December 17, 2015
Were I not an inmate at Bastrop FSC, I can say with absolute certainty that I would be in a movie theater the weekend of December 18-20 watching the latest Stars Wars movie, which supposedly takes place 30 years after the death of Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi.
The Vader story is the classic myth of the hero's rise, fall and ultimate sacrificial redemption. It's a story that's been woven through the fabric of our culture as long as we've been able to communicate--told and retold with "a thousand faces" as Joseph Campbell would say. It represents our best. I'll be eternally grateful to George Lucas for keeping the myth alive and in my heart and completely surprised if J. J. Abrams is not up to the task he appears destined to take on.
The Jedi Force is for me one of the best practical pictures of the Holy Spirit, the mysterious leg of the Christian trinity, which is sometimes hard to define in layman's terms. A quietly powerful spiritual force of love, goodness and comfort that one has to "let go" of to receive is counter cultural to say the least. Counter cultural, but existent, available and a foundational aspect of a belief system that I'm relying on to sustain me during my sentence. Some days I feel like it's a major part of what is keeping me going and some days it's in a galaxy far, far away.
May the Force be with you.
