form for most verbs. By the way, the German noun for "visit" is "Besuch," and English once used the closely related noun "bisæc" as the word for "visit." This was derived from the Old English verb "besecan," which is now "beseech;" that is, "go to someone (visit them) to beg them to do something." German has only retained the "to visit" meaning, as their word for "to visit" is still "besuchen." The "seech" part of English "beseech" is really just a form of "seek;" thus, "beseech" is sort of literally, "seek (someone) out."

^^^ In those times, French was quite an influential language in Europe, not just England, especially among the nobility and aristocracy. Likely almost all nobles learned French, and famous German, Frederick the Great, king of the German state of Prussia in the 1700s, preferred French to his native German, and he carried on a correspondence with French philosopher and writer Voltaire, but the two clashed when they actually met, as Voltaire's "free spirit" was much in conflict with Frederick's autocratic style.