Ep. 420 Eric Clayton Returns - The Spirituality of Star Wars

In this episode, I sit down with Eric Clayton to explore the spirituality of Star Wars and why these stories still shape how we see ourselves and the world. We talk about the cave on Dagobah, the pull of the dark side, nonviolence, discernment, and how stories can become spaces where God meets us and forms us - if we’re paying attention. We get into holy indifference, the tension between action and waiting, and what it means to choose a different way in the middle of chaos. This conversation is about learning to notice what’s stirring in us and to embody a better story in our everyday lives.

Eric Clayton is an award-winning author and the deputy director for communications at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. His books include, Finding Peace Here and Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness, My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars, and more. His writing has appeared in America Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, US Catholic, among others, and he is a frequent contributor to Give Us This Day and IgnatianSpirituality.com. Eric lives outside of Baltimore, Maryland, with his family. Learn more at ericclaytonwrites.com.

Eric's Book:

My Life with the Jedi

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Transcript

Eric Clayton: 0:00

Look at our world, right? We're pretending that there's like they're just disposable people like that. We can just say, well, we shoot this person, we send this person away, we kick this person out, we bomb this place. Those aren't lives worth knowing. Those aren't even real people. Forget like those are just, this is this is all a video game. It's not right. We know. Is it real people with real stories and deep, beautiful histories and families. I think Star Wars has done a lot of good to help us build that muscle to desire to know the stories, and maybe we could use a little bit of that in our in our day and age.

Unknown: 0:32

You Luke.

Joshua Johnson: 0:46

Hello and welcome to the shift in culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, you know my son's name is Luke, and a couple days before I sat down with Eric Clayton for this conversation. I finally did the thing. We watched Star Wars together, episode four, the whole thing, he was locked in from the start. When I asked him afterwards what he liked the most. He said, I like that. I blew up the Death Star. He wasn't just watching the story. He was living inside of it. And that's kind of the whole conversation we have with Eric today, how great stories don't just entertain us, they invite us in. They activate something. And for a lot of us, Star Wars is one of those stories, not because George Lucas was trying to sneak the gospel past us, but because he gave us something ancient and vague enough that we could bring our whole selves to it. Eric Clayton is the author of my life with a Jedi, and he spent years thinking about Star Wars not as a Christian allegory to decode, but as a kind of shared space, a place where the Holy Spirit might actually be doing something if we're paying attention. We talk about Ignatian spirituality and what rd two can teach us about discernment. We talk about the forces invitation. We talk about what it means to slow down in a world that keeps speeding up, and why Luke should probably have stayed on Dagobah. We dive into non violence and how that really rubs up against how we see the world. Is a great conversation. So join us as we talk about the spirituality of Star Wars. Here is my conversation with Eric Clayton, Eric, welcome back to shifting culture. Excited to have you back

Unknown: 2:28

on Joshua, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Joshua Johnson: 2:31

Yeah, we're opening this up. We're This is releasing on Star Wars Day. May the fourth right? May the Fourth be with you, so we can talk about the spirituality of Star Wars.

Unknown: 2:40

Let's do it, man, let's do it.

Joshua Johnson: 2:41

So I know that your father popped in a VHS tape of the original trilogy, the first Star Wars for you when you were around, what, 910, years old, something like that. And

Unknown: 2:52

right?

Joshua Johnson: 2:52

What really stood out as that started to play during that time in your life? What was popping for you with Star Wars,

Unknown: 3:01

yeah, I, you know, I always say, I just feel like I was the right age, you know. And I just remember, I mean, some of this might be lost to legend. Now, I just kind of, this is, this is how it's been impressioned in my mind. But, you know, we have that week or two of just going through the original trilogy, right? The like, the original trilogy in its original format, and, you know, just the idea of laser swords, and, like, using your hand to, like, levitate rocks and stuff, was just cool. And like all of us, I assume, whenever I went into the grocery store, I, you know, I used the Force to open the doors, you know. And that was the best, yeah, it was so cool, right, of course. And you know, you get those old wrapping paper rolls, and you use the wrapping paper up so you can swing them around and hit your brother with them, and which is obviously what I did, you know, that was just the stuff that really stuck, very embodied sense of of the film, right? It speaks, it allows this, like I want to live it out, which is a good thing, I think, for for storytelling, how do we, how do we live out the story? But it was like my dad, you know, he should have been on the, on the marketing team for Lucasfilm, because he showed it to me right, right before the special editions came out. And so that meant, like, when we went to McDonald's or Burger King, or whatever it was, I got all the toys in the in the Happy Meal. And then, you know, I'm jazzed about that. And then, you know, pretty soon thereafter we have the prequel series, right? So it was like I was the right age, and then boom, boom, boom. We had all of these other opportunities to get more Star Wars. And so I just, it just unfolded. The universe expanded, quite literally. And it went from there I could just keep going. Got the books and the video games and all this stuff, just, you know, playing Shadows of the Empire on 10 to 64 you know. So it's, it was just the right age to really sink into me in a big way. And it was a lot of

Joshua Johnson: 4:40

fun. I mean, growing up, Star Wars imprinted on me and printed on so many people, imprinted on the vast majority of people around the world. It was like the biggest thing. So Star Wars itself, George Lucas is taking the myth of story and Campbell's story arc, what that looks like, and then. He's actually then infusing really a spirituality that is pretty broad, that a lot of people can find themselves in, that that place and the spirituality of Star Wars, where did things shift for you, where you started to see aspects of spirituality in Star Wars, rather than just the fandom and the love of the story?

