Light Lenten Reflections

Week 4

The Low Down on the High Places

I've recently been reading a series of books detailing the long and bloody history of some ancient kingdoms. The kings and their assorted family members run the gamut from somewhat good and somewhat noble to downright evil and conniving. There is intrigue, bloodshed, and a roller coaster of character development. The somewhat good people are flawed. The evil ones may appear to have their moments of goodness. Some characters are given pages of presence, others only a line or two. No, I've not been reading A Song of Fire and Ice, (those Game of Thrones books). I've been reading four biblical Old Testament books – First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles, histories having, perhaps at first glance, some similarities to the Game of Thrones world. Minus the dragons, though...

The two biblical kingdoms of Judah and Israel had their share of rotten kings whose atrocities and idolatries are condemned across the pages of the four above-mentioned books. Similarly, the good kings get shout-outs in the same books for their attempts to do things God's way. But in reading about king after king, I noticed a disturbing pattern even among the histories of the “good” kings. It seemed that not every, but most, “good” kings got dragged down by “the high places”. The pattern I was seeing read something like this:

“(Put 'good' king's name here) walked in all the ways of (previous 'good' king, often his father). He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. (But; Nevertheless) the high places were not taken away.”

This scenario occurs again and again, in the histories of Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham... “But the high places were not taken away...”

So, what's the deal with the “high places”? Most of these good kings tore down the idolatrous shrines, places where the people worshiped pagan gods, but why not the high places? Why were they different and why were they such a problem? Initially, before Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, there was no central place for the people to worship God, so they thought it a good idea to worship Him somewhere. And high places, often geographically and symbolically closer to heaven, seemed to make sense as do-it-yourself worship venues. And sincere worship probably did occur at times in these high places, so they were tolerated. But after the temple was built, these high places remained, now more often than not, tainted with idol worship.

Why leave standing a place which has out-lived its original purpose, is a snare to people's spiritual lives, and is a magnet for heathen idolatry? One has only to look as far as human nature for some likely answers. We humans easily tolerate that which is overly familiar to us even if it has negative consequences. Familiar things have a tendency to become invisible to us. I have ceased to see those boxes of old photographs I put in the corner of the bedroom with the intention of sorting a year ago. They have now become invisible to me, that is, until I trip over them trying to navigate the room with the lights off. We humans are also good at tolerating compromise. Something once sort of good can't be all bad now that it's sort of bad, so we let it stay in our lives. Like those cheap but oh so stylish shoes that felt tolerably comfortable when I first bought them, but don't any longer, and yet here they are, still on my feet, still looking oh so stylish. Lastly, we humans tend to allow things to stay in our lives simply because we don't want to make the effort to remove them. Getting rid of long-standing stuff takes both physical and emotional energy. My basement contains items I no longer need or want, but have I cleaned it out? No, that would take time and energy and emotional effort I don't feel like expending at the moment, though I expect I will regret my present lack of action if I ever decide to sell the house.

“High places” in our lives have potentially much more serious consequences than unsorted photos, worn out shoes and cluttered basements. We may see ourselves walking with God like “good” kings, but like those kings, we allow areas of our lives to sidetrack and distract us and those around us from God's best for us. These distractions may be behaviors as innocuous as an occasional racy TV show or as devastating as a porn habit. They may be internal mindsets ranging from silently but habitually judging others to harboring long-standing bitterness or unforgiveness toward someone. These all pull us down and away from the whole-hearted following of the path God has called us to. And there is nothing “high” about that...

Something to Ponder:

Are there spiritual “high places” in your life, things that have become invisible to you, places of tolerable compromise, areas you don't want to expend the energy to deal with that have the potential to pull you off track in your walk with God? How would your life, your relationship with God be different if you were to “tear down” one of those high places?

Something to Pray:

Ask God to make you more aware of the negative spiritual consequences of your easily ignored “high places”. Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read 2 Kings 18:1-8. Hezekiah is one of the kings who did tear down the high places. Ask God to be the Foreman on your demolition team for any high place in your life He wants you to deal with. Ask Him to show you how and give you the strength to tear it down. Ask Him also for the attributes of Hezekiah – to do right in the eyes of the Lord, to trust in the Lord, to hold fast to Him, to not depart from following Him.

