At the Movies: I Heard the Bells

During the Christmas music season of 2021, I had “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” stuck on repeat. The song seemed meant for the season we were in, still tucked away from friends and family in the middle of the pandemic. 

It seems to me that maybe there’s a Christmas song for every season, one that stands out from the rest, one that you keep returning to that defines the kind of Christmas you’re feeling this year.

In the glow of our Christmas tree and the lamplight of our farmhouse’s living room when I was a child, I watched my dad take my mom’s hand and slow dance to “If We Make It through December.” It was magical to me at the time, but I know now how that song captured their real fears in the early to mid-80s, having just started their own business, a 4-year-old daughter and infant son in tow.

The best songs aren’t manufactured to appeal to the masses, they are born from the heart of one human experience. And that one personal, quaking reality transcends our individual sensibilities to strike at something universal.

That’s how I’m feeling this year about “I Heard the Bells (On Christmas Day).” It isn’t the most well known song, but for me, it is the song of this season. Sight & Sound Films has brought its origin story to life in their production of I Heard the Bells.

I Heard the Bells

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was arguably the most read poet in America in the 1800s. Through poems like “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “A Psalm of Life,” his work captivated the hearts of the nation and emboldened the people of the Union to take up arms in the Civil War… even if that wasn’t Longfellow’s primary goal.

I Heard the Bells takes place during the Civil War, beginning with the bright gaiety of a Christmas Eve service, followed by the joyful celebration of Christmas in the Longfellow household. But tragedy soon strikes the family, and the famous poet is left to grapple with deep grief, lost hope, and the internal conflict of whether he ought to continue to write. In light of war, loss, and political strife, do his words even matter anymore?

I Heard the Bells strikes the same vein as It’s a Wonderful Life, so if you aren’t ready to cry, save it for another night. I was a sobbing mess, but it was so worth it. Sight & Sound Films did a fantastic job of capturing what happens when the hope and joy of Christmas are shattered by tragedy and how the heart can heal.

I Heard the Bells is a moving and beautiful story of how the poem, “Christmas Bells” came into being and explains why I can’t stop listening to “I Heard the Bells (on Christmas Day).”

Finding the Love: Faithifying Your Viewing

“Does what I do even matter anymore?”

Suffering has a way of shattering our illusion of reality. When I’ve gone through difficult seasons of loss or illness, two things happen. First, some things I thought were true about life—that everything happens for a God ordained reason, that I’m somehow protected from harm because of my love of God—shatter and gather into a mound of broken-glass lies I believed once. 

And then, without all of those fallen certainties blocking the view, the veil is pulled back to reveal the Really Real. Underneath all of the hustle, chaos, and mundane details of the everyday there runs a hem of love. It’s easy to overlook, the way the light streaks through the window, the smile of a child, the radiant heat of a dog on your lap, the weight of a crocheted blanket, when common and minor annoyances clutter our vision.

Until tragedy strikes. Until a crisis sweeps the table clean. 

In the wake of deep suffering, we’re all in danger of soul rot. It’s a dangerous endeavor, living. It means taking risks and enduring losses, increasingly so if we’re given the grace to age. If, in the immediate wake of tragedy, we swallow the bitter pill of despair, declare that life’s not fair, and reject the universal realities that surround us, we are the ones who perpetuate our own suffering. 

Suffering brings clarity, but not without a price. Without a return to the strong foundation of love, everything in our lives can feel robbed of meaning. What’s the point of decorating a Christmas tree? The holiday will be here and gone before you know it. What’s the point of buying gifts for people? We’re all going to die eventually anyway. Why should I bother with going to work or doing the things that I once loved when love seems stripped from this world?

When the circumstances of life threaten our belief in the goodness (and maybe even the existence) of God, some truths remain: faith, hope, and love. Love was always there; we just didn’t always have eyes to see it.

Christians worship a suffering servant. Much of the Bible is really a survival guide for people who are suffering. When everything is at its worst, hope still remains, hope that underneath (and within, and besides, and before, and beyond) every single thing is Christ, the living and breathing manifestation of love on Earth, binding and holding all things together.

The power of Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells” isn’t in the happy chiming and ringing at the beginning, it’s in the way Longfellow walks into the valley of the shadow of death: 

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
    “For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

He could have stayed there. Many of us do. When hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men, our grief turns to bitterness and cynicism. 

But there was a greater belief that sustained Longfellow, one that allowed him to move beyond the pain and sorrow of his suffering, the weight of a broken world:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

We can join in Longfellow’s belief because Christ died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. The battle is already won, the wrong shall fail, the right prevail. It is the promise of Christmas and the promise of Easter and the promise of unconditional love that will restore all things, beginning with our sense of agency, our freedom, and our purpose. Undergirded by the great love of Christ, our words and lives matter. Our words live.