Will be sharing along the way when opportunity presents..

Cyber hugs from North Georgia, USA..

A few random lines I recall from scenes where George had to and did make the manly decision despite his conflicting dreams and goals:

“I don’t want any plastics, and I don’t want any ground floors, and I don’t want to get married, ever, to anyone!” -George marries Mary, gives up his dream of bachelorhood and the free life.
“But George, they’ll vote with Potter otherwise!” -George gives up his dream of higher education…forever to save the BB&L.
“It’s purely mercenary, I’ll tell you. Father offered Harry a job.” George sees his last hope to get out of B.F. slipping away when Harry gets married, but he tells Harry to take the job.
“Hey! I got 2,000 dollars. How much do you need?” Gives up his honeymoon to save peoples’ investment in the BB&L.
“I don’t need 24 hours” turns down Potter’s rich-lifestyle offer on moral grounds.

I am sure there are a lot more than I can think of right now.

I couldn’t help but notice the prior comments about poverty and poverty in the America. I think you may want to watch the movie again. While they had a roof over their head, the luxury of a piano, and he worked at a bank, it certainly doesn’t indicate he was middle-class either. He drove an old car with mechanical issues, lived in a formerly abandoned home, couldn’t afford any “decent clothes” for his kids to wear to school, and the bank (which didn’t get bail-outs in those days) was broke. So, yes, he was worried about where his next paycheck and his family’s next meal would come from. That, my friend, generally is poverty “in America” for those who do not have a heroin addiction. And you can thank God for it.

And i totally agree with the fact that Jimmy Stewart was a great man himself. He’s definitely one of my heroes and role models, he’s a class act through and through. Definitely my favorite actor of all times as well as one of my favorite human beings.

However, I’ve come to understand that there is something to be gained through our sufferings, whether they be lack of money or lack of good health. It’s difficult to explain, but my Catholic brethren might have a better grasp of it than I or even just instinctively know what I mean. I’ve been in situations where I’ve had little money, and situations where I was in very poor health. When I understood that I can gain graces in such situations, that I could offer up my suffering (to use the old Catholic phrase for it), these sufferings were far more bearable.

I really think that the focus on what is deemed the darker sides of this movie discount that there is more to life than getting money and getting out of a small town to see the world. Love of neighbor and George’s cherishing of his family make him far richer than our society would readily admit. I have friends who just returned from Guatamala with their newly-adopted son who saw people who were incredibly poor, living in dangerous surroundings, with little to no creature comforts that you and are are used to. And yet those people were kind, friendly, and happy in life. They lived with grace.

Grace is a status that anyone can enjoy. Grace is freely given, and only only need to seek out that grace in every day life. The key is knowing Who to ask for such graces!

And, let’s face it, the world can be a dark place where evil goes unpunished. Yet George, even when resentful of his situation, does not give in to the evil that seems to surround him. He remains faithful to his wife. He loves his neighbor. He does his best to provide for his family – brother and mother included.

In short, he lives out his vocation, hard as it may be, and learns to even love it through divine intervention.

Life isn’t all rainbows and sunshine, and even if George is “stuck” where he is, his life has tremendous value. He is a greater success than Potter could ever dream of being, especially at the end of our peek into his life when he realizes that his life has value, poor as it might seem.

Poverty is not a crime, and living in poverty with the kind of grace George and Mary display is a beautiful thing. Their poverty is only the monetary kind. They really are, as Harry puts it, the richest people in town.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/movies/19wond.html?em

Capra could be dark ( Meet John Doe comes to mind) and the world after the war is dark. George is a boy when we first meet him and in some ways he is still a boy at the end. He is a hopeless dreamer, has no impluse control, and can’t seem to ever just get out of town of his own speed. He is not brave, wise, or enpowered by his actions. Life happens to George- George doesn’t happen to life. He is poor. He lives in the shadow of regret and disappointment. He has no real future and no great past. He is also at the mercy of kindness, which I think comes from a great insecurity that Stewart hints at time and time again. He can’t even kill himself with any proper sense of honor.

It is only the Christmas opening and the last fifteen minutes that make us feel that George is great and brave. Capra was trying to be uplifting. But here are the facts: 1. Potter never gives back the money. 2. There is no promise that the next day will be better for George or his family. 3. There is also no hint that Potter or his kind won’t take over the town.

If you want to see great things in George Bailey please do. But I kindly ask that you see the shadows and noir that surround him as well. They are as American as he is.

Try here and here.