Christmas in the dark with George
Finding Hope in Bedford Falls
(Note #1: This article assumes you’ve seen the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. If not, spoiler alert…I’m going to tell you how the movie ends.)
December 23, 1985 journal entry - Tempe Mission Home “We had our valley Christmas zone conference today and it went really well. All four of the valley zones met together and we had a great time. First of all we watched It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart and that was great.”
(Note #2: Please excuse my twenty-year-old self’s limited ability to express myself. The goal back then was brevity, not profundity.)
I can still remember sitting in the dark with over a hundred other missionaries as we watched It’s a Wonderful Life together. I’d never seen it before nor did I know anything about the movie or how beloved it was. Our mission president had arranged for us to watch it together just before Christmas (probably not something that would be allowed today 😉.) I was serving as a training/traveling missionary at the time (meaning my companion and I drove throughout the mission, training other missionaries) and we happened to be in Tempe for that Christmas zone conference. As this was my second Christmas in the field, it had been over a year since I’d last sat with an audience, in the dark, watching a movie together.
What my brief journal entry above fails to capture is how impacted I was by watching It’s a Wonderful Life. Before I left on my mission I’d been thinking of becoming a journalist. But almost from the moment I met George Bailey, I knew I wanted to make movies. When I returned to BYU more than a year later I changed my major to Theater and Film with an emphasis in Screenwriting. I also became a big Frank Capra fan and decided I wanted to tell the kind of stories he told in movies like You Can’t Take It With You, Meet John Doe, It Happened One Night, and of course, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
All of this came back to me recently during a unique opportunity my wife and daughter and I had to watch Jimmy Stewart’s personal copy of IAWL on 16mm film, with a large audience, in the BYU Library. Stewart donated many of his personal items to BYU many years ago, including his personal print of IAWL, and every few years they bring it out to show around Christmastime.
As I watched I realized this was the first time I had seen IAWL with an audience since my mission experience almost 40 years ago. I’ve probably seen the movie over 30 times by now, but this was different. I felt things I hadn’t felt before and related to George Bailey’s sorrows and struggles in a new way.
We love George because we know him. And we know him because we are him.
George Bailey is hurting, and the source of his heartache is often ours as well. He wants what he doesn’t have and doesn’t want what he does have. The tension this creates in him only grows stronger and his unhappiness deepens until the inevitable breaking point comes.
And that breaking point–and all that follows–is what makes It’s a Wonderful Life…so wonderful.
“I’m not a praying man”
That pivotal scene in Martini’s Bar, when George prays for help, is his “prodigal” moment–the moment when he “comes to himself” and begins the journey that will bring him back home.
Perhaps the reason why this scene meant so much to me was because I too had experienced my own breaking point, earlier in my mission. Although I had prayed many times in my life, especially since becoming a missionary, I had never prayed as if my life depended on it.
Are you discouraged right now? Does Christmas mean loneliness and longing for love? I have some appreciation for that.
Pour out your deepest yearnings to God. Tell Him everything. Share what hurts, what you don’t understand–your confusion, pain, and fear.
Just a few weeks ago, Russell M. Nelson, a living prophet, taught the following as part of his Christmas message to the world:
“No one on this earth loves you as He does. No one here understands you better or really knows your sorrows and weaknesses. No one on earth has the power that Jesus Christ has. No one here is more eager for you to become everything you can become. No one pleads with the Father on your behalf as He does.”
George doesn’t think his prayer is answered. Sometimes (more than I want to admit) I feel the same way. I think what I’m asking for is good. But what so often happens to me is what happened to George Bailey–his prayer is answered in a different way, and with much more than he was asking for.
“I’m worth more dead than alive”
Things get darker for George. After taking out his frustrations on his innocent little family and then receiving a punch in the mouth as an “answer” to his prayer, Clarence Oddbody, George’s guardian angel, appears on the scene. But George doesn’t believe. He’s still bitterly angry. His entire life has been spent waiting to begin. Time after time he’s tried to leave, only to be told to wait. No. Not yet. Not ever.
I feel this so much.
Once upon a time I dreamed big dreams. I may have even imagined fame and fortune for myself. I believed there were “big” plans for me and grand adventures ahead. But life has a way of happening while you are waiting for it to happen. Choosing a creative life is in some ways choosing a life of rejection and indifference to your craft. Sometimes you have to dig really deep to not give up. It’s so easy to think that no one cares whether or not you are sharing the most vulnerable parts of yourself. “I have nothing to contribute. If I stop, who will notice? Maybe what I wanted wasn’t what I was supposed to want.”
Christmas is about choosing to believe when we can’t see. George had to hope there was a way back to his family and friends. I am trying to believe there is still something for me to give, to contribute. I yet want to be useful.
My favorite shot from It’s a Wonderful Life is this one - an extreme closeup on George’s eyes (imagine the vulnerability it took for Jimmy Stewart to be that close to the camera.) He’s just been turned away by his mother. He’s starting to think he’s lost everything.
They are the eyes of terror.
Will I ever see my family again?
Have I lost my friends forever?
How could I have ever wanted to leave Bedford Falls? It had everything, and everyone, I needed.
George’s “dark night of the soul” is almost done. But he still needs one more lesson, the most important one of all.
“I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again.”
Mary!
George no doubt remembers how he had treated his beloved and their children earlier that night. And no doubt he would give anything to undo what he had done to them.
Surely she would remember him! Even if no one else did, if Mary still knew him, everything would be okay.
But she doesn’t. Of course not.
George is cracked completely open. Back to the bridge again. Back to the place where he was about to throw it all away.
But he’s not there to jump. He’s there to plead for one more chance. He now wants–more desperately than he could have ever imagined–his wife, his children, his friends. Home.
George sobs. Suddenly, toward the end of the above, the wind dies down. A soft, gentle snow begins to fall.
Bert the cop arrives (don’t you love that Bert and Ernie were together in It’s a Wonderful Life?)
And he knows George.
His mouth is bleeding.
The insurance policy is in his jacket.
And Zuzu’s petals too.
The scene of George running home through the snow-covered streets of Bedford Falls never fails to move me.
Hello Bedford Falls!
Merry Christmas movie house!
Merry Christmas emporium!
Merry Christmas you wonderful old Building and Loan!
Merry Christmas Mr. Potter!
You know, as the saying goes, how the story ends.
But I will end here, standing outside 320 Sycamore - listening. I don’t need to see it happen. I can hear it. Because George’s heart is my heart too. Hopefully changed. New. Bright with hope again.
As the snow falls silent around me, I can look up into the dark and see it there - shining gold against the softdark Christmas Eve sky.
The Star of Hope. The Bright and Morning Star. The first gift of Christmas.
Everything that matters was there all along. Inside that house.
Friends. Family. Goodness.
May you know, each of you, how important you are to me. To others. To all. Without you we would all be less.
It is a wonderful life.