Unknown: 5:24

Yeah, that's a good question. You know, it's, it's, it's so hard to, like, go, go back in time and be like, When was the moment? Because now I see it all, you know, kind of in the present. I do think that kind of embodied nature of the story, which is not a phrase I would have ever used as a, you know, second grader, fourth grader, you know, 18 year old, whatever, I think was really key the experience of spirituality, as you say, being so clearly present in the story and yet so vague, right? That's the invitation of Star Wars that, you know, George Lucas very was intentionally put for us. You know, what's your what's your spiritual tradition? Come find it here in the story, and let's, let's dialog about it, you know. But I don't know if it was necessarily, until I started doing more and more of my own writing, just as a kind of a young professional, and thinking through, oh hey, like, we can use these stories as ways to communicate different forms of truth, different different insights into the truth. Maybe I would rather say and use them as analogies and parables and things never. And I'm very, very clear about this, never because I'm trying to force like, oh, Star Wars is a secret Christian story. Didn't you get it? Like, I'm never trying to say that, but rather saying we all have access to these shared stories, and we all have different spiritual traditions and faith traditions and ways of experiencing that which is holy and divine. How can using Star Wars as a shared Story Bridge allow us to kind of come and meet in the middle? And so I think that for me is as I as I begin to write more, again, as a young adult, really, and thinking about these, these kinds of stories, as ways to better understand what I was experiencing, I think that's where it really began to crystallize in important ways. But again, it was always in the background of my mind, Star Wars as this, as this exciting story that I loved and wanted to be invited into. I think I'll say one more thing. You know, so many of us for these stories that we love, like we want to have a part in the storytelling, right? We want to, we want to do it. And so few of us are commissioned to write, you know, novels in the universe. And so we imagine ourselves in the story. We imagine what would it be like if we had ownership? And for me, right? Someone in the in the Ignatian tradition. That's, that's how St Ignatius of Loyola invites us to pray with scripture, you know, and imagine if you were in the story. And so that's, I think, what I began to do, long before I realized that's what I was

Joshua Johnson: 7:31

doing. Two days ago, I finally watched Star Wars with my son. His name is Luke, and so he he loved it. So this is the first time he wanted to watch it, and so we sat down. It was, you know, the first film, episode four, new hope. And I asked him later, like, I mean, he was locked in the whole time. He just, he just loved it. I asked him later, what did he like the most about it? And he's like, I like that. I blew up the Death Star. So it was, you know, he was finding himself in the story because, you know, his name is Luke, but he was literally, he was literally finding himself in the story. He's like, That's me doing that, and that's just, it's the magic of of Star Wars. Is like, yeah, oh, I am. I found myself doing that when I was a kid, and my name's not Luke, but I found myself, you know, playing the Luke character, or playing somebody else, and this is me in the story.

Unknown: 8:22

That's such a cool thing because, you know, it's we talk about, like, symbols, right? Symbols are so important to us in our in our faith traditions and and what do they point towards? And so, like, you know, his name points to this epic character who does this great thing that triumphs over this oppressive evil. And so for him to be able to say, oh, like, my very self points to that, which points back to this. And I can do that in the in the real world too. Is exciting. I would imagine for him as a as a young person, as he's like, you know, kind of claiming, you know, who is he going to be as he as he gets older. So very cool. I wonder. Let me ask you a question. Did you remember? This is what I I realized watching the movies with my daughters. There are a lot of slow, long pans of the desert. And you're like, Man, this we're taking a little while to get going. Here we got

Joshua Johnson: 9:07

it took a long time the beginning of the movie, I was like, wow. Storytelling has shifted and changed. Movies have changed so much over the years. Like we get to like action right away, or else, there's, you have to have a hook in a movie for people, especially when you're watching at home. You know, that's crazy,

Unknown: 9:26

and yet, and yet. What a good what a good exercise in, in slowing it down, right, the storytelling. Because, like, you're right. I was like, Oh, this is my kids are never going to stand for this. And then they did. And then we and then I, just as in, the size, not Star Wars related, but we want, we've been watching a lot of Studio Ghibli and the pacing of and the pacing of those movies is radically different. And it's exciting to say, to see, can we being myself and also my kids, like sit with this slower paced story and still love it, and still sink into it, as you described, right? Still see ourselves in it. I was reminded of that in a big way. When we just couldn't get out of Tatooine those long pens.

Joshua Johnson: 10:05

It's so true. I mean, you you draw a distinction, and you've said before that between asking who is the Christ figure in Star Wars, and then how might Christ be speaking to me through Star Wars? Why do you think it's important for us, maybe to read Star Wars, or, you know, any film as God speaking to us through this rather than just searching for maybe this points to a story found in Scripture.

Unknown: 11:35

Yeah, no. Great question. I you know, I think about, I mean, like Lord of the Rings is a good example of there are several clear Christ figures, and yet, none of them are Christ figures, right? None of them are Christ I guess, you know. Whereas in Narnia, it's like Aslan is clearly the Christ figure, you know. And both of those writers were very clearly Christian, and writing, from that point of view, Star Wars, you know, that that's not there was no forced religion, as we've said, you know. So anything that we're reading into it is exactly us reading into it. It wasn't like we're discovering the secret that was there all along, which I don't know, is always a fair way to approach a story. I do like the idea, though, right? We're called to find Christ in all people, right? You know, Jesus quite literally says to us in Scripture, which, what you've done for the least of these you've done for me. And so that is it tells us, like, oh, right, everybody is Jesus. Isn't everybody. The Christ is in everybody. And so can we look at stories like Star Wars and say all of these characters might be all of them, maybe, but more than one are revelatory of something Christ like, and what? How does that speak to me? So I think, I think that becomes less of a me forcing my particular tradition on the story, and me, allowing the story to speak to to me, right? Allowing the story to speak to me from its from itself. And I think we can do that, because I always go back to this contention, right, like when you're, you know, think about standing around the proverbial water cooler, cooler. If anyone does that anymore. We always have this impulse right, to say, did you see this film? Have you? Have you read this book? You have to read this book. You have to play this game, right? We have this, this desire to share story with other people, because something within us has been activated. Something within us is on fire. Well, I think that's the Holy Spirit. I think the Holy Spirit is speaking through these stories of our time, you know, getting us, you know, amped up about them for a reason, not because, you know, we just love seeing people get blown to bits, you know, in space battles. I hope not, but because we love something that is deeper and more ancient and ever present within us that is being awakened by these stories, and we want to share that, have that communal experience. And so that's a holy desire. And I think that alone allows us to pray with stories like Star Wars, like Lord of the Rings, like, you know, Narnia, whatever, whatever the case may be.

