Help Us Obi-Wan Kenobi: You’re our only hope.

I loved the film Star Wars from the start, because it was fun and too much of 1970’s film making was childish (looking at you post-Walt Disney Company) or “serious.” If you wanted a fairy tale, you were out of luck if you were over the age of eight and by the late seventies I was in high school.

Yet the line that took me from someone who liked a movie to a fan was: “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope.” This is poetry in service to story telling and the entire film hinges on this line. It is not true, there are new hopes abounding in the film, but it felt true to the desperate Princess Leia.

Obi-Wan was played by Alec Guinness, a person I discovered was great in every movie he touched and named for a decent beer. In fact, there is a rule that has served me well: The Guinness Rule-

If you are unsure what movie to pick, choose one with Alec Guinness. If you are unsure about the house beers, get Guinness on tap. 

You are welcome.

But seriously, and one can be serious about Star Wars, though not about Ewoks, there is always another hope. I am reminded of this just now, because my social media is full of doom. People are saying (seriously) that this is the last election, but I say that if Clinton or Trump are that stand between us and the Fall of the Republic, then we are doomed.  Other folk look at the “rise of the none” in America and are predicted the end of Christianity in America. I have heard that one before as well and it did not happen. Again, wait until they have kids. Their kids will end up starting a new monastic movement to reject parental values.

In any case, no one human being is our only hope. That’s the great thing about being a believer. As Elijah learned, there are always others and usually lots of others! So if you think your particular church is the last one, or you are the last teenager that thinks gay marriage is wrong, take heart. You are not our only hope: there are others.

All is well, even when it is not superficially, because God is in His Heaven.

Perhaps, we should all relax and go watch a movie with Alec Guinness. Try The Bridge on the River Kwai. If you are old enough, thank God, and go have a Guinness with it.

There is a great deal of hope.