A New Hope
One of the best parts of being a parent is getting a second chance to see the world through the eyes of a child. You even get to see things you never got to see yourself. On the last day of 2017, I got to see my young sons see a Star Wars movie on the big screen and it was pretty magical.
I grew up loving the adventures in a galaxy far, far away, but I initially knew them only from VHS tapes. It wasn’t until I was 13 when I saw the Special Editions in the theater, which was cool but it’s not quite the same as being a wide-eyed seven year old.
Our family went to see The Last Jedi with some friends from church. Liam sat to my left, Jim, the oldest, to my right. When the movie started, I read the opening crawl to him. He responded, “I could’ve read that Dad.” And we were off.
Jim was transfixed. When something wowed hi, he expressed it with awed “Whoa!” When he thought something was funny, he bounced up and down in his seat as he laughed. He would whisper comments to his friend in the seat next to him. He was having the time of his life.
Then in the third act, this excellent movie kicks into another gear. I won’t spoil it, but there comes a moment where two characters stand back-to-back ready to take on a roomful of bad guys. And it was then that Jim excitedly blurted out, “THIS IS BETTER THAN THE FORCE AWAKENS!”
As the excitement of the movie only escalated from there, Jim about bounced out of his seat. Every reaction involved his entire body. By the end, he had declared “THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!” several times. As the credit rolled, our trio of boys spilled out into the lobby and pretended to fight with lightsabers.
When someone loves something in such a pure way, that rising tide lifts all boats. That was a good way to close out the year. It was boon on the small level because there has been a small but vocal minority on the internet who have done their best to dump on The Last Jedi. I personally loved the movie when I saw it (Rian Johnson is likely the best director the series has seen), but it was something else entirely to watch these three boys playing in the lobby because they thought the movie was so great.
But their joy was great to see in the larger picture as well. The Last Jedi is a movie about how hope carries on even when it seems like all hope is lost. Even when a generation that embodies that hope fades away without seeing their dreams come to fruition, another generation will come along and carry the light of hope. There is a melancholy to Luke and Leia nearing the end of their lives and seeing the victory they thought they won in Return of the Jedi vanish into the wind. But they find hope in the resilience of Rey, Finn, and Poe.
2016 and 2017 were years when hope was sometimes hard to find. We're having to seriously worry about Nazis and nuclear war again. Swaths of American Christians yearning for political power painted gravely immoral men as great men of faith chosen by God. Truth seems to be a vanishing concept in the public sphere. Gun violence, war, and racism do everything they can to extinguish the light around us.
I am hopefully a long way from coming to the end of my time on this earth. I still hope to try my level best to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. But seeing those boys play reminded me that the I am a semicolon in this story of hope. Hope will carry on. It will carry on 2018. It will carry on in 2045 when those boys are my age and hopefully get to see the spark in the next generation.
Those were the thoughts that went through my mind in the last moments of 2017. Happy New Year! Let us not give up hope and lose heart. Let us love in such a pure and joyful way that it raises those around us.