Joshua Johnson: 13:46

Josh Larson, he has a book called, movies are prayers. And so all movies are prayers, and they're trying to say something, the yearning for, you know, for God in the world, even if they, they know it or not, you know, like they're trying to say something to the world. So how do you think that we should start to approach like, if, if, if somebody wants to start to like contemplate their spiritual life, their role with God, their role in the world through film and we'll just stick with Star Wars, because that's what we're talking about. How do you think we should start to approach like, just watching and then reflecting on what we consume?

Unknown: 14:31

I think, Well, I think there's a couple really good questions kind of tied up in that one. But I think for me, just kind of out of the gate, my kids and I just watched empire. Strikes Back a few weeks ago. You watch the movie, you're like, oh, yeah, this, this is great. Like, this is awesome. And it's, it's just full of pulsing with this kind of spiritual insight. And of course, you know, Yoda is kind of the key figure in there that really kind of shares that. And I always think about the dark side cave, right? And, and what would it be, right? So again, I'll answer your question. I'm watching this film, I find myself, you know, really drawn, once again, to daguba and what's going on in Dagobah. And I'm really, really drawn kind of, to that key moment where Luke enters the cave. You know, this isn't just me, you know, watching a film as a passive, you know, kind of bystander, you know, also like flipping through my phone and just like, you know, stuffing my face with popcorn, right? This is me saying something is happening on the screen here that is revelatory of what happens in the spiritual life, and not just the spiritual life, generally, my spiritual life, and not just once, but again and again and again and again, right? We all go into the cave. We are all tempted in these kind of pressure cooker moments and this, I mean, of course, the cave is, is a is a motif that's like present in every spiritual tradition. You know. It's not like, you know, oh, you have to look really far to find a cave somewhere. You know, the Ignatian tradition has a cave in it. But this idea of, what do we bring with us into these pressure cooker moments, and what old stories do we cling to, and what are we being invited to let go of? Of course, that particular scene, you know, Luke, you know, he. Clinging to this old way. He has to defeat Vader, quite literally. He's burdened with shame and guilt. And I might, I too, might fall to the dark side. But again, to answer, to zoom out and answer that question, I need to enter the cave myself. I need to pray with the scene that has spoken to me uniquely and say, Well, what happens if I go into what are the caves in my lives, in my life, and what happens when I enter it? What do I encounter? And so for me, I think there's a lot of different ways to pray with films, but for me, that's a really helpful way to do it. You start with, well, what's the scene that is like leaping out of the off the screen? What is the spiritual resonance? You know, some might not be quite as obvious as the cave, but there, it's there. And then what happens when, when you when you enter in, right? When you imagine yourself, you know, as your son did, right? You know, becoming the character and doing the thing. How does it? How does the scene shift when you step into it? How does it become saturated with the uniqueness of your own story, and then what happens next? So I, that's how I think about it, you know. I think, I think there's other films, you know, like, I always go back to, you know, kpop Demon Hunters as as a movie that the spirituality like, walked off the screen, like there, you didn't have to do any, any somersaults, or, you know, twist yourselves into any, any things like it was there. There were demons whispering lies into the into the ears of our, of our, of our heroes. And our heroes had to react. Well, okay, yeah, yeah. From the Ignatian perspective, the false spirit is always whispering in our ears. And so some films just lend themselves really well to these things. And some, I think we really just say, Well, what struck me, and what is that? Why? Why? Now, what do I pray with as a result,

Joshua Johnson: 17:33

as you're letting go and holding what you can like, if you go into the cave, you learning something, I think he's learning maybe part of Ignatian spirituality, of indifference.

Unknown: 17:46

Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 17:47

I've been contemplating indifference for a while, like, how do I get to that place? And sometimes I get confused. Of, like, indifference is like apathy, but it's not apathy. It's like surrendering to to God like so talk to me about indifference. How do we find that in Star Wars? And then, what is indifference? How do we hold that in our lives?

