Emperor

A few months ago, I introduced Atlas to Star Wars; beginning with Episode One: The Phantom Menance, and stopping with The Empire Strikes Back. During the first few fillms, I took notice of the characters that scared him, and determined that Return of the Jedi is a film that can wait until he’s older, given that the emperor character scared him.

This weekend, I decided to watch Return of the Jedi. Yes, it took me two nights to finish a movie….While watching it, I couldn’t help but find a few interesting themes scattered throughout the film(s).

During the final scenes of Return fo the Jedi, viewers watch as the emperor taunts Luke; impoloring him to give into his hate and discover the ‘true meaning of the dark side’. Weaponless and frail, the emperor has no weapon with which to defend himself from Luke. In spite of this, Luke maintains his composure and refrains from lashing out at the emperor.

Have you ever encountered somebody with a foul countenance, who provokes and prods you; hoping that you will lower yourself to their level, and retaliate against them? I have, quite recently. In fact, I have to deal with this ’emperor’ on a regular basis…

God sends a lot of strange and wonderful people into our lives. Some of these people, like Sister J, appear for only a short while; offering a lifetime of impact and reflection from encounters that seem to pass in the blink of an eye. Other people enter our lives for a long while, and require careful diligence and discernment to navigate as we play the proverbial dance as they perpetuate our lives with their existance.

Sister J, there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think of her and the way that she treated me. In a world that bends every rule to accomdate the bad behavior of the less fortunate, I was blessed to meet a woman that gave me all that she had before she died; her last moments, breath and even the very coins that provided for her daily needs.

While she was homeless, smelly and without any notable position or status in life, Sister J reminded me that I was worthy of Love. She cared for me and gave me her best.

Sister J never complained.

She never criticized.

She never got angry with God – or took His name in vain.

Sister J saw every day as a beautiful day.

For every one Sister J, there are millions of people who see life through a polar-opposite lens; they critique, question, doubt, fear and make miserable the lives of those they encounter, because they don’t see and appeciate the beauty of the world in front of them.

When I see the emperor in Star Wars, I don’t see a powerful figure. Rather, I see a miserable old man that wants nothing more than to take the life force of the ‘good’ people in the world and see them bend a knee to him. Because the emperor has surrendered to his own hate and bitterness, he demands that others follow suit – or be destroyed.

In my years alive, I’ve come across a few ’emperors’ who have done their best to make those around them as miserable and hateful as they are.

If Luke were to have given in to his hatred and succombed to the ‘power’ of the dark side, Star Wars would have a very differnet ending than the one many of us know. That being said, there are many who would show their support to Luke in the giving of his hatred to the dark side, and thus the surrender of the ‘light’ within him and his Father, Darth Vader. Star Wars woudln’t be a story of hope, redemption and grace if that storyline were to have been followed; rather, it would be a celebration about the frailty of humans and their surrender to the power of emotion, desire for justice and inner rebellion.

There are certain immutable characteristics of ‘the light side’ and many of them can be seen when you look through the lens of a prism. Once a ray of light enters the prism, it can no longer be the same beam of light that it was when it entered; rather, it becomes a beautiful array of color.

On the inverse of this is, we can see that when light has been extinguished, there is no longer a hope for beautiful colors to emerge and bedazzle the world around them.