Tread lightly on the things of earth

I think the beauty of fellow Tennessean DonBinTN’s observation last night warrants propagating and preserving:

I’m amused by Republican whining that the plot [of the new Star Wars movie] amounts to a political indictment of President Bush. The Star Wars films are notable for their embrace of classic, even ancient, narrative themes of the true hero: sacrifice for others, resisting the temptation of power in favor of humanity, following your true self and calling in the face of an imposed system.

The dark side — like the dark sides of all great narratives of good and evil — values vengeance over love, imposition over understanding, force over diplomacy, victory over honesty, and it falls ultimately of its own hubris, having forsaken its own humanity. If Republicans see their leader in those timeless depictions of evil, George Lucas is hardly to blame. It is the oldest story in the history of the world, and for good reason. If our President has become a caricature on the wrong side of that tale, it is for him to answer.

Yes.

I remember seeing the original Star Wars at the Memphian theater in Memphis in 1977, and I remember being intrigued as its subtitle scrolled into the distance — Episode IV: A New Hope.

[2005-05-31 update: Len points out that I’m misremembering: the “Episode IV” in the crawl wasn’t added until the 1981 re-release (and of course, IMDb agrees). Memory is a fickle thing … I bet I noticed “Episode IV: A New Hope” in a later viewing and assumed I’d overlooked it originally. Thanks, Len.]

As the chattering of the projector and the flickering of the images unfolded the story on screen, I felt the scalp on the crown of my head tighten and the hairs on my arm sweep into alignment — my cue for as long as I can remember that spirit is present. The result for me was an indelible association of The Force with The Power of the Holy Spirit. (This kinesthesia may sound nuts unless it’s happened to you, in which case you know what I mean.)

This experience of metaphoric understanding may have shaped my internal wiring more deeply than I realized — I was an impressionable 17 and the idea of the Force was a brand new thing, not yet embedded in our cultural memory. Despite depiction of the Force as New Age nonsense by some in those years, I think Force<->Spirit is a common archetypal connection. The notion of one representing the other has never left me.

Naturally then the fictional Force flipside, the Dark Side, represented in my mind the very real forces of spiritual darkness I’d spent childhood hearing about and reading about in church. Sure, the Force and its Dark Side were presented with less subtlety and more physicality than their real-world analogues, but these were the movies, after all (where things have to be visible).

But I observe the real-world forces of spiritual darkness animating today’s People in Power aren’t subtle, either. The bad fruit being borne — that is, the actions by which we’re to recognize darkness’ influence — isn’t just one day past its sell date; it’s rotten to the core. It’s not just black-helmet, labored-breathing rotten; it’s closing in on Death Star-blowing-up-Alderaan rotten. [How, other than quantitatively, is blowing up a country under false pretenses to demonstrate power different from blowing up a planet under false pretenses to demonstrate power? The kind of thinking that does one would do the other, if it could.] Very little spiritual fragrance of flowers, said to accompany the presence of angels, wafts through today’s political headlines; it’s the stench of death that permeates today’s U.S. political power scene.

Of course many of today’s People in Power have embraced the Dark Side — their fruits of fear-mongering, greed, deception, and war reveal them. Very seductive, the Dark Side is. The question is, are enough of us prepared to let go of the perks its power gives us to turn, turn, turn back to the possibility of redemption? The consequences of our extended dark-side actions are inescapable; they will affect us, our children, and our world for decades to come. But the core of who we are can still be brought back from the brink of the social, spiritual, and financial abyss we’ve hurled ourselves into. Maybe.

Looking at fictional reality alongside real-world reality is often revealing — obviously I enjoy searching literary metaphors for meaning. But sometimes a comparison to fiction causes us to take real-world issues less seriously, postponing our all-hands-on-deck response to urgent blood-and-guts, life-or-death real-world crises in front of us (“sure, it looks bad now, but everything will turn out alright by the closing reel”).

Listen, life on Earth today ain’t the movies, and its turning out alright any time soon is not a given; we must choose today whom we will serve and we must then act accordingly. Will we keep on valuing “vengeance over love, imposition over understanding, force over diplomacy, and victory over honesty” as we’ve been doing for the last five years, ass-deep in our own hubris and hypocrisy? Or will we turn back to the life-affirming, community-building, creation-stewarding values actually commended to us in the bibles we’ve been thumping?

I don’t know any more what we’ll collectively choose; after November 2 my confidence that we’ll collectively choose wisely is gone. What I do know is I am choosing Life, and the Lord of it. I can’t single-handedly stop our pouring $billions, bombs, and babies (our children) into the Middle East. By myself I can’t stop our hubristic march toward empire. But I can choose Life and mean it.

Because here in the real world I’m convinced that despite the highly effective steamrolling, wrecking-ball efforts of powers who poison faith, deceive the faithful, slander the sacred, thwart the thinking, and snuff out hope, the Lord of Life remains as he’s always been — not the Lord of Nincompoops and Nutjobs, but a real-world New Hope for smart people and nincompoops alike, for everyone who’s looking, from here forward.

I love Isaiah’s description of the coming messiah:

A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.

“Smoldering wick” perfectly describes where I’m at: angry (at injustice), yet with barely a spark (of belief/hope/motivation) left after years enduring extremist religious wind. I think there are lots of us bruised reeds and smoldering wicks.

I accept Isaiah as good news, then, for the bruised, the smoldering, the discouraged — even for the pigheaded on whom Isaiah’s “servant of the Lord” doesn’t give up:

The dark side will not prevail. Life will.

But we the people are not passive participants to whom shit happens until such time as life prevails. [And in whose name shit is being made to happen to others.] No — we are key players whose thoughts and actions now directly affect the duration and intensity of the dark side’s hold on us. Every counteraction we take that affirms love over vengeance, understanding over imposition, diplomacy over force, honesty over victory, thinking over ignorance, integrity over hypocrisy — moves us closer to the day when life prevails, when justice can be established on earth.

This entry not guaranteed to make any sense. I started it as self-therapy for discouragement, but after rambling disjointedly for more than an hour I’m still discouraged. Drat.