Unknown: 18:12

Indifference in the Ignatian tradition, is that I think the easiest kind of image is a closed fist versus an open hand, right? And what I mean by that is, are there things that we are clinging to? Because if they're if we're clinging to them, be they good things or bad things, we are not indifferent. Indifferent means allowing ourselves, ourselves to be completely available to God's desires in our lives and in our world, so that we can be kind of brought to where we are most needed. So indifference, in the Ignatian sense, is not apathy, as you say, but is, in fact, passion properly channeled, you know, passion to do that good thing, but, but, but not clinging too tightly to our own desires. In the exercise, in the spiritual exercises of Ignatius, he has a meditation where he invites you to consider, you know, what happens if you, if you come into a lot of money? What do you what do you do? And there's kind of three responses. He says, the first person you know comes into a lot of money, they want to kind of dispose of it in a way that is in line with God's desires, but, but they never get around to it, and they procrastinate, and they kind of him and haw, and then they die. Yep, we didn't, we didn't do it. Second person has a lot of money, they want to do the same thing, and they say, All right, I got it. I'm going to do it. And they want God to kind of come along to their side of things, right? Not indifferent. That's that's doing what you want to do and bringing God into it, but not in a way that's allowing God to act. The third person, of course, is saying, I have this money I want. I want to dispose of it as God desires, and not flushing it down the toilet, not just giving it to charity, kind of randomly, right? Even though those are, well, the second thing is a great good but saying, I'm going to wait until God helps me to make this good decision and then act, right? And so it's, it's that openness to it. So in Star Wars, you know, if you think about artu d2 you think about artu d2 who is in that scene in in Empire, Strikes Back where he's, he's going about his, you know, he's just, he's doing his programming. He's present to the moment and and what does he do? Right? He's, they're trying to escape London. Falcons trying to escape. Bespin, they're under attack by the Empire. Is trying to chase him down. Archie, who's kind of plugging himself into various, you know, ports to try and get doors open. And as he's doing it right, he knows what he needs to do. We're trying to escape. That's the good we're trying to do. At the same time, he's open and available to what's happening around me. Well, he's he's receiving new information that's saying that, you know, that the hyperdrive has been deactivated in the Millennium Falcon. So Millennium Falcon, and so he's received that information, he's able to channel it and use it. He's not, you know, he's not forcing, oh, everybody like, this is the thing we got to stop everything we're doing now and change direction. But when the time comes to use that information, he's able, able to do it and ready and willing, right? If you, if you counterpoke, if you kind of hold him up against, like, see throughpio, who's just panicked, right? Or Chewbacca and Lando, who are just like, hyper focused on this is the only thing we can do. The problem must be this one. He's available to information in its fullness as it's coming through, and is able to act then kind of on in his, you know, the fullness of his programming in that scenario, but fullness of self. It fits really well. This great. Book by Matthew Borland on the zen of Star Wars that I kind of, I found a lot of really beautiful overlap between his thinking on Archie too, and the Ignatian sense of indifference.

Joshua Johnson: 21:50

I mean, that's beautiful to be able to do that. I think that's really difficult in our day and age. This is a human problem that we've had for ever. It feels like, because there's so much coming at us right now, it's harder to receive the right information and to discern in the midst of of chaos. And you know, in Star Wars, they're in chaos a lot. There's, you know, there's, there's lots of battles, and they have to discern what is the what is the way and how to follow? What is the way of the force, or what is the way of the Sith, what does it look like then in Star Wars, to help us in our day and age, to discern, well, in the midst of chaos,

Unknown: 22:38

yeah, no, it's a great question. I I've lately been more convinced that there is a need to slow down, like, that's like, like, you know, like all the things of our day is like, all the AI stuff, right? It makes us faster. We can get information faster and by ourselves. And I think that if we want to kind of cling to our humanity in its fullness, we have to accept that we need to go slower and one of the like, the greatest. Like, not greatest, but like, I'm most curious, in Star Wars, like, the what if moments right? Like, what you know, the hinge, hinge moments of the story, like in Empire, Yoda says to Luke, and so does Obi Wan, right? You can't. You need to stay here and finish your training. You need to wait. You need to be patient. And he doesn't do it. And, and the story unfolds. And we know how the story unfolds, right? And it kind of works out for Luke. And we kind of say, I guess that was, you know, the best he made the right decision, and so on and so forth. But what if he had slowed down? What if he'd stayed on Dagobah, like, what does that? How does that? What if play out? And I don't know, because in some ways, that seems to be the like, a good example of this is the slower way. This is the way where we remove ourselves from the chaos of of the literal wars, right, of in Star Wars, and yet, you know that also looks like you're being selfish, it looks like you're being isolated, it looks like you're being you are not trying to help your community. And so, you know, Luke, jump back into the fray and saves, saves the day, kind of, but I don't know. So that's like the hinge. I don't know. What do you think? Like if you game that out, how does that make the story different? Do we lose Leia and Lando and the droids, or does a greater good happen? I don't know.

Joshua Johnson: 24:11

I don't know. You think I would, I would assume that if, I mean, if George Lucas put that in there and he was writing it, he probably thought that they Yoda Obi Wan were both wise to say this is the right way to go about it. And there's probably going to be a greater good, but it may be a greater good that comes at the expense of immediate pain and loss and death, but there may be even something greater, and that's the hard part. In the midst of of war right now, it's like, okay, am I going to retreat and get what is needed to actually maybe bring about some like love in the world, non violence that Jesus brings? Or am I going to go and and and fight to have the the immediate good? It's a it's a hard question, because what is the greater good? It's a hard thing for a lot of people, because I feel like, oh, even if I don't, even if I don't comment on what is happening today, everybody needs to hear my voice. And you know, I'm the one that actually figures it all out. Maybe it's maybe it's part of like surrendering. Maybe it is more about God, and maybe it is we are dealing with forces that are not flesh and blood, that are the principalities and the powers that maybe there needs to be a different way, and so that that Luke may have gotten to a place of, oh, there is. It's not flesh and blood. There's something greater and bigger.

Unknown: 25:50

Well, yeah, because the Luke we meet at the beginning of Jedi is is very different than that impulsive Luke we meet kind of mid empire. Yeah, I I think that. I mean, I think that's a great example you give of, like, having to respond and everything, because I feel that does that that like, pull too, like, do I need to say something now? Do they need my voice? And the answer is probably most times No. Like, they don't need no one needs my voice. Here is, are we just, like, adding to noise and chaos and anxiety and and whatnot? I think about kind of returning to Star Wars as our kind of, like, you know, motif for this conversation, I think about the Obi Wan Kenobi series. You saw that, right? I did, yeah, and I really liked the arc of that series. Like, again, like he's dealing with trauma, he's dealing with his own failure, but he's also, like, one of the most powerful Jedi is taken off the map for 19 years, right? The whole span of the empire, basically. Or just just under, so that he can focus on one thing, right, on the one person given to him to protect, and a lot of terrible things happen as a result. And yet, because he is faithful to that very small, quiet, hidden mission, you know, a great good emerges. So again, I don't know. I think, I think there's, it's a very there's no, it's not black and white. It's a very gray, nuanced kind of conversation. But that imagery, as he wrestles with his own failures and yet protects the thing that is needed to inject some good into the future. You know that that's not nothing. So it's a Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 27:21

