Shining a Candle on the Miracle of Our Wonderful Life

[deutsey]

http://www.midshorelife.com/content/shining-candle-miracle-our-wonderful-life

Although I’m something of a cynic when it comes to over-sentimentalized movies, I can’t help but be a fan of that corny but heartfelt holiday flick, It’s a Wonderful Life.

There’s just something uplifting about the story of how the beleaguered George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart with homespun American hope and defiant scrappiness) triumphs over Old Man Potter’s warped and self-centered view of life.

If you’ve seen the movie as many times as I have, you can probably recite from memory when George, after his father’s death, tells the banker/slumlord Mr. Potter why his father’s savings and loan sought to help give ordinary working people a decent life:

“Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about...they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn’t think so. People were human beings to him.”

Although it’s nice to fantasize about living in such a world shaped by George Bailey’s economic idealism, unfortunately, evidence increasingly suggests that more and more of us are struggling just to hang on in grim financial Pottersvilles.

According to Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the banking bailouts:

“Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.”

MORE at LINK....

[Uben]

1. Congress is more like Mr. Potter......

....than George Bailey. How sad is that? We have allowed our country to be hijacked by rich, uncaring pieces of shit.

UNTIL WE START TAKING THE MONEY BACK FROM THESE RICH ASSHOLES, OUR COUNTRY WILL NEVER, EVER BE THE SAME. TAX THEM, TAX THEM, TAX THEM, UNTIL THEY REALIZE WE WILL NOT TOLERATE THEIR BEHAVIOR!

Everyone wants to make a good living. No one needs to be a billionaire. Ever!

[darkstar3]

2. OK...

It's an interesting article, to be sure, but why is this related to R/T?

[deutsey]

3. I see it as an expression of my liberal theology.

Nothing more, nothing less.

People struggling in isolation (God knows, we don't have many people in power fighting for those of us who don't have money) coming together in an ecumenical and community forum to celebrate the miracle of enduring even though we have very little.

I guess I see neither religion nor theology as something abstract, but as something lived and grounded in our shared humanity.