The Man Behind the Chair and George Bailey's Advent: 

An Advent Reflection on It’s a Wonderful Life

Richard G. Malloy, S.J. 

Author of Being on Fire Top Ten Essentials of Catholic Faith (Orbis 2014,  pp 137-139)

GEORGE:  “I’ve misplaced $8,000.  I can’t find it anywhere.”

POTTER: “You’ve misplaced it?”

God is working in our lives, even when we cannot see it.  It’s a Wonderful Life is a great story evidencing that faith fact.  A staple of the Christmas season, I’ve found this film to be fodder for faith reflection throughout the year, especially Advent.  George’s life is Christ like, even though he is unaware of the salvation God works through and for him. 

Saving his little brother Harry, George loses his hearing in one ear.  He saves Mr. Gower from a prison sentence.  George’s dreams of traveling the world, building bridges and skyscrapers, disappear in the long years of nine to five days when he takes over the Bailey Building and Loan rather than let the board vote with Potter to dissolve the small lending institution, so needed by Bedford Falls’ working classes (N.B. Especially for the immigrant, Catholic Italians, like the Martini family.  Providing for newcomers was not a popular political opinon in the 1940s).

George sacrifices his life so others may live in a small home with four walls and a bath, thus saving many from Potter’s slums.  He even helps out Iris Bick, risking his own reputation as small town tongues wag.  And through it all, he fails to realize what is really going on. 

The habits of a lifetime kick in, and, rather than blame befuddled Uncle Billy, George is ready to assume responsibility for the missing money.  In the moment of crisis, he is told by the malicious Potter, “You’re worth more dead than alive,” and George contemplates suicide.  It is then, as George approaches death, that the divine intervention occurs in the person of Clarence Oddbody, angel second class.  George’s outlook on life is revolutionized as he sees what the world would be like had he never lived.  Without George, the lovely, peaceful hamlet of Bedford Falls would have devolved into Potterville, a tawdry, bar-filled, hard town, filled with unhappy and sullen people.

The movie starts with prayers storming heaven, and one filmed ending had the entire cast kneeling and reciting the Lord’s Prayer together.  Director Frank Capra tells a tale of good versus evil, with a curious twist for 1940s Hollywood: The bad guy gets away with the money.  Potter is never brought to justice, and wheels away with the stolen $8,000. 

The only other person in the story who knows the truth is the man behind the chair.  He remains silent as Potter, his boss, rakes George over the coals.  With a word, this unknown, unnamed man could have saved George a great deal of anguish, pain and suffering.  But, like Pilate, he washes his hands of the matter, and George heads for the bridge.

First, George stops at Martini’s restaurant, and voices a prayer (Annie Lamott says the best two prayers are, “Help!” and “Thank You”).  George, not a praying man, asks God to show him the way.  George mistakenly thinks the answer to his prayer is the immediate response, a punch in the jaw.  He heads out into the blinding snow, crazed and a bit drunk, planning to end his life in the dark, cold swirling waters.

Again the habits of a lifetime of helping others inspire George to dive in to save Clarence.  And in helping one another, all is saved.  George goes through a period of uncomfortable growth in self awareness.  He struggles to comprehend the gift he’s been given, the chance to see the world as if he had not been born.  The truth explodes in his consciousness, and from Clarence’s mouth, “You really had a wonderful life.”

Mary Hatch-Bailey is the real hero of the story.  As a child she swore she would love George forever, and that love sustains and saves her husband.  Instead of descending into self pity and anger as her husband breaks down, she scatters all over town, telling people George is in trouble, and all those George has helped over the years come to his aid. 

Our spiritual journeys often parallel the outline of George and Mary Bailey’s story.  Advent is a good time to ask ourselves some questions the movie raises, questions that we may ask while waiting for the days of Christmas when we bask in the late winter glow of tree lights reflected in frosted window panes, our inner selves comforted by warm whiskeys and potent egg nogs.   It is more during the blustery and cold Advent days of late December, as the days shorten, that can we examine our souls and our attitudes toward our lives.

Are we grateful for our existence, even those parts of it that range from the mundane to difficult?  Do we realize our work in some way is being utilized by God for the furthering of the Kingdom Jesus inaugurated and for which he died?  Do we trust our lives, the lives God has given us, or are we too often dreaming and yearning for the unreality of some impossible existence, e.g., 100 lbs lighter or $1 million richer?  

Do we appreciate and cherish the loved ones close to us?  Are we willing to ask for help for our loved ones who are in trouble?  Where would George have been without Mary?  Where would Uncle Billy have been without George?  Where would we all be if some organizations and institutions like the Bailey Savings and Loan did not look out for, and care for, our well being and the common good?

Do we live our lives seeking power and prestige as Potter did?  Do we cooperate with the powers and principalities that crush people, keeping them mired in poverty and despair?  Are we silent like the man behind Potter’s chair as we see injustice perpetrated against the defenseless? 

As we pray these Advent Days, let’s realize that there is no resurrection without the cross, which means there is no cross in our lives that does not contain within it the seeds of resurrection.  George’s cross came in the form of a misplaced bundle of money.  Our crosses also will come.  Let us bear them with grace, dignity, courage and grace, knowing there is always a community on which we can rely.  In and through the loved ones in our lives, God again will win us the resurrection.