And then when Obi Wan comes on to the Death Star, has this duel with with Darth Vader, it feels like Obi Wan is probably he could probably take care of him, like he could probably get rid of him, and he decides to do something totally different, that I'm actually going to, I don't know, whatever merge with the force, or whatever he's doing at that point, so that he could talk to Luke through it. That is the the question of, like going back for 19 years, being being alone, going slow, making a decision in that moment of, maybe there is a greater good here that will, you know, propel us into the future, that maybe just killing Vader at that moment wouldn't do? No, I

Unknown: 28:12

think you're exactly right. And I think too, you know, Star Wars right, a very violent title, and yet there's a lot of non violence in it. There's a lot of, like, Third Way decision making. And I wonder about Obi Wan surrendering himself, right? Sacrificial love so Luke can escape, but not just so Luke can escape, but so Luke can see, Luke sees what Obi Wan does, and what does that mean? That means that then Luke has like in the back of his mind, that kind of like gets pressure cooked in the cave and then appears in Jedi, well, what if I didn't just strike Vader Down? What if I pursued this third way and that, I mean, that's how, that's how Jedi ends, right? He throws down his lightsaber, and that total self sacrifice is what moves Vader to destroy evil. We see that in in last Jedi too, right? You know, Luke is not even there fighting Kylo Ren, you know, that's, that's a non violent option. And I think, too, I don't know if you've seen the rebels, Star Wars

Joshua Johnson: 29:07

Rebels, I have a

Unknown: 29:07

TV show. So there's this wonderful scenes where it's just like looking at this one episode where Obi Wan and Maul fight each other again. And there's this, there's this change in Obi Wan's perspective, because Obi Wan is still kind of like coming off of that, like, you know, swashbuckling, you know, Jedi Knight vibe. And you can see, I think it's very intentional. Dave Filoni made this decision in the in the in the in the in the art. He starts with the holding the saber, like he used to in the Clone Wars, right? Very much like a fighting stance, and then he changes to a defensive stance. And so the fight itself is basically like two hits and he wins. But it's not a showy fight. It's not about the violence. It's about getting to the end. And I just think that shift between this isn't a game. This is, this is, this is about something bigger. That thread goes all the way through Obi Wan sacrifice in the Death Star, Luke throwing his lightsaber down in Jedi, Luke showing up to not actually fight Kylo Ren, but to distract so the others can can live to fight the day. Say, you know, to keep going is a very kind of powerful threat in Star Wars that is not always, not always consistent, but, but is easily missed amidst, amidst all of the you know. So

Joshua Johnson: 30:17

if we talk again about the last Jedi Luke is not there fighting Kylo Ren. He's distracting. He's doing the same thing of what Obi Wan did on the Death Star, really, to let Luke escape. Sees that one of the things that you said we were talking about at the beginning was almost inserting yourself in the story. And it seems Rian Johnson did a little bit of that. And then said Star Wars is really for all of us.

Unknown: 30:43

There

Joshua Johnson: 30:45

was a lot of backlash because of that. The Last Jedi is, is maybe my favorite Star Wars film. I like Rian Johnson sensibility. Agreed,

Unknown: 30:54

agreed.

Joshua Johnson: 30:54

So I am just a fan of Rian Johnson and his writing and directing. But why do you think that one of the major themes of Star Wars, of finding yourself in the story, maybe there was some backlash against that, and maybe even some of that, like not being there, some of that non violence that we were talking about, I think, rubbed people the wrong way.

Unknown: 31:19

Obviously, we all one of that big lightsaber fight. But I think at the end of the day, I love last Jedi for the same reason why I love the Picard series. If you watched Picard, I like the idea of meeting our heroes later down the path where they have watched everything they've loved and built and worked for crumble. It's. Have all of their preconceived ideas challenged, if not overturned, and what do we do? And I think that's great. I think that's a great question, because I think we probably all get come to that eventually, like we should. I think we should all be challenged in those really key ways, and have to respond to the moment, to the signs of the times. I don't think though, people want that. I think we want to pretend that life is a linear path, and we just, you know, get more and more right as we go, and more and more kind of righteous as we go, and, and, and, man, like, by the time I hit age of old man, Luke, I'm going to be, like, perfect and just nailing it, and everything's gonna be great. And so I think, like, Sure, people were grumpy because, you know, their heroic Jedi Knight wasn't the Jedi Master they'd hoped for, and wasn't, you know, swashbuckling, you know, you know, and fighting and so powerful. But I think probably people were actually upset because they don't want that for themselves. None of us want to be wrong and challenged and and what happens? Right? They say it on the screen was Luke or Ray, but one of them say, you know, the force isn't just lifting rocks and and standing before the evil with a laser stored and so on and so forth. And that's, of course, everything Luke does in the end, and everything ray does in the end, that's how the day is saved. Because all the things Luke thought the Jedi weren't, in fact, was necessary. And so I think that's, I think it's hard. I think we find ourselves there, necessarily, in our own heroic journey. And I think we have to be ready for that, but I think none of us want to. And again, the non non violence is, is, is, especially on the screen, is a lot less sexy than a cool, you know, Phantom Menace era lightsaber battle, right? But it is the better way

Joshua Johnson: 33:23

it is. And I applaud people for trying to portray a better way in the midst of something, you know, called Star Wars, and like in the middle of a war, like, what do you do in the middle of a war? One of the things that I thought was interesting in what you draw out, is the way of the the Sith, and how that actually moves towards the inner life and us, as you know, lifting ourselves up. And the way, well, the way of Christ is, is opposite of the way of the Sith. Why do you think that these, these sith lords in the way of the Sith personify evil, like, what is? What is he trying to say about the nature of evil,