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.

- Bryant H. McGill

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 3

God-Art

I was born into an artsy family. My maternal grandfather was a skilled cabinetmaker, crafting beautiful objects from wood. My mother briefly attended art school in Greenwich Village when it was a cool, hip thing to do, could draw and paint, and spent her retirement years doing calligraphy and watercolor painting. It's no surprise, then, that I should find myself drawn to artistic pursuits from an early age, drawing and painting as a child, spending some of my adult years with fabric and yarn and thread, later taking college art classes, honing my drawing and design skills. The more I learned about art, participated in the creating of art, the more I grew to appreciate other artists. I love going to art museums of any kind, always finding something to marvel at whether it be Winslow Homer's The Herring Net at the Art Institute of Chicago, the exquisite glass collection at the Toledo Museum of Art, or the quirky but amazingly intricate thread portrait of Darth Vader in the Star Wars exhibit at the Racine Art Museum.

Though I appreciate so much of the art I see in museums, the art that stops me dead in my tracks every time is the amazing display of creativity I see in the natural world around me. The Artist at work there is the ultimate mixed media artist, using materials few others have dared to try. This Creator-driven school of art I've chosen to call God-Art. And though I have been surrounded by it my entire life, the awareness of it struck me in my early adulthood as I was walking through the gorge of Watkins Glen State Park in upstate New York. The trail meanders through a series of nineteen waterfalls along a two mile stretch of a shale-limestone-sandstone gorge shaped by a creek flowing through it. The layers of stone are skillfully sculptured in a multi-leveled gracefully twisting pattern. Were someone to hang a gallery placard in the gorge, it would read something like this:

God (Eternal)

Untitled (From the beginning of time)

Time and water on shale, limestone and sandstone

On loan to mankind from the Artist

Time and water on stone...wow...but the God-Art didn't stop there. There was some contemporary performance art going on simultaneously with the eons-old time-stone-water thing. Moving water, forming multiple waterfalls throughout the gorge, throwing out clouds of mist and spray, being caught by the sun in places, projecting clouds of rainbows in the moist air. Amazing...

Since that first God-Art realization, I've been on the lookout for more of this Guy's work. And it's everywhere:

• In a perfect snowy morning; the artistic medium – a just right temperature to make the titanium white snow wet enough to cling to every branch and twig for miles around, no wind, just enough light sun to make it all glisten.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  In a sunrise or a sunset; the artistic medium – sun, the right amount and texture of clouds, the earth's rotation, an occasional body of water to reflect the riotous performance piece going on in the sky.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• In a partially iced pond, after a thaw, during a rainstorm; the artistic medium – water sitting on ice, the wind driving the rain into swirling patterns of light and dark on the shallow waters above the ice, constantly moving, constantly changing speed and texture.
  
  
  
  

• In fish (Of course, fish!), a spawning bluegill, a pumpkinseed sunfish; the artistic medium – life and breath and scale and water and iridescent colors, perfectly applied.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• In the small things, the structure and smell of a flower, the veins of a leaf, the fragrance of an herb, the texture and glint of a stone; the artistic medium – an endless array of materials and time, too many to name.

And the list could go on and on. Yep, this Artist is everywhere...

Something to Ponder:

Do you still see the God-Art around you? Or has something – distraction, busyness, familiarity - made you go blind to it? Make a point of noting some God-Art this week. Be mindful of the Artist.

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read Psalm 104, a thanksgiving prayer for God's creative variety. Think about your favorite God-Art pieces and spend some time giving thanks to the Artist á la Psalm 104.

Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "see the art in me"

                                    - See the Art in Me, Dan Haseltine, Jars of Clay

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 2

Something Fishy about Fasting?

