The Force is Wide Awake and Dark

When I was 15 years old Star Wars was amazing - target audience early adolescent males: Bullseye! The sequel, "I am your father", OK - not great, but not bad. #3 with the little teddy bears was stupid to my 21 year old eyes. The next 3 films in the series were damn near unwatchable - Jar Jar Binks, the clones, the love story, the big name movie stars, the whole thing was preposterous. Now "the force" is about to "awaken" again this Christmas.

The Force is indeed with us and has been with us since 1977. This "force" is empty, new age pabulum for a post Christian age of machine men living in a time beyond good and evil. Not everyone has it - some are chosen or gifted and this ability to access the force is passed down through blood. Not what you'd call democratic or egalitarian in its distribution.

Onward Christian Soldiers

The newest bad guy who's mastered the dark side of the force is Kylo Ren - he's the gentleman holding the flaming cross in the photo above. Looks like wonderful holiday entertainment, right? Word on the street is that people are actually excited to see this crap which raises a very disturbing question.

Mark Edmundson has taken up the question: If Everything Is So Amazing, Why’s Nobody Happy?

"A man is beaten and robbed and left on the roadside. Members of his own group pass him by, leaving him to suffer. But a Samaritan comes along and lifts the afflicted man from the side of the road. He binds the man’s wounds and mounts him on his own beast. He takes the sufferer to an inn and pays his bill and says that he will return to visit and also to settle accounts. Then the teacher’s question: “Who truly was a neighbor to the unfortunate man?”
Every man is my neighbor. Every woman is my neighbor. This is the central teaching of Jesus, and though it is not an easy teaching to put into practice, it may confer upon living men and women a sense of wholeness, full being in the present, and even joy. It will almost certainly provide what the world of fast travel and fine food and electronic gizmos will not: It will provide meaning."

There is an additional meaning, seldom illuminated, in the parable of the good samaritan and that is that if you're half-dead lying on the side of the road don't expect your priest of politician to lift a finger to help you - they'll be walking on the other side of the road. It might be Kylo Ren that saves your life while Yoda and Princess Leia share a milkshake at Planet Hollywood.