“But beware of the Dark Side. Anger, fear, aggression, the Dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If you start down the dark path, forever will it consume your destiny.” -Yoda, Empire Strikes Back
I don’t really remember a world without Star Wars. I was 6 yrs old the summer “A New Hope” was released, and 9 when “Empire Strikes Back” came out. If you don’t know the story of Star Wars at all, very little of this post will make sense to you. I suggest you check out its Wikipedia page, found here.
While Darth Vader was certainly a villain in the first film, it wasn’t until Empire that we really begin to learn about the Dark. It is here that we glimpse some of what it might mean to take the path towards the Dark. Now, I grew up in a political family, and by the time Empire was released, I was already hoping for more information about the dissolution of the Republic’s Senate that began the first film. And I suspected the work of the Dark Side.
Empire Strikes Back introduces many messy situations, which include betrayal, misunderstandings & assumptions leading to mistakes, dropping out & abandonment, humanity within the grotesque, and the possibility that our hero Luke is Darth Vader’s son.
Oh, how many hours my friends and I spent discussing that! Could it be? We debated and dissected. We feared and somehow pitied the Man-machine Vader as he communicated with his Master. We questioned how Obi-wan Kenobi could have lied were it all true.
These days, I laugh out loud at the scene in “Pitch Perfect” when one of the leads dismisses the question by translating Darth Vader from the German, dark father. But then? We were deep into questions of theodicy -how God allows evil or absent that premise, how on earth do we understand evil- and relative ethics.
When I was 17, I watched Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell on PBS’s “The Power of Myth” with my father. By then, “The Return of the Jedi” has wrapped up our space opera saga and Star Wars was simply something that informed my worldview. The ideas of common archetype, narrative and truth, and sacred story, that Moyers and Campbell debated were easily absorbed by my brain. Some of my conclusions included:
Epic things happened and the smallest of decisions mattered.
Small choices that turn you towards ‘power over’ always seem rational.
Arrogance is blinding.
Redemption is possible for even the worst of the worse.
These are some of the things that Star Wars implanted in my brain, in my mind’s eye, as I learned to navigate the world. The Dark Side is real. These choices are always before us. And while the space between the Light and the Dark is dusk and twilight and dawn, that is, navigable and transitory and ripe with possibility, they are not safe.
“I fear nothing. For all is as the Force wills it.”– Chirrut Imwe, Rogue One
The ways in which we move towards the Dark Side? They always feel rational and responsible and damn righteous. They are the choices we make out of fear. They are the choices we make out of anger. They are the choices we make in order to guide the actions of others. They are the choices we make to keep order.
The clearest place this all plays out is indeed in politics, the first arena wherein young me applied these concepts. I think we can all see how greed and anger and fear are manifest in our “civic” and common national dialogue. And local corruption is always linked to these small decisions in generally discernable ways.
But frankly, this dynamic is everywhere. As a minister, I’ve seen these choices destroy marriages and communities. As an activist, I’ve seen these choices tank movements. As a friend, I’ve seen these choices embitter and warp open hearts into unrecognizable stones.
And know this. it IS always a choice. At every moment, we make the choices where to stand, what power we seek, and where it is based.
Love bears its own power, as we know. As Star Wars knows. As all of our faith traditions know. It is not, absolutely not, the power of kingship and rule, control and anger. For Christians, we reference Jesus and Pilate in conversation about this exact question.
I know that nothing is as straight forward as Darth Vader choosing his son over his Master in such epic moments in our own lived lives. Singularities like that happen, sure and yet, day to day these choices are smaller. In fact, we want this to be the case. Small chances hone our turning towards instead of acting against, train us to open our hands instead of clench our fists, and build the structures of response that make the different choices we need clear.
Light grows slowly. It builds and catches and kindles.
Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker: Just for once, let me look on you with my own eyes. (Removes mask)
Now go my son. Leave me.
Luke: No, you're coming with me.
I'll not leave you now. I've got to save you.
Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker: You already have.
-Return of the Jedi