Unknown: 34:10

most simply because they can't share, right? The Rule of Two, right? As though that one has all the power and the other can crave it. That's that's the Sith. That's the only rule of the Sith is that there's two sith lords, and one embodies the power and the other craves it. And what does that mean? If you're gonna crave power, it means you want to destroy the one who holds it so you can have it. There's a wonderful line. It's like the book of the Sith. I forget who the author is, but it's like one of those kind of in world, I think it's legends now, but in world, books that kind of compares, like the force and the Sith mentality as like a single drop of liquid that that only is diluted the more it is shared, right? So you want to keep it all for yourself, so that you have the most power and most poignant power. And in the Ignatian tradition, we talk about the two standards, right, the standard of Christ and the standard of the enemy. And the standard of the enemy is, is, it's a it's a it's a path, right? I mean, everything about nation spirituality and the spiritual life writ large is about trajectory setting. But this, this meditation in a particular way. The standard of the enemy is, is marked by desire for increased riches, increased honors and increased pride, right? And you can use words like bloated over weaning, inordinate, right? This isn't just like I have enough money to pay my bills and send my kids to school, right? This is, this is like I need money for the sake of money. I need to be praised because I am better than you, and I want you to look at me in all my glory. That path is lonely, right? It's isolating. It has to be, because if I want you to look at me because of how awesome I am, then I don't want you to look at other people. I don't want you to I don't want you to be taking into account. Into account the good things other people do, because I have it all. I'm the one. I'm the only one, right? That's, that's how it looks in this, in our day and our kind of mundane lives, I think, in the in in the story of Star Wars, that's why Emperor Palpatine, you know, was, was had all these like kind of secret Sith apprentices here and there. He didn't want to school. He didn't want them to learn from each other. He wanted to dispose of them when they were no longer held. Longer helpful to his personal practices, his personal pursuits. The opposite, of course, of the way of the standard of the enemy is the standard of Christ and Ignatius says that's marked by another threefold journey, a pursuit of poverty, rejection and an embrace of humility. Well, that's not super sexy, either. And yet, the more we embrace humility, right, the more kind of writ large, those things point to vulnerability. The more vulnerable we are, the more we recognize our own finitude, the more we need other people. We need community. We need to lean on the strengths of other people so that we can then share our own so that we can build something together. Other, we go with our own or we go it alone. That's the way the Sith. We go together. That's the way of the light side of the Force and and Christ. The more we learn about the Sith, I think the more we see this, and it's, it's really compliant. I mean, again, like, think of the accolade for accolade wasn't, wasn't like the perfect Star Wars Show, perhaps, but the portrayal of the of the stranger was compelling. And it's not for nothing. He was all alone, you know. And, I mean, we'll never know kind of what happens next in that story, but, but it was a compelling image of evil.

Joshua Johnson: 37:09

It reminds me of Renee gerard's mimetic desire, talking about memetic desire, that whatever the the leader desires, the people around them will desire that as well, and then there will be a lot of fighting to get whatever they desire. So talking about, you know, in the church, in community, like we want people to desire Christ, so that others will desire Christ. But it's the same thing with the cysts. There's people that have it, and then there's someone else that craves it, wants it, it's the desire. How do you think that we can help shift desire to something else? When the people that we're closest to we just desire what they want. So if they're desiring evil, we want evil. Is there a way to shift that towards the way of Christ, towards the way of of light, in the midst of this war?

Unknown: 38:02

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good question. I mean, I think part of it comes down to simplicity, right? You know, what do I actually need to survive? What do I what do I need to survive, and how do I flourish in that? In that sense, like, what do I need to survive and flourish? And how can my neighbor have that too? I think, also a desire for solidarity, for empathy, being able to see, the more we kind of carve ourselves up and kind of erect, like siege mentality around things, the worse off we are. Right that's always isolating, even if we're isolating ourselves in a community, that impulse to isolate is going to still be there, and more and more will isolate and end up alone. How can we have empathy and sorrow and tears for people that are suffering, even if they're not people we agree with, even if they're people we've never, you know, met? Can we be moved by what we see on our screens, you know, in the in the news, and cry out again for our shared humanity, right, remembering that like we were in this together, like we are not so different. We're made in the image likes of God. If, if that's true for me, it's true for you, it's true for somebody else, if it's if it's not true for somebody else, it's not true for me, you know, it's either it's all or nothing. You know, we go to God together, or we go to God not at all. And so I think that's an impulse and and the more we can do that right, the more we discover Christ at work in one another. But, yeah, I think there's a need to simplify. I mean, I say that staring at like mounds of Legos all around me here, right? But, but I the more we can kind of cut through the stuff that we throw at ourselves to distract from loneliness or distract from isolation, you know? And instead say, You know what? Like, I need other people. I need. I need, God, I need, I need to be pulled out of myself. I don't need to just like, you know, stare at my screen, or Doom scroll, or, you know, whatever it might be that that, you know, we're kind of numbing ourselves to, like the tragedy unfolding around us. Yeah, I don't know that's a good question. I'm not sure I quite nailed the answer, but that's, that's kind of just off the out of the gate. What I'm thinking about

Joshua Johnson: 40:02

there is a different way that some people can notice. It's like, you know, what we mentioned before is Obi Wan on the Death Star. He says, Luke is noticing right now, I have to embody a better story, a new way. When the the desire of dark side or light side comes in, he's like, oh, there is a better story. I've seen it before. I have, I have this play out. I remember when I was a kid, after watching Star Wars, that I had competing desires. There was a day or two, I was like, I want to be on the dark side, like I wanted to give into that temptation, because there was some, some power there. And then I was like, I can't I have to go to the light, because that is actually better. I clearly remember like having that conversation in my head, like,

