The same year that Bonhoeffer was ushered into glory, an American service member who had fought so bravely in the same war on the same continent came home.

And he came home a changed man.

Jimmy Stewart had been an actor before his first years of military service. And he had been a good one. From the beginning, sincerity was a must in most of his characters. And he soon gained a reputation of being both a regular guy and ideally approachable in most of his films.

But his wartime experiences changed him and, for a time, tormented him. He came home guant and dealing with nightmares and other symptoms we today would recognize as some level of PTSD. Yet, since acknowledgment of and treatment for such a condition were not really in existence at that time, he did what he knew how to do as a civilian to try and press forward.

He went back to acting.

Acting had never looked like acting with Stewart, however. So when his first assigned post-war film premiered, viewers likely thought he was just acting so well, like he’d always done.

But viewers who went to seen It’s a Wonderful Life in theaters didn’t know that in many of those realistically-passionate scenes, Stewart was using his acting to work though his angst, fighting his demons while the cameras rolled.

Members of the cast would later acknowledge that’s the way it was, and that it was rather unnerving to be on set with him at those times. But those same scenes, all these years later, draw us in magnetically by their raw humanness. By their frank sincerity.

Throughout the movie, Stewart demonstrated how he really felt. And while I don’t advocate harming others or scaring them half to death when we are sincere about our needs and feelings, I do think it is a great gift when we allow others to openly and honestly speak and be. And it is a great gift when others allow us to do the same.

Thank you, Jimmy, for being real for and with us. Sometimes we need the reminder.