It's A Wonderful Life"

We have a Christmas tradition at our house, as do many others, to watch It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve or Christmas day each year. I'm always touched by its simple message about the importance of each of us being here and that without us, the world would not be the same.


Not only does the movie itself touch me every time I watch, but its message impacts me even more when I listen to why Frank Capra wrote it as it is reflective of Capra's confirmed belief in the essential goodness of life and the importance of the individual, as well as his importance to the lives of all he touches.


He said that he wrote it "to the weary, the disheartened, the winos, the junkies, the prostitutes, those behind prison walls, and those behind the iron curtain. No man is a failure who is born slow of foot or slow of mind, those older sisters condemned to spinsterhood, and those oldest sons condemned to unschooled toil."


He goes on to say, "Each man's life touches so many other lives and that if he isn't around it would leave an awful hole. It's a film that expresses love to the homeless and the loveless, for the Mary Magdalenes stoned by hypocrites, and the afflicted Lazaruses with only dogs to lick their shoes. I want to shout to all that you are the salt of the earth. It is my memorial to you."

It is my hope that watching It's A Wonderful Life not be our only tradition, but that the application of it's message and Frank Capra's reason for writing it become part of who we are as well.