“Now there are some things we all know, but we don't take'm out and look at'm very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars… everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being.”
― Thornton Wilder, Our Town
I highly suspect that Thornton Wilder has existentialist ideas and influences, but at least this quote is true.
It should be no surprise that I teared up watching the 2-hour play, considering how this play stayed in theatres for over 70 years, and at some point was being performed at least once every day in some part of the world.
I was moved not because I agreed with the author's message. Wilder said the play was "an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events of our daily lives." But this search for value in the particulars of life had put God out of the center of the picture. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
But I was moved to tears. The simplicity of the play was its greatest impetus, showing us the daily life of Grover's Corners and the ordinary and special occurrences in that town. In fact, in the play, you realize that there isn't such a distinction between the ordinary and the special anymore. Are weddings special? Well, most people who have ever lived were married. Is eating breakfast prepared by your mother an ordinary thing? Not after you leave the house and start your own family, and begin to miss it.
"This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying."
The play speaks of wants and fears, hopes and disappointments, gains and losses, dreams, doubts, regrets, ice cream, love, life, and death. And it is all so familiar, man being depicted as tossed into existence, into time and space, and soon strains to grab hold of it, trying to make sense of it, not wanting to slip out of it, at least not without gaining something or leaving something behind.
Why would I tear up for an old lady who's bursting into tears for giving away her child in marriage? Why do I sympathize with these absurd little things that everybody who lives will surely go through? But I sympathize with their inability to make sense of things. They don't get it. They can't cope with loss, and never truly understand the source of gain. In this foolishness, they go through life, full of hope at one moment and filled with despair at the next, experiencing tears, laughter, racing heartbeats, comfort, and suffering. Then they die.
That's what brings me to tears. The imagery of man leaving God's house and getting lost in the wilderness, not sure what to expect other than to die in the dirt.
Of course life would seem like a mess without God, without Christ. Life would just be a really bad joke, an awkward existence. It would be a terrible experience, to think that you're born into the world against your will and pulled out of it against your will, and not understanding why.
The characters complain that life is too fast, too fleeting. I do agree that it is like a vapor. But unless my goal for this life is to love it and find full satisfaction, I have no problem with life's shortness. This life is for seeking salvation and repentance, and I'm sure that God is gracious in giving me the right amount of time.
My hopes are beyond the stars. Yea, my hope is being reconciled to God for eternity.
Like Emily walking down the aisle to George, a step at a time.
Closer, closer.
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