Growing up Catholic, my brother and I loved Fridays. In addition to both of us inheriting a love of fishing, we both also inherited a love of eating fish. In the Catholic tradition of abstinence from meat on Fridays, meatless meals translated into fish meals in our house. During Lent, our grandmother, in keeping with an older eastern European tradition of abstinence on Wednesdays as well, would serve us fish twice a week. Heaven! On Sundays, my grandfather would take us down to the docks in Freeport and wait for the trawlers to come in. We would buy bags of fresh fish, whatever the catch of the day might be, and bring them home, fish so fresh they would still be flopping around in the kitchen sink, much to the chagrin of my grandmother who had the task of cleaning them. These fish would be our Lenten delights for the week. We kept with the traditional Catholic Lenten mandates of abstinence from meat on Fridays (Wednesdays were freebies.) and fasting (defined as not eating between meals and eating only one full meal a day, the other two meals not to equal the full meal). The spiritual purposes of such eating were lost on my brother and me, sometimes the meatless meals bringing out the sin nature in each of us - “Mom! He got one more shrimp than I got!” “Well, she got more flounder last week!”

As this good Catholic girl grew up, I fully participated in all the Lenten observances, both the mandatory and the voluntary. And I pondered them. Giving up sweets for Lent, a form of abstinence or what is also known as partial fasting, was an exercise in self-discipline and self-control, a good thing. But that “self” part haunted me. Yeah, I could see some spiritual benefit in fasting to build my self-control muscles, but 40 days without sweets would be a bigger benefit toward me getting a smaller body. Fasting from TV would give me more time to read or draw or do other more noble things, but unless I purposed to read only spiritual books, I would probably only grow in my understanding of the nuances of mid-twentieth century teen novels. And, well, the meatless meals during Lent would always have the subtext of “Yay! Fish!!!!” I was beginning to realize there was something fishy about my view of fasting...

Over the years my understanding of true fasting and abstinence has grown and matured. The insights into fasting that have come to most resonate with me see fasting less as strengthening my self-discipline and more as strengthening my relationship with God. David Mathis, in his excellent article Fasting for Beginners,* outlines six simple but important points to think about while contemplating fasting. In his second point, planning what to do instead of eating, he says:

Fasting isn’t merely an act of self-deprivation, but a spiritual discipline for seeking more of God’s fullness. Which means we should have a plan for what positive pursuit to undertake in the time it normally takes to eat. We spend a good portion of our day with food in front of us. One significant part of fasting is the time it creates for prayer and meditation on God’s word or some act of love for others.

Before diving headlong into a fast, craft a simple plan. Connect it to your purpose for the fast. Each fast should have a specific spiritual purpose. Identify what that is and design a focus to replace the time you would have spent eating. Without a purpose and plan, it’s not Christian fasting; it’s just going hungry.

Mathis goes on to encourage fasting from things other than food:

Fasting from food is not necessarily for everyone. Some health conditions keep even the most devout from the traditional course. However, fasting is not limited to abstain from food. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “Fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose.”

If the better part of wisdom for you, in your health condition, is not to go without food, consider fasting from television, computer, social media, or some other regular enjoyment that would bend your heart toward greater enjoyment of Jesus. Paul even talks about married couples fasting from sex “for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer” (1 Corinthians 7:5).

(Emphasis mine.)

This Lent, I felt a gentle tugging to give up what had become a time-sucking, growing habit of computer solitaire. I've laid aside Forty Thieves, Spider, Terrace and an embarrassingly large number of other games, as well as my justification for playing them - “Oh, they're just short bouts of mental exercise!” I'm using the time previously spent thinking of card-playing strategies to both pray more and write more, and to pray about writing more. This kind of fasting doesn't have that fishy feeling of my youth. This kind of fasting feels less about giving up something and more about going toward Someone. Nothing fishy about that...

Something to Ponder:

Inside or outside Lent, how do you view “giving up” things? Is it all about you – losing weight, healthier life style, more time to pursue other interests? How would your life look different if you put an Other/God-focus on “giving up” things?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read Isaiah 58, or at least verses 6-12. This is a good picture of what true fasting looks like from God's eyes. Reread the beginning of verse 9. Wherever you might be in your thoughts about fasting, ask God to teach you how to call/cry out to Him in the midst of it. Reread verse 11. Ask God to guide you continually and to show you how to give over your “scorched” places and live like a watered garden.

