Do. Or do not! There is no try: Part 2
LUKE: I don't...I don't believe it. YODA: That is why you fail.
In part 1 of this post, I proposed the idea that we seek moral guidance and spiritual example in unexpected places these days, even from movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Here's another twist on this intersection (or collision) between pop culture and behavior.
Fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) link and role-playing groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) link aren't just fun ways to socialize and feel the rush of battle (whether we swing foam and PVC swords in our mind or on a real-world play battlefield). These experiences actually teach us useful things, and for some players, provide guidance. In my book Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, I talk about how D&D not only gave me, a nerdy and shy kid, something to do each Friday with friends who didn't judge his lack of prowess on the athletic field. It also helped give shape and order to a chaotic world of adolescence and my own troubled home life. I had learned that in the adult world, fate was chaotic and uncertain. Guidelines for success were arbitrary. But in the world of D&D, at least there was a rule book. My character gradually becoming more powerful, I could gradually risk more daring feats. D&D was a safe place to act out, be bold, be a chamption. The game's subterranean realms and heroic quests welcomed me; high school dances and locker rooms did not.
In my book we also meet a schoolteacher named David Randrup, who was raised as an atheist. Visiting churches as an adult left him disappointed. He got no sense of wonderment or higher purpose-until he found the SCA. In this group devoted to recreating the best parts of the Middle Ages, Randrup became Sir Gareth, a knight who found in the Society's chivalric ideals what he called his "moral compass" and transferred those ideals to the real world. When faced with a thorny problem, like a conflict at his school, Randrup asked himself, How would a medieval noble face this situation? While wreaking havoc with a broadsword was tempting, he said, the better choice was to "face a situation with courage, mete out justice while expecting it from others, show mercy as you'd expect others to, be generous without regret, have faith in humanity, show nobility in adversity, have hope for the future, and have the strength to do it all over again the next time."
A dress-up medieval reenactment group or "escapist" book or movie offering life lessons? And yet they can and do. Such is the premise of Star Wars Jesus: A Spiritual Commentary on the Reality of the Force, a book by Caleb Grimes, that aims to both playfully and seriously analyze the six Star Wars movies like holy texts or philosophical tracts. Unlike me, Grimes is a Christian, and sees in the Star Wars universe another way to look at his universe. The movies are another text that provide a metaphor or signpost for how to tackle life's thorny troubles. As his website says, his project is "all about the celebration of the ‘more' that exists in the Star Wars films. You can enjoy the movies without seeing these things, but that does not mean they don't exist."
Which bring us back to that scene between Yoda and Luke in the swamps of Dagobah. Here, poor whiny Luke is struggling to harness the Force and lift the sunken X-wing fighter from the murky depths of the lake:
Luke closes his eyes and concentrates on thinking the ship out. Slowly, the X-wing's nose begins to rise above the water. It hovers for a moment and then slides back, disappearing once again.
LUKE: (panting heavily) I can't. It's too big.
YODA: Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hm? Mmmm.
Luke shakes his head and complains that Yoda wants "the impossible."
Quietly Yoda turns toward the X-wing fighter. With his eyes closed and his head bowed, he raises his arm and points at the ship. Soon, the fighter rises out of the water and moves majestically toward the shore. Yoda guides the fighter carefully down toward the beach. Luke stares in astonishment.
LUKE: I don't...I don't believe it.
YODA: That is why you fail.
Perhaps even a Saturday matinee western, disguised in the garb of a science fiction space opera, can make us believe in things and forces we can't see or understand. Or a game of make-believe knights in shining armor can instruct us how to be better people, not in a time or galaxy far, far away, but right here on planet earth.
Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the book, part travel-memoir, part investigative cultural journalism, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms.