Monday, December 24, 2018

Thoughts on watching It's a Wonderful Life for the gazillionth time, but maybe the first time on Christmas Eve

Since we're all as familiar with every scene as we are the sounds of our own voices, I'll cut to what just struck me.
It's the scene where George, at the coaxing of his mother, wanders down the street to casually visit Mary. Things get tense - in some part due to Mary's mother - and in the midst of it, Sam Wainwright calls and gets all ebullient about his business opportunity, and exhorts George to invest in it and says he might have a job for George. Georges starts to shake and grit his teeth and he grabs Mary's shoulders and says, "Now, you listen to me. I don't want in on any ground floors, and I don't wanna get married ever! I wanna do what I wanna do!" And they embrace.

The very next scene is their wedding reception.

Why did he marry her, given what he'd said in his outburst?

Because she was the one woman to whom he could bare his soul.

It occurred to me that in real life, we still put brakes on our willingness to bare our souls. (Actually, later in the movie, George kept a lot to himself.)

In real life, if you bare yourself to anyone - spouse, sibling, best friend, parent, child - there may be issues. The recipient of what you're conveying may have some kind of investment in what you're saying.

But there is one to whom you can bare your soul and there are no issues.

He's heard it all and in fact he's keenly interested in your story. And he'll have nothing but complete understanding for you as you tell it. When you're done, he'll let you know he's crazy about you, that he loves you like he loves no other.  He'll have no issues. Talk away.

And tonight we celebrate his birth. He created each and every one of us, but he still seemed remote to us until that night. He decided we needed to see him as one of us so we could understand who and what he was.

Only once has someone that pure walked among us.

Let him listen to you.

Let him hear you say yes.


2 comments:

  1. Basking in His goodness and light...it might be our first encounter after our last breath.

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  2. While we're still breathing, all can indeed be calm, all bright, as we see through that glass darkly, sleeping in heavenly peace, letting go & letting God...

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