A fast is not necessarily something we offer God,

but it assists us in offering ourselves. - Jen Hatmaker

Fasting confirms our utter dependence upon God by finding in Him

a source of sustenance beyond food. - Dallas Willard

*http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/fasting-for-beginners

Thought I'd come back from my writing break with something a little different. I'm calling it “Light Lenten Reflections” and am aiming to post something every Wednesday during Lent. There will be two short assignments at the end of each post you may either run with or ignore. And there probably will be at least one post on fishing...this is The Angle, after all...

  Light Lenten Reflections

Week 1

God of the Gray Day

The sun came out yesterday. Briefly. I appreciated it, but I hadn't really missed it. It's the early part of February, another gray month in the Midwest, and I'm fine with that. Seriously. I prefer clouds to sun, rain to clear skies, cool over warmth. My son is wired the same way, coming in from running on cool, cloudy, misty days, waxing poetic about the amazing weather. He spent two years living in El Paso, Texas, before moving back to the Midwest. One of his reasons for his return? He said he couldn't stand the relentless sun any longer. Weird, huh?

No, not really weird, though most cloudy day lovers know we are perceived that way by others. There are, in fact, many people out there who share the same love of meteorological gloom my son and I share. Instead of the gray of winter or a rainy day depressing them, they often describe feeling both invigorated and a peaceful calm. These people range from pluviophiles – lovers of rain who find both joy and comfort in rainy days, relishing being out in it – to those who suffer from “Reverse S.A.D.” (Seasonal Affective Disorder), a depression caused by exposure to too much light, manifesting itself during the summer months, often in warm climates. My son is definitely a pluviophile, running in the rain when temperatures are above freezing. I'm only a mild pluviophile. I love rainy days, thunderstorms (minus the tornadoes), the sound of rain on the roof, the pattern of rain falling in ponds and puddles, but I prefer to watch it all through a window or from a sheltered porch. I also suspect I have a touch of Reverse S.A.D, suffering from what I perceive as the excesses of Midwest summers. Retire south? No, thank you. I'm heading north...

Since childhood I've pondered why I am so fond of the cloudy day. I was born in April. Was it a rainy spring day and is that what I've come to expect as my most comforting weather? I'm a mildly optimistic realist. Are sunny days for wildly optimistic idealists and cause too much internal dissonance for my personality? 

Comforted...enveloped...surrounded...protected...energized...hugged... these are the words that best describe how I feel on a dark, cloudy day. But why? I recently had an “aha” moment while reading Psalm 18, providing new insight into my fondness for the dark day.

I've always been a fan of Psalm 18. It's seen me through some very difficult times. In its 50 verses, God shows up as both an equipper and a powerful rescuer. My favorite section:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,

from my foes, who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster,

but the Lord was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place;

he rescued me because he delighted in me.*

My “aha” moment came when I started to read backwards from my favorite verses. Before this great rescuing part, there is a description of God's mighty power and the means by which He manifests His coming to the rescue:

He parted the heavens and came down;

dark clouds were under his feet.

He mounted the cherubim and flew;

he soared on the wings of the wind.

He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—

the dark rain clouds of the sky.**

And there it was...clouds...dark clouds...dark rain clouds...and God's personal, rescuing presence. My cloudy day feelings of being comforted, enveloped, surrounded, protected, energized, even hugged...were they a reflection of that personal, rescuing, reassuring presence of God? God hid His presence in a cloud when He was actively engaging with His people – going before the Israelites, leading them out of Egypt to the Promised Land.+ He hid His presence in a cloud when He spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai.++ Are some of us wired differently from our sun-loving brothers, more easily able to receive comfort and hope on a gray day, perhaps unconsciously sensing that where clouds are, God and His comforting presence can't be far away?

What about our non-meteorological gray days? Do we find God in them?

