Ordinary Heroes

George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart’s character in It’s a Wonderful Life, is a guy who does not solve world hunger or develop a cure for cancer. He is ordinary in many ways, but one of the film’s messages is that George Bailey is a hero. His simple virtue and honest life are not flashy enough for many people today, but his is exactly the kind of life I want.

I want to wake up early, work hard, and have dinner with my wife and (some day, hopefully) children. I want to help out around the house and volunteer for worthy causes. I want to show love for my family and get along peacefully with my neighbors and coworkers. I want to stand up to people who are oppressing the less fortunate. I want to have a genuinely jovial disposition and help friends when they need a hand.

The problem is that this kind of life is not necessarily an easy one to pursue. For one thing, cultural forces pull us away from it. Advertisements tell us what we are and have is not enough. They tell us we don’t have enough stuff, we’re not good looking enough, we don’t eat right, where we live isn’t nice enough, and our sex lives leave something to be desired. These messages push us to work longer hours to make more money so we can have more stuff, be better looking, live in a nicer place, and so on. Working more hours in turn means less time for the things that really matter—time with family, lending a hand at the mission downtown, or helping underprivileged children learn how to read.

Another reason a simple, honest life is difficult to pursue is because of internal forces—desires that pull us away from what we know we should do to what we know we shouldn’t. I often think about how grateful I will be if all I do is avoid making a wreckage of my life. When Saint Paul said he did things he didn’t want to do and failed to do things he wanted to do, he was giving voice to a perennial struggle of humanity. That’s not to say we don’t have good in us. We do. But we also are capable of skipping happily into our own destruction. Such destruction comes in multiple forms, including getting ourselves fired, imprisoned, or killed, as well as permanent numbness of being, chronic illness, and perpetual anxiety.

I think people who end up in these states never see them coming until it’s too late. Take Martha Stewart. You know, she’s probably done insider trading in the past. She knew it was wrong the first time she did it, but . . . well, she thought about it, rolled the dice, and . . . nothing happened. No sirens went off. No handcuffs appeared. So she did more and more of it until she got caught. Now she’s facing prison time and a tarnished reputation forever. I could list a thousand such examples.

And it’s because of such a possibility of destruction that we MUST be proactive about our inclinations toward disaster. We can’t just ignore them or make peace with them. No matter what it costs, we must keep on fighting.

The reality is that people are capable of incredible good too. I mean, if I could list a thousand examples of disaster a la Martha Stewart, I could list an equal number of success stories. Think Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Lurther King Jr. And then there are the ordinary heroes—those whose names are not well known by all but who nevertheless have a place in the hearts of those around them.

We are capable of so much, but to attain our best we have to be honest about our struggles. If we don’t deal with them, candidly, wisely, and in earnest, we will falter. If we look them in the face and address them, we’ll be free to find our place in the ranks of ordinary heroes.

Thanks for listening.