There was a Star Wars marathon on TV Memorial Day Weekend—the original ones (Episodes IV-VI). Typically, my Memorial Day Weekend TV watching consists of war movies or John Wayne movies or John Wayne war movies. I needed a change this year.
So, I picked fictional space battles instead of non-fiction earth battles. Though “The Longest Day” is on my DVR waiting to be watched.
I was watching “The Empire Strikes Back” and this scene stuck in my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lOT2p_FCvA
It’s that “Luke, I am your father” scene. And Darth Vader is trying to talk Luke Skywalker into joining the Dark Side. They’d make a great team. The Emperor says so.
And then I kept noticing that in that film and in the following, “Return of the Jedi”, that people kept telling Luke what his destiny was. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine told him that it was his destiny to join the Dark Side. They keep telling him to give in to the anger. He can only be powerful, he can only be on the winning side, if he joins them. His friends are ultimately powerless. His cause, his fight against the Empire’s oppression, is hopeless.
Obi-wan Kenobi even weighed in and told Luke that it was his destiny to face and kill Vader.
And Luke doesn’t listen to any of these voices. He tells Obi-wan that he still feels some good in Vader, so he was going to try to talk him around. Eventually, Vader does turn against the Emperor. Luke was right.
All this talk about Destiny stuck in my head. And it made me think—like a lot of things do.
Are there people in my life who have tried to direct my destiny? Are there people who are currently trying to direct my destiny? Why? What were/are their motives?
As a child, I know my parents were doing the best that they could to raise their children, to direct their “destiny.” School teachers had their turn. No one overtly told me what my “destiny” was. Not really.
There was the typical, “Be a good girl.” “Get good grades.” “Obey all the rules.” “Don’t do anything to taint your father’s ministry.” “You’d make a good pastor’s wife.”
It took me a long time to be able to sort through all these messages—and so many more—to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. It was not easy—anything but, really. It’s hard to drown out all of those voices from the past.
It’s even harder dealing with those in the present who try to insist that they know what my “destiny” is/should be and I don’t, so I should listen to them and do what they want me to.
When I was a child, I wasn’t able to sort through the voices, to figure out the motives, to decipher what they were really trying to say, to decide if I should listen to them or not.
But now that I’m grown up, I can ask:
Who is this in relation to me?
Do they have my best interests at heart? Or their own?
What could possibly be their motive?
What do I think of their vision for my “destiny?”
Does it align with my values? With my faith?
It’s not necessarily a conscious process. Sometimes, all of this happens in an instant and I just get one of those gut reactions. Sometimes, I must think it all through for a while.
And I’ve learned to take the time to think about other’s words and ideas about and for me.
And I’ve learned to trust those gut reactions. I know who I am and, while I don’t have a specific direction as to where I’m totally headed, I know where I don’t want to go. And based on that, I can decide if I’m going to stay with the Rebellion or join the Dark Side.