Something to Ponder:

Whether you are a sun lover or a gray day lover, think about some gray, dark time of your life. Did you feel closer or farther away from God? If closer, how did that help your relationship with God, how did that help you through the dark time? Thank Him... If God felt distant at that time, what would you wish you could have felt/received from Him? Tell Him...

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read Psalm 18, or at least verses 9-19. This is a powerful image of how much God is radically for us. Ask God to allow you to experience His saving presence, to be able to know Him in your gray days, your dark times. Reread verse 19. Ask God to allow you to know His delight in you.

*Psalm 18:16-19 (NIV)

**Psalm 18:9-11 (NIV)

+Exodus 13

++Exodus 19, 24

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day - Smokey Robinson

 Love in the Twilight Zone

Part II

J#1, the Matchmaker

The end of the semester was approaching and still no sightings of J#2. I had an in-class final to study for the last week of regular classes, and not very adept at pulling all-nighters, I got up at 4 am to study. I went down to one of the dorm basement study areas and found it already occupied by a rather crabby J#1. He, unlike me, was too familiar with all-nighters. He had been up all night studying and took the arrival of my friendly presence as a signal to start complaining. He was starving, had no money, and his car was buried in snow so that even if he did have money, he didn't want to take the time to clean off his car and drive out to Nick's Diner to get some breakfast so he'd have the energy to finish studying for one of his chemistry exams. I told him I had money and had dug my car out the day before. I offered to drive him to Nick's and buy him breakfast. His eyes lit up, and we were at Nick's Diner on the edge of town before the sun came up.

At the diner, I told J#1 to order whatever he wanted, I was rich that week. He ordered one of the big breakfast platters and when it arrived looked at it, and me, appreciatively. As he was about to take his first bite, I said to J#1, “So, if one wanted to run into J#2, let's say casually, and hang out with him, where would one find him?” J#1 looked at his plate, then looked at me. He asked if the breakfast was a bribe. I nodded. He smiled and between bites of his pancakes, went on to tell me how perfect he thought J#2 and I were for each other. He had known us both since freshman year and he thought highly of us both and J#2 was such a great guy and... J#1 started sounding like M, extolling the virtues of J#2. The problem with J#2, though, was this: He was a really serious student, the smartest of their class of chemistry majors. He spent long hours studying, staying in the library until it closed each night (which explained why I didn't run into him). But J#1 said he knew for a fact that each night, after he came back to the dorm, J#2 went down to the rec room to watch reruns of The Twilight Zone to unwind. J#1 told me that if I went down to the rec room at 11 pm, J#2 would probably be down there in front of the television set.

The next night I went down to the rec room at 11 pm, and there was J#2, watching The Twilight Zone. He smiled at me, and I went over and sat next to him. We watched the episode, then talked. We did the same the next night, and the next, and the next. Some nights we'd go for a walk, some nights drink tea together. During one of these early mini-dates, I heard that still, small voice in my head that I usually identify as too wise to be my own thoughts say, “This is the man you are going to marry.” I filed the voice away in my mind, noting that I hadn't heard that on a date with anyone else before. That week J#2 asked me out to a chemistry professor's Christmas party. Finals came, and then Christmas break. When we returned to campus in January, J#2 and I met in the rec room each night, continuing our pattern of watching The Twilight Zone reruns for much of the semester.

Sometime during the summer after our senior year, after months of dating, J#2 and I were reminiscing about the dorm mixer where we met, laughing about M's desire to match me up with someone so I would stay away from her beloved J#1. J#2 told me that shortly after the mixer, before finals, J#1 approached him and asked him if he liked the girl M had tried to pair him up with at the mixer. J#2 said, yes, he had liked her, liked her a lot. J#1 went on to say that if J#2 was interested in, say, casually running into that girl, he knew for a fact that she went down to the rec room every night at 11 pm and watched reruns of The Twilight Zone...

***

The voice in my head proved to be prophetic. I married J#2 two years later. We've been married 38 years this month. (M did marry the devious J#1, and they have been married almost as long. And Nick's Diner still exists, remarkably unchanged...)

