The December 2008 issue of Touchstone has a piece by Anthony Esolen about the movie It's a Wonderful Life. Esolen discusses how George Bailey's decisions (to rescue his brother, to stay home and run the building and loan, to use his own cash to save it in a bank run, and others) - not merely his existence - are important and helped prevent Bedford Falls from becoming Potterville.
He then goes on to say that most of us live in a Potterville, a place of abandonment, where we are citizens of no town at all, where we don't care what our neighbors do. But we can still turn away from "the universal wolf of avarice, ... the desire to have, have, have," by using the gifts that God gave us and staying where we are and loving our neighbors. And that would be a wonderful life.
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