Unknown: 40:59

yeah, oh man. I mean, Fear leads to anger leads to hate, and this is leads to suffering. No, I we're just a notice. I think is really important, right? What do we notice and what are we moved by? And again, I think that's, I think that's really helpful to kind of go back to that moment on the Death Star with Obi Wan, because in so many ways it doesn't make any sense, right? Because, like you said, Obi Wan probably could have defeated Vader. He didn't have to sacrifice himself, right? Luke probably could have, you know, shown up and just like, you know, mopped the floor with Kylo Ren, like so many of these things you know, Obi Wan didn't need to stay on Tatooine, he could have gone, could have taken the fight there. And these, these, these plot points in stories that are like this, doesn't make any sense. I wonder if we have to say, well, this. Doesn't make any sense to me, to the way that I understand culture and society, and like you saw these old stories, because what else does it make sense? Right? The crucifixion, the killing of God, right? The the idea that Jesus has to suffer intimately for any good to come, right? That doesn't make any sense either. And so I wonder if sometimes, again, that idea of noticing, noticing these moments that seem senseless and allowing them to speak to us actually awakens in us the better ability to see where God is at work in the world, doing things that seem totally counterintuitive to our cultural understanding of things. I mean, again, the standard of Christ, poverty, rejection, humility, that doesn't make any sense, and yet we know that, that what does make sense, this idea of this constant, you know, fight to the top, that will end necessarily alone and sad. That's what we say makes sense, like, just like, keep fighting until you have more money, more honors, more pride, more stuff that doesn't actually make sense when we game it out, but that's what we what we've all kind of agreed and signed up for, right? So I think it's helpful noticing those things that are counter cultural and allowing them to really awaken something within us, because I think that's the

Joshua Johnson: 42:47

spirit I've thoroughly enjoyed. Loved the series andor following the rebels, this strange Star Wars story without lightsabers that lead up to Rogue One in the story and then leads up to, you know, episode four, there was hints of hope, small pockets of hope during that time, in the midst of incredible loneliness and darkness and despair, how do we take some of that hope? How do we find that hope, like rebels found in andor.

Unknown: 43:24

Yeah. I mean, andor felt a little bit like watching the news sometimes, right? I know. So, yeah, hope is a disposition, right? Hope isn't necessarily a thing. I think hope is a way of living. And I think if we live in a way where we're both trying to bring about. It's the both end, right? Both end of the kingdom. You know, Kingdom is both here and not yet, and or was dark, and yet we saw glimmers, like you said, of joy, of friendship. You know, I think we end with with a new life, right? That's the kind of, one of the last scenes of the of the TV show. You know, the fellowship that comes together, the people that are kind of thrust together, the sacrifices that are made. Like you said, right? We can choose the darkness, but, but ultimately that leaves us hollow. Do we choose darkness and live longer, or do we choose light and and give it all we got, you know, and maybe take take risk as a result? I think that's what we have to do. How do we live with that hope, though? Where does it find? Where do we find it in the in the story of the rebellion, I mean ingenuity that waiting right, the whole story of Luther, and that sense that we're not yet ready to fight back, but we're noticing. We're looking, we're watching. I also struggle with, I love that character. I thought someone Skarsgard did an amazing job, but I struggled too with that monolog in the first season, right? That famous monolog from from Lutheran, where, you know, I burn, I burn my future, whatever it is, there's a sense that once we turn to violence, there is no coming back. It's so hard to live on the other side of that, and I think we see that in our own history, in our own days. Once we've embraced a violent path, we trip into a cycle, an arms race of sorts, and it's really hard to build something after that. I don't know if I'll quite answer the question, but because it is so troubling and is so prescient, but I think hope has to be a way of living and not something that we necessarily Chase, and it has to also be if we live that way, we live, I think, more indifferent in the Ignatian sense, more free and able to respond to well, how can I use what I have now in this moment to meet The Signs of the Times for the greater good.

Joshua Johnson: 45:23

You've written about wounds from the past, maybe because we just talked about that Lutheran thing, and violence and wounds from the past can't be edited out and can't be edited out of our life. So then what does redemption look like? I think maybe that's a good fit from hope into then redemption. When there are wounds that we can't forget about, we can't say they're gone. We've done them. We've entered into violence. What does redemption then look like?

Unknown: 45:58

Yeah, well, first we have to say right, redemption is for everybody. And redemption is, is necessarily part of, like, how we how is, how I see the world, right? That's, that's, that's like, the key to the Christian story. So it has to be available to all, or again, available to it's available to none. I think redemption is that slow, muddling, muddling forward, right? We've all made mistakes. Some are big, some are some are really big, but we have to muddle through. And I think that muddling through is necessarily done in community, right? You have to stumble into bounce against the people that that you've you've hurt people that you you want to heal. You know, because if we pretend we aren't wounded, if we pretend that we're perfect, if we, if we just kind of suppress and push down those, those darker parts of our of ourselves or our story, there's no healing. It's. Mean, like, I don't know, it's such an easy visual. Like, think of a wound, if you, if you, if you don't let a wound heal on your body, it's gonna fester and infect the body, right? I mean, it's not, it's like, you know, if you keep pouring sand, I burned my finger the other day, and it was just a terrible burn, open and everything. And then I went to a water park, you know, and I'm like, oh, there's no place, there's no better place to, like, just like, let this wound fester then, then pretending I, you know, I don't have, like, an expo, like, I have to take care of it. I have to cover it up so it can heal properly. I think we do it in community. And I think, I mean, I guess a great story of one of the holes in the Star Wars story, right? Are the great villains of Star Wars don't have to do the work of redemption. Ben Solo dies, Anakin Skywalker dies. They don't have to go about the hard work of asking for forgiveness, of of saying, I messed up, and want to make this right. You know, they just are taken off the off the map. As a quote I often go to there's a great Canadian Jesuit Father, John English, since deceased, but he says something to the effect of, whenever we pray with our stories, our personal stories, right? We have to remember that God is approving and affirming as we wade through both the good and the bad. And that's not saying that a that's not saying that, you know, God doesn't care about bad things that have happened to us. Of course, God cares intimately about about that. And that's not saying that God is saying, oh, we'll just gloss over it. It doesn't matter. It's, you know, it's in the past. We're living in the present. Neither those things are true, but God is, is, is pleased and delights when we take a hard, loving look at, you know, where we've fallen short, or where others falling short has affected us, because we have to make sense of these things. Why? Because God has always been at work in our story. We if we just cut out entire chunks of our story because, you know, we don't want to look at that, we're probably missing key moments where the Spirit has been at work. You know, patterns that might be really important for us to identify, name and then, you know, own for the present, we're all wounded, necessary, unfortunately, necessarily so. So we can be in solidarity in that reminds us of our vulnerability, which is important for the standard of Christ, right, and for the kind of thrust together in community. And we all have things to mend, and so we can do it together, or we can pretend we don't have to and go it alone.