It's been almost 40 years to the day that it was revealed the creative deception of a mutual friend was apparently responsible for bringing me and J#2 together. Yet, I can never bring myself to say our relationship began in a lie. I prefer to think it was forged in the mysterious realm where many long loving relationships begin, a place that often defies simple explanation, a place known as the twilight zone...

It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets

the eye is as it appears. -Rod Serling

 

Love in the Twilight Zone

Part I

M, the Matchmaker

This is a story of bribery, deception, and jealousy. It contains assorted chemistry majors, varying degrees of alcohol consumption, a crack-of-dawn breakfast at a greasy spoon diner, and reruns of an iconic 1960s TV show. It is also the story of the beginning of a life-long love. And it is all absolutely true. Only the names have been disguised to protect the identity of the devious, the jealous, and the imbibers. The greasy spoon diner, however, will be identified by its real name – Nick's...

Near the end of my first semester senior year in college, I wandered into the basement rec room of the dorm I was living in to meet some friends at a mixer. It was the early 1970s. The legal drinking age was still eighteen, so dorm mixers usually consisted of a keg of beer, maybe some spiked punch, a sound system playing what would now be considered truly classic rock, and lots of people - some talking, some dancing, all drinking. I had arrived late, and my friends had gotten a head-start on the drinking part. M was there with her boyfriend, J#1. I had known J#1, a chemistry major, since my first day of college. He had attended high school with my first roommate, and we remained good friends even after my roommate transferred to another school. I had known M since my sophomore year, long before she started dating J#1. M was friendly and outgoing but was also one of those rare people who lacked the censor most of us have between our thoughts and our tongues. Cold sober, she would tell you exactly what was on her mind, ask the most straight-forward questions. That night, the plastic cup in her hand had visited the keg more than once before I had arrived and likely contributed to M's confession to me that she would never feel her relationship with J#1 would be secure until I was married off. J#1 and I laughed, as did the other friends who knew of M's insecurities and my long friendship with J#1. M then proceeded to take me around the room and introduce me to anyone she perceived as an eligible guy, listing their attributes in front of them - “He's pre-med. He'll make a fortune someday. He's a great catch. And so cute...” All the guys we approached knew M, so this bizarre search for my future husband was more amusing than embarrassing. Still, it quickly got tiresome, and as she was extolling the virtues of J#2, a chemistry major who lived on the same corridor as J#1, I told her I'd take him. J#2 was friendly in a quiet way, very smart (according to M), funny, and a good conversationalist. We talked until the arrival of that mixer tipping point when more people are on the dance floor than are not. J#2 asked me to dance. (I would later find out that this was an aberration. J#2 was not a dancer. The keg again?) We danced and talked the rest of the night, and J#2 walked me back to my room and said goodnight.

Though we lived on opposite ends of the same co-ed dorm, I didn't see J#2 again that week. I was disappointed. I kind of liked him. Though I didn't previously know him, I recognized J#2 as someone I had seen during the past four years going in and out of the physical science building where I did most of my studying. (I wasn't a science major. I just don't study well in libraries – “Oh, look! Books! Magazines!” – and the physical science building was the most austere, distraction-free place to study on campus.) First semester finals were coming up soon, then Christmas break. I thought it would be nice to run into J#2 before finals week, but it just wasn't happening... 

To be continued...

Tomorrow:

Part II

J#1, the Matchmaker

Imagination... its limits are only those of the mind itself. - Rod Serling

 

Spiritual Reminders from Han Solo

At our church's Easter service this year, the pastor, using the movie franchise Star Wars as an example of an iconic story imbedded in our culture, asked three questions regarding the congregation's awareness and attitudes toward the well-known saga. The first question was how many people present had seen at least part of any of the six Star Wars movies. Everyone raised their hands. The second question - how many people felt they learned something by watching the movies – had about a third of those present with hands in the air. The last question – did anyone believe that the Star Wars saga did, in fact, actually happen – was acknowledged by no one, though I suspected my husband, who considers the original Star Wars film to be the greatest movie ever made, might be a little fuzzy in that area. He was sitting next to me, so I pinned both his hands down...just in case.

