Wilder Got Me Twice and I Never Knew It!

Every once in a while, I come to a strange realization that feels both embarrassing and enlightening at the same time. Like this week—when it finally hit me that The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town were written by the same person.

Both works have lingered in me for years.

I remember being quietly wrecked by The Bridge of San Luis Rey. 

That haunting question at the start—“Why did God allow those five to die when the bridge collapsed?”—sets you up to think you’re about to get some kind of answer. Brother Juniper spends years trying to prove that there is a pattern, a reason, a divine logic. But the conclusion Wilder gives us is deeper than a clean answer. The final line just sits with you:

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

And then there's Our Town. My first experience with the play was teaching it. It is such a clever creation- limited stage props, quiet, ordinary and then... BAM! Similar to "It's a Wonderful Life" but deeper and darker. That scene—when Emily goes back to relive her 12th (or was it 14th?) birthday—and realizes that everyone is alive but barely awake… they don’t know the beauty of what they’re living through. They don’t notice the small glories: breakfast, voices, sunshine, ordinary grace.

Both works are haunting. And soothing. They hold sorrow and wonder in the same breath. And somehow, I never put it together that Thornton Wilder had written both!

So I started reading a little more about him.

Wilder was a quiet thinker. A man of faith, yes, but more of a poet of mystery than a preacher of certainty. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—one for The Bridge, and two for drama (Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth). He was born in 1897,  son of a strict Calvinist diplomat (I'd like to know more about that). He served in both World Wars, lived in China as a kid, spoke multiple languages, and never married. He was both an academic and an artist—but most of all, a man asking big questions without trying to pin down the answers.

He once said:

“The theatre is not a place for preaching; it is a place for exploring the mysteries of life.”

And that’s what struck me the most.

Because these days? We have a lot of preaching in art. A lot of shouting, a lot of certainty, a lot of rushed conclusions. And not nearly enough room for wonder.

I wish more storytellers would embrace what Wilder did: to hold open a space where we don’t walk away with answers, but we walk away thinking. Feeling. Noticing. Remembering.

We need that kind of art—art that asks quietly, Do you know what life is really about?
Not in a heavy-handed way. Just in a “have you noticed?” kind of way.

Because the truth is, most of us (myself included) spend a lot of our days like zombies on autopilot—pushing through, running on adrenaline, jumping from activity to activity without ever really wrestling with the biggest questions.

What is life really for?
Why does love ache and matter so much?
Are we awake to the gift of this moment?
And—maybe the biggest one—could all of this be pointing to a life beyond this one?

Thornton Wilder never shouted his answers. But he left clues. And for those of us willing to pause, both The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town remind us:

Life is short. Love is what lasts. And there might be something even more beautiful just beyond the curtain.

I'm very convinced about the answers to those things, but there is great mystery there as well! 

Song: The Wreckage of Rey