As life throws evil, strife, and hardship at us, we feel the shadow of doubt creeping along the edge of our imagination. Is it worth giving up on this exquisitely difficult life? As the pit of despair threatens to suck us in, we pray in the deep valley of our souls that the shadow of defeat and struggle would give way to victory. It takes a miracle or at least something beyond this materialistic milieu to reveal another path. If there is another way forward in this life, it is indeed a difficult thing indeed to see clearly. As we reflect on seeing and finding meaning in life, our imagination may shift back to a Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. What is the beatific vision that George Bailey comes to understand in his moment of darkness and clarity and what does it have to say about how we view life today?
George is a modest, reasonable man. He loves his wife and children and has many friends in the town of Bedford Falls. Yet, he sits at the precarious ledge of death and darkness; we pan across the town of his family and friends and hear: “God, please help George.” All of this man’s life then flashes before our eyes as the angels of the heavens discuss all that has led up to George’s contemplation of suicide. Who is this man?
When one is prayed for by many, he is a blessed man indeed. Even as we know this man is about to make a horrible mistake, we learn that he is well loved by many. This is a glimpse of something important. As John Donne said, “No man is an island.”
George’s life was one that would appear to be underwhelming to the ambitious man, though one would also observe in his youth he loved his neighbors and family well. We see him save the lives of both his brother and a pharmacist’s patient. As he grows older, he sacrifices traveling the world and a college career to take over his late father’s unprofitable but beneficial Building and Loan, providing affordable loans and decent homes to working class families. His father’s portrait on the wall says “All you can bring with you is that which you give away.”
I do not believe one can settle on how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. —C. S. Lewis
The spirit of George’s late father understood this well, and so doing, dedicated his life to holding onto money loosely. Likewise, if one desires to love his neighbor well, he must understand that the money he has is not chiefly a good to have for its own sake, but is a resource we can wield potently for the good.
This business stands as the lone bulwark against the financial depredations of the Scrooge-like Mr. Potter, the slumlord of Bedford Falls. Mr. Potter would have the whole town in debt slavery to him if he could; he could care less about whether or not the town is a good place to live.
Mr. Potter’s character, while heavy handed in his materialistic and greedy sensibilities, should appear to be incredibly recognizable to anyone. Wealth aside, he does not love the city he calls home and because of this he finds no issue in extorting it, exploiting it, or potentially ruining it. He is the concentrated essence of tight-fishted misanthropy that often lures us to taste its fruit with promises of wealth, importance, luxury, and power. It is this man our protagonist, George, contends with for much of his adult life.
In his 20’s George falls in love with a beautiful, sensitive woman named Mary Hatch. They have all of the romantic angst, silliness, and passion that eventually entwines their lives together and George takes her for his wife. They restore an old home, turning a dilapidated ruinous shell into a place where a family can grow and thrive.
Love is a creative force. It makes new people and rejuvenates lives already here. The fruits of love are not to be kept hidden, but are meant to overflow as blessings to the community around them. This is wonderfully contrasted by the slums that the disdainful Mr. Potter has built up. Infertile and stifling, the things he creates and runs for his slum tenants trap them in a cycle of misery and struggle. Human flourishing blossoms where people are filled with a life giving spirit.
All during this time, George continuously works to provide for his neighbors in Bedford Falls through his company, improving the lot of his fellow men. However, he falls into despair when his uncle, the odd job man of his company, misplaces eight thousand dollars that were to be deposited into their account (Mr. Potter is actually the one who ends up with this money). He is bound for jail, the feds are coming to collect their due. To seal the humiliation, when George breaks down to beg for help from Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter gets George to look at his fifteen thousand dollar life insurance. “You’re worth more dead than alive George.”
To the one that sees money as the prime value of a man’s life, this insult of life itself follows a coherent logic. That old aphorism “love of money is the root of all evil” is often misremembered to be “money is the root of all evil.” The former and not the latter is the one with which we are concerned. The best things of human life are creation, love, gratitude, excellence of character, and charity. None of these things can be completely and accurately understood with a heuristic like the market value of a man. Yet, when men are enraptured with their own passions, they will reduce external realities of other’s live in order to pursue what they believe is good for their getting and spending.
We arrive where we began, with George approaching the bridge and seeking his death. In a wonderful twist of fate, his guardian angel Clarence Odbody appears and saves George’s life through an ironic substitution, leaping into the river himself. George wants nothing to do with Clarence, as he is still in the throes of his own misery. George says in despair, “I wish I didn’t exist.,” to which Clarence finds an excellent opportunity. Let’s see what that would be like, George.
In this alternate reality, all of the men and women that George had provided a decent way of life to have become slum dwellers with diminished prospects, spirits, and community unity. Organized crime has moved in to wrack the population for even more money. Strip clubs and seedy bars have replaced family businesses and the movie theater. Desperation and despair grip his old friends; his wife, instead of married with children, is a lonely librarian. His brother who was saved by him in his youth is dead; his old employer has become a street bum because he never stopped his fatal error as a pharmacist.
All of the generous and meaningful opportunities that George gave to the people of Bedford Falls, now Pottersville, never happened. The town has turned transmogrified from a community into a pit of the vice of Mr. Potter’s selfish desires.
We see from this that a single man’s virtue, goodness, and excellence to his community is what makes it Good and Beautiful. Without good men who are willing to sacrifice some comfort for the good of their neighbor, we can only expect the depredations of lesser men to dominate the world around them. We see from the town’s transformation that good men enable the family to thrive, while evil men care little for the family and only for getting what they want for themselves. The Normal world that is George’s real life has been influenced incalculably by the small acts of normal and good life he has lived.
Desperate to return back to his reality, George exclaims “I want to live again!” Clarence, feeling he has done his job well, returns him the old timeline and what awaits George is the world as it was just a moment ago. His elation at seeing the normal and decent lives of people in Bedford falls throws him into exultation. His life is wonderful and the lives of those he loves are as well. To add blessing to his joy, his many friends come to his aid and help him to pay the government the taxes he owes them, saving him from jail. His angel leaves him a copy of Tom Sawyer, in which is written “No man is a failure that has friends.”
All of the prayers for George were both heard and answered.
This kind of story reminds us that instead of a vast political apparatus, all it takes to make a difference where you live is for people at the individual level to take their good beliefs and virtues seriously, to live them out. No man nears perfection in this life, yet the best we can do is enough. Insomuch as we know there are duties, virtues, and callings that we must pursue, we must press onwards in that way.
Most importantly however, is that life is both wonderful and beautiful. Your life has a value to it that you may not even recognize yourself; George needed a miracle through the form of his angel to understand it. We do not find our meaning and value in navel gazing or egoism but instead we begin to find these things by looking at reality and asking the question “What must I do?” If purpose, beauty, and wonder in life really exist, then we must make it one of our chief aims in life to discover those things and learn to love them well.
>Love is a creative force.
I like this point.
Good article, send it to the kids! I interact with a lot of GenZ and the overwhelming sentiment is one of apathy and purposelessness.
Love this. A lesson for all.