My husband and I saw Star Wars when it was first released in an old movie theater in upstate New York. We had been married one month. We sat in the balcony, and a hidden projector made clouds continually move across the domed ceiling of the theater, giving a surreal feeling to the movie experience. My husband loved the movie. I thought it was O.K., but in the years since, in the many rewatchings of the original movie and, of course, all those sequels and prequels that followed, I, too, have come to have my favorite lines and favorite characters in the Star Wars world.

On Easter morning, I was one of those people who raised my hand when asked if I felt I had learned anything from watching Star Wars. Perhaps “learned” is not quite the right word. “Reminded of something important” would be a better way to describe it. My favorite character, Han Solo, undergoes a conversion experience (of sorts) in the first movie. When Luke Skywalker comments to him that he doesn't appear to believe in the Force, Han responds:

Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.

Of course, skeptic Han, traveling with the Star Wars cast of characters through their adventures, by the end of the movie comes to believe in something bigger than himself. Han, now a true believer, imperfectly walks his new “faith” out through the rest of the Star Wars trilogy.

Now, I don't pretend Han Solo is a spiritual giant or even a good Christian metaphor, but there are three Han moments in the Star Wars movies that always catch my attention and encourage me in a healthier faith journey of my own:

1. Han knows when the blame is not his to shoulder. He knows he's not God.

As a first born and innately responsible person, I have a tendency to take on responsibility for many things that really have nothing to do with me. And, forgetting I'm not God, I often blame myself and wonder what I could have done differently to achieve a better outcome. When the Millennium Falcon fails to make the jump to hyperspace (in The Empire Strikes Back), Han amazingly, yet confidently states “It's not my fault!” knowing that he's done everything needed to repair and maintain his ship. The present problem is out of his control. Of course, he takes the responsibility of fixing things again – it is his ship – but he knows everything that doesn't go right is not necessarily his fault. There are forces and people outside of his present moment that influence his world. Han's confident “It's not my fault!” reminds me it's O.K. to not beat myself up over the events in my life I'm unable to control, that I can go forward, trusting God is big enough to shoulder the responsibility of things beyond my purview.

2. Han has the faith to look beyond the statistics. He is not bound by the probable.

When C-3PO points out that the possibility of successfully navigating the asteroid field they have just entered is approximately 3,720 to 1, Han is unfazed. His reply? “Never tell me the odds!” We find ourselves living in a statistically-driven world, a world that tells us, and often limits, what can happen to us, what we can accomplish. “The five-year survival rate of stage two cancer of this type is 60%”, “Only 27% percent of college graduates are able to find work in their field of study”, “Less than 23% of born again Christians embrace Christ after their twenty-first birthday”... When I am faced with numbers not in my favor, my default is to cave in and say, “What's the use? Success here is highly improbable, if not impossible...” But then I hear in my head Han's dismissive voice - “Never tell me the odds!” I remember I worship a God Who operates beyond all odds, whose purposes and plans for me can never be thwarted by the unlikely or the improbable. I can lay aside the numbers and go forward with hope.

3. Han knows how to dream big. He has high expectations.

Luke Skywalker, trying to get Han to commit to carrying out Princess Leia's mission, appeals to Han's need for money. Luke tells him Leia is rich and powerful and his reward would be more wealth than he, Han, could imagine. Han's response? “I don't know...I can imagine quite a bit.” Luke's words are a faint echo of Paul's in Ephesians - “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (3:20) In Han's response, I hear a healthy desire to imagine large, not unlike the healthy spiritual desire C. S. Lewis challenges us to:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (From The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses)

In Han's response to Luke, I suspect Han is not one “far too easily pleased”. I find his response an encouragement to imagine large what God has in store for me, to be spiritually greedy, in a good way. I, like Han, am free to “imagine quite a bit”, knowing the most I can imagine still pales in comparison to the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to me in Christ Jesus...

One good solid hope is worth a cart-load of certainties. - Doctor Who (Tom Baker) Warrior's Gate