“Wait a second. Natalie Portman is in Star Wars?” I inquired of my sons one Saturday evening as their channel surf had landed them on one of George Lucas’ exponentially growing library of films which was airing on our tv.
“Yeah Dad, she’s Padme Amidala,” they responded to their father who’d apparently been cut off from popular culture on a retreat with Rip Van Winkle deep in a technological desert.
“Ewan McGregor’s in this too?” My pulse was quickening in realization.
“Who does he play?
While I’m not sure they knew Mr.
McGregor by name, they sure knew his character.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi”
“That’s Obi-Wan?” I was mystified. I thought he was much older.
Natalie Portman, uh, I mean, Padme Amidala, his wife, was in obvious pains as she tastefully gave birth on screen.
First one child, then another....and behold it was Luke and Leia.
“Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia are brother and sister!” My head was spinning.
“You knew that dad...,” exasperated, they replied.
Everybody Knows That!
How could I not know that? Everyone knows that. Apparently.
I peppered them with questions for a moment before needing to go. None of my queries met a roadblock. They could answer them all.
In a cultural moment where intelligent grown-ups think religion is stupid while appearing at opening night of Rogue One clad in a storm-trooper costume (think intimidating snow-men only much more form-fitted), lots of folks, like my sons, can actually answer Star Wars trivia with one light saber held behind their back.
It got me thinking though, when a tad afterward, a dad friend of mine upon the advent of the new Star Wars movie (which my kids tell me is actually technically something like 3.5 in the chronological sequence of the story) asked aloud, “Is it just me, or is anyone else confused about the order of the Star Wars movies?”
As unAmerican as it is to admit, I am completely bamboozled about the order. I did have Star Wars sheets as a kid though. But otherwise I am an imperial imbecile, whose fortunate to distinguish between C3PIO and R2D2.
But I am glad other people know.
How Do They Know All of That?
And it got me to wondering about the mechanics of their knowledge.
There wasn’t a class, I feel sure. I’m fairly certain that schools aren’t yet teaching courses on “The Empire and the Rebel Alliances who oppose it”. Yet somehow George Lucas has created a world that has captivated decades of Star Wars fans...and they all know EVERYTHING about it.
So how do they know?
The simplest answer I can come up with is not one that would immediately occur, but which I’m confident goes a long way in explaining it.
Loitering.
6th graders on Lookout Mountain, and 62 year old grandfathers in Vermont alike know about Star Wars, because they have loitered around it. They’ve hung out, watched, listened, and asked their own questions. Maybe they’ve read articles. Perhaps looked up something on Youtube, or watched a cartoon version or read a book about it. And they watched, and watched some more.
And they didn’t do it alone. Their competency in the ways of the Force were not attained merely by solitary experience.
I surmise some of the great fun which translates into an accumulation of understanding about this clever world governed (?) by the Force and set in galaxies “far, far away” is discussion with other aficionados. No advanced degrees required, nor does it much seem to matter how much money one makes in a year. Just kindred spirits inhabiting places where “Rings of Katrene Trading Posts” are central to the action which advances the drama of unearthing an evil regime. Loitering and togetherness...these seem to be two decisive ingredients in the joyful stew of Star Wars knowledge.
I have the embarrassingly non-useful skill of being able to recite large swaths of “Raising Arizona” for similar reasons...I hung out with H.I. McDunnough and young Nathan Jr. a bit too often in my college years....along with college-aged boys who suffered a similar affliction 25 years ago. Loitering and togetherness, see?
Loitering and Togetherness
I’m wondering if all this relates to the puzzlement presented in the Bible too.
One of the fireballs that pulverizes lots of Bible readers when they gear up to read what they sense is an important book which may have some bearing on their lives, is plain old confusion. It sure has waylaid me at times. It’s easy to be reading about “Shallum son of Jabesh conspiring against Zechariah” and feel as comprehensively ignorant as I do when talking about Star Wars.
But Star Wars fandom reminds us, or me anyways that it is actually possible to apprehend unfamiliar matters. It merely depends on whether we are willing to do some loitering in the neighborhood of the Scriptures with others inclined to do the same.
Our family recently watched Rogue One, the latest Star Wars flick. I know almost nothing about what preceded it or came after it, but was intrigued by the dialogue, the story, and the world I was inhabiting. There were clever parts. Bizarre parts. Incomprehensible parts. Parts that didn’t interest me. And intriguing parts as well.
In those 2 hours, I found myself caring about the goings on in that far away galaxy. The characters on the screen started to matter to me as well. Unexpectedly, I even discovered I was identifying with some of these oddly named characters as we commonly do in the stories we like best.
Steinbeck pegged us all, even if stingingly, in East of Eden:
“And, of course, people are only interested in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And I here make a rule- a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting- only the deeply personal and familiar.”
It’s a shock to discover a resonance with the likes of Saw Gerrera, Baze Malbus, Jyn Erso or Cassian Andor...these space folk, in turns out, have aspirations with which I am deeply acquainted, desires that dwell in me too, and needs for which I likewise hanker. But it took a couple of kids whom my wife and I adore to get me in the seat, and a commitment of 2 undistracted hours to put myself in position for the “strange and foreign” to emerge as “deeply personal” and pleasingly “familiar.”
An Off-Putting Strangeness
And so I wonder, as a New Year begins, and some readers will double up their efforts to read the Scriptures this year, whether Star Wars might teach us something about the intimidating and frankly, occasionally off-putting strangeness of the Bible.
What if we loitered there long enough to meet, in the thicket of the “foreign and strange” things that refreshingly turned out to be “deeply personal and familiar?”
What if, like an initiate to the Star Wars world, we determined to stick with it a bit, peppering others with our befuddling questions, or just moving on in our continuous reading even when we don’t quite understand all that’s going on there?
What if refused to merely read alone, but to loiter together with some friends who may have found some surprising resources and personal resonances in this peculiar book to which they can alert us?
What if we plopped ourselves down sympathetically, with a heaven-ward plea for help, in order to apply ourselves to understand what it is about “this great and lasting story” that actually “turns out to be about everyone?”
Should we loiter in the precincts of this ancient and often messy book, we might just make a happy discovery, like Dr. Alexander Fleming’s in 1928 in London when he stumbled on a go-to cure for infectious diseases. We ourselves may find a penicillin in Scripture’s strange pages to eradicate the ruinous bacteria in our own lives and propel us toward health.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer surely gathered this possibility when he left us this question we can dangle before ourselves like a divine New Year’s lure:
“Who can refuse, without suffering loss, a help that God has deemed it necessary to offer?”
“The one who takes the bait, blessed is,” as Yoda might add.
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