Joshua Johnson: 48:54

What are you taking from Star Wars today to help you embody a better story?

Unknown: 49:01

Yeah, great question. I am thinking a lot about how Star Wars has done a lot of work, in part because it's, you know, almost 50 years old, right? And, and, you know, there's a lot of money to be made by telling new stories, but there's always new characters that have kind of always been there, and we kind of call them to the front, or we kind of change, we kind of expand the frame a little bit, and suddenly we see, you know, you know, we see the backstory of Rogue One, you know, holding up a new hope. And I think that's really, really helpful, because what that tells us is that a there's more than three main characters in the story. There's actually a whole bunch of people that make, make the work go, and not just kind of generic people, but but full flesh and blood, people that have stories and hopes and dreams and aspirations and lives cut short that we should know about because they were key to the story. I feel like I've watched some movies lately, last year or so, where, you know, you start with that, as we were saying, right, that that key moment the beginning, where, just like, you know, gunning down people left and right, and you know, bodies are scattered here, there and everywhere. And a, I find that so, so offensive to my sebilities, just because, like, I, you know, I hate that. But B, there's, we're pretending in the story, like those weren't characters, like, those weren't people with their own stories. And I'm so enchanted by a Star Wars world that says there's a lot of characters here, and if you get to know them, the world gets bigger, and world building is what we're all about, right? That's a spirituality that's key to the Christian project, any religious project, really, right? World building is ever, ever bigger. Why is that key for now? Why am I buying that now? Because look at our world, right? We're pretending that there's, there's like, they're just disposable people like that. We can just say, well, we shoot this person, we send this person away, we kick this person out, we bomb this place. Those aren't lives worth knowing. Those aren't even real people forget like those are just this is this is all a video game. It's not right. We know. Is it real people with real stories and deep, beautiful histories and families. And I think Star Wars has done a lot of good to help us build that muscle to desire to know the stories, and maybe we, we could use a little bit of that in our in our day and age.

Joshua Johnson: 51:04

I'd love to get a recommendation or two from you. So anything that you've been reading or watching as far as Star Wars goes that is maybe off the beaten path that you'd recommend.

Unknown: 51:16

Oh, man, as far as Star Wars goes well. I mean, I think I've probably watched it all, to be honest. I just always love the story of Obi Wan. I don't know if there's there's there's not off the beaten path, certainly, but I'm excited for the mall series that comes out, or I think we'll be out by time people hear this this episode, I think Maul is a great, tragic character, right? Because he, you know, that's, that's what happens when you follow the standard of the enemy, you know. And. And it's, it was tragic story, because it didn't have to be that way for him, you know, like he clearly, he's a good kind of character that wrestles. So I think reflecting on that character is probably useful to all of us. Another book I've, I confess, I've kind of fallen behind in my Star Wars reading, but one of the books that I thought did a really nice job of of helping us think about the living that you know the living force and the cosmic force, right? That you know is John Jackson Miller's book called the living force that takes place, I think it's a year or 10 years. It's before the Phantom Menace. But it, it's kind of an intimate story. It's it's not like, you know how it's going to end. So it's not so much like the stakes feel really high, but it's a good meditation on, how do we allow our spiritual lives to again, bring us into a collision course with other people, versus allowing our spirituality to justify our, you know, pulling back and separating from from the needs of the world. That's why I really like that one. Have you read that one?

Joshua Johnson: 52:36

Do you know that one?

Unknown: 52:37

No, I haven't. I haven't. Yeah, I like I like that. But then yeah, the books I mentioned earlier, the den of Star Wars, den of Archer d2 that those book by Matt Borland, are really helpful, kind of way of, kind of coming at Star Wars from a different religious

Joshua Johnson: 52:51

perspective. Well, and your book, my life with the Jedi, came out a couple years ago, and it's fantastic. So people, you know, if you're interested in Star Wars and the spirituality of Star Wars, how you could actually see your spiritual life through the lens of Star Wars, and what that looks like. Ignatian spirituality, you start to be interested in some of that. This is a fantastic book as well. So you could get Eric's book, my life with the Jedi, anywhere books are sold,

Unknown: 53:19

people can find me at Eric Clayton writes.com and they can tell me what they think

Joshua Johnson: 53:23

of it awesome anywhere else that you like to point people to besides your website,

Unknown: 53:27

I have another book, finding peace here and now, as I know you and I talked about this before, that's, I think, another great book on Ignatian spirituality, but it might be relevant today, as we, you know, muddle, muddle, hopefully towards some peace, both In our lives around the world, I know, yeah, and I have some I only book coming out later this year, hopefully. So, I mean, excellent, later at a later date, so we'll tease her. But

Joshua Johnson: 53:50

Awesome.

Unknown: 53:51

Yeah, so, always a pleasure.

Joshua Johnson: 53:53

Yeah, thanks, Eric. This is fantastic. Love talking Star Wars with you. Spirituality, Jesus, peace, fantastic. Loved it.

Unknown: 54:01

All the good stuff. May the Force Be With You. You.