"Use the Force, Luke....Let go!" ~ Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars
Given it is May the 4th, Star Wars Day, it is the perfect time for an important reminder, one that had a lasting impact I could only just begin to glimpse when I first encountered it in 1977. I could spend some time talking about what it was like in 1977 to view the first movie in a spectacular old-school "Cinerama" theater, one of the best, I would wager (even though Cinerama was no longer used in 1977). Oh yes, my first encounter with Star Wars was an all-encompassing experience - and everything about it.
My older brother had gone to see it with my mother on opening day, while I was at school in junior high - he had seen an article about it in Time and they decided to go to the first showing - apparently it was very easy to get into that day, even at this wonderful, unparalleled theater that no longer exists (like most theaters like that). My mother was not one to stand in line at movies, and they didn't expect a line - they were simply going to a movie together that was supposed to be good. He told me later I would like it, and that it was about a princess.
That's not why I liked it. I'm not even sure I knew yet why I not only liked it - I loved it - and I did everything I could to see it again and again after that first viewing. It changed my relationship with the movies forever, but not just that. I already had a regular relationship with magical stories by that age.
Luke taught me something. Something important. Something I'd need quite a bit later in life. He didn't trust at first. He didn't believe. I was never a skeptic like Luke and some people, not even as a child or a teen. He didn't believe any of it - at first.
But what he ultimately demonstrated for all of us in that first film (and let's not confuse it with its later renumbering - for those of us who saw it first, it was the first), was Trust. It wasn't total Trust, not exactly - but it was enough in the moment.
A sudden flash of Trust that astonished and at first alarmed others, just about everyone else in his immediate circle, some of whom claimed to believe in it, but not yet enough. In panic, they asked him why his computer was off. Wouldn't he NEED THAT???? Actually, no. It was a hindrance to what it was he needed to do, and he had guidance far better.
Some people claim to believe in the Force, just as it is described in Star Wars. The Force was always far too "mechanical" for me. The Real Force is much more Loving and Mysterious - it too invites us to Trust. Every single day, it is asking us to Trust, even those like Luke who may not believe in it completely (that's a tall order!) and there are always those searing, misguided skeptics who try to scuttle the thing, but they'd know it as well, if they could see it.
When you see it, when you see what this is, when you see how "impossibly" Magical and Miraculous (and Loving!) it actually is, there is no more skepticism. You simply know. You may not know everything about what this is - but you surely do know something's happening.
Luke's Trust (with the help of some insistent Guidance) saved the day. He still used technology, though one could argue it is ultimately extraneous - and everything changed.
The same can happen for us. I'm thankful to Star Wars for not exactly planting a seed, as I was no stranger to Magical stories, but for doing whatever it did, in the way that it did it. It changed me forever, I sense. It only becomes more necessary and important as the years unfold. And like Luke, many of us continue to learn. I believe what this IS is entirely capable of saving our day as well. And I also sense we are going to need it.
