Why Rogue One is a Rebel in the World of Hollywood

For this first time since seeing the original three Star Wars movies, I went into seeing Rogue One without any spoilers or knowledge (besides what was in the trailers and the premise that it occurs during the time right before the third episode).

With that being said, there are SPOILERS ahead.

One thing is clear about Rogue One: it is a war movie. I watched it on December 15th, after spending several days reading and watching the horrors that were unfolding in Aleppo. As Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor dove in and out of the desert roadways destroyed and blown up by imperial forces in a city on the moon Jedha, all I could see were the images of Aleppo’s destruction superimposed over them. The scene where Jyn dives through a fire fight to rescue a small girl screaming and crying only reflects in  a small part the terror that orphans in Aleppo have experienced, with bombs going off all around them night and day, before finally being forced to abandon their home.

I almost walked out at that part, as those scenes, the wide pan shots stolen from Syria’s border-country Jordan in Wadi Rum, reminding me of my own time there in Wadi Rum and in the northern part of Jordan, peering over the Golan Heights to Syria, which, in 2014, was actually in better shape than it is now. I looked around, expecting to see other people bawling their eyes out, or eyes drawn in horrified recognition of the parallels this movie was drawing, but I saw nothing.

The reason why Rogue One is such a deviation from what Hollywood typically has to offer is it tells a story that rarely gets told. It tells a story that ends in death, and for the main characters, despair. Their only comfort comes in the knowledge that they had given their all for a chance, a sliver of a chance that their actions would lead to a slip in the Empire’s grip and that their rule would be abolished. Despair is quite a common theme in Hollywood, yes, but the overarching believe in the cause that Jyn and Cassian (and the rest of the cast) lived and died for give their deaths a significance and meaning for the audience, even if it doesn’t for the characters themselves.

They lived their lives in faith, acting upon a belief in their flawed cause, but [just like the matriarchs and patriarchs the author of Hebrews discusses in chapter 11] they died before seeing the fruits of their faith and action.

Rogue One is a good reminder to all that doing good when nobody sees it is not a waste; and to Christ-followers, it is an encouraging reminder that no good deed will go unpunished in this life, have an eternal reward for our actions that cannot be seen this side of heaven.

It tells a story of why, even when there is no benefit to us personally, and indeed great harm, we should persist in doing good even when we will not be praised, we will not be sung about or talked about in blogs or TV shows or books. Instead of pursuing the humanistic philosophy that “you should do what feels right,” it pursues a harder line of inquiry: “You should do what is right regardless of how it makes you feel.”

Rogue One was also a reminder that no matter how epic the space battles look, no matter how sweeping the vista or impressive the special effects, people are dying. People who may make a wrong choice on the “right” side of the war, or a right choice on the “wrong” side of the war.

Jyn Erso’s father, Galen, spends years laboring for the Empire simply because he knows that he is at the right place at the right time, and has a slim [but better than anyone else’s] chance of saving lives. But he gives up his life in the process, both the quality of his life and the existence of it. Despite his absence from Jyn’s life, and her consequential resentment of him, he is willing to make that sacrifice and accept the consequences of his choices– choices that to Jyn seem hard and unfeeling, but for Galen are the best way he can show his love for her and his dedication to fighting the corrupt Empire.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story may not say this outright, but this message is woven into the fabric of the story:

Your quiet sacrifice and selfless deeds may never make it on the front cover of Times magazine, but there is a lasting impact to them. Rogue One shows that a life like that is worth living,  and worth dying for.

The stories most worth hearing are the ones never told.

 

Photos are all From Rogue One, copyright Lucasfilm and other what have yous. All rights reserved (to them).

 

 

My Favorite Things About Moving to Maryland So Far

Cows. Cows everywhere. Cows in fields, cows in barns. Cows sharing fields with sheep. Lots and lots of cows.

The rain. It rained this morning, it rained this afternoon. It was supposed to hail, but it did not.

Eateries that claim “Pizzeria and Tex Mex” as their concurrent food genres. That sounds interesting (and highly suspicious).

It is so, so green. I can only think of Rey, in the latet Star Wars movie, when she says, “I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy!”

 

Also, my housemates are pretty awesome and chill, and I live on the end of a long (paved), narrow road framed by trees drooping with vines. Did I mention how green it is??

The weather really isn’t so bad. It was great today (though with high humidity), and my room has a window AC unit, so I’m set at night.

Now… if we could only banish the stinkbugs, carpenter ants, earwigs, and spiders from the house, I’d be set.

Did I mention that I live in a house that was originally built in the 1840’s? Yeah, pretty cool. Except it has only one (unoriginal) bathroom, and the light switches are in random places. But it is a bona-fide old house, complete with creepy basement and attic and a servants’ stairway and a both-ways swinging door to the dining room. It’s so cool, and weird.

Tomorrow I start my actual job (eep!), and actually get to figure out what exactly I will be doing! Flexibility and fluidity have been really important, and thankfully I’ve accrued the ability to be so, but not having set plans or objectives really stresses me out.

Here are a couple other pictures. I hope all my peeps at home are doing well… I miss you guys already! ❤

The sunset tonight

Bunnies have much squarer noses here!

A Year of Failure: 5 Ways I failed in 2015

When I entered 2015, I knew it would be radically different than 2014. I wouldn’t be graduating with my Bachelors degree. I wouldn’t be spending my summer in Amman, Jordan, soaking up the culture and sun like a thirsty sponge. I wouldn’t be finishing a thesis, or finishing my essay to enter into the Persona.

2014 felt like a year of successes, and of reached goals; I thought that 2015 would look vastly different. It felt only appropriate to expect the opposite from 2015 that I had received from 2014: failures.

Failure is one of the most terrifying words for me. I don’t deal well with it, and I was scared of confronting it, and also excited because I knew I would grow from my further acquaintance with it.

See, I’m the kind of person who won’t do something if I know I’ll fail (with few exceptions). I’m the kind of person who lets fear of failure keep her from trying things, who keeps her fear of the unknown outcome closer to her heart than the fear of the missed opportunity.

I can safely say I failed a lot this year. Failed writing jobs, failed queries, failed friendships, failed relationships, failed attempts at half marathons, failed attempts at writing on a blog every week (ha!) and many, many failed attempts at trying to keep everything together.

In honor of the new year, I’ve decided to write about my favorite failures of the year.

1. I failed to sustain my misguided belief that I have to be perfect.

This one is the failure that I am probably most proud of, and has also been the most difficult failure to deal with. I went through some very dark weeks, fighting this false ideology at its core. I still struggle with perfectionism… a LOT. But, thanks to some special people (you know who you are; or maybe not), I have come to the realization that imperfection is… wonderful. freeing. exhilarating. And to be honest, I cringe a little speaking so highly of imperfection still. But perfection is a stingy, cold, unforgiving, merciless, unfeeling, vituperative master. But the God of Grace is kind, loving, forgiving, and loves even when we are nothing but a fetal ball of tears and mess-ups. Perfectionism still calls my name daily, but now… I’ve started to ignore its beckoning.

2. I failed in my attempts to keep God’s love at bay

Despite my best efforts. Folks, I am freer and more alive in Christ now than I have ever been. Let me tell you, that is super exciting stuff. God will only stay away if you force him to. If you open up your heart a crack– He will slip right in like afternoon sunlight and warm your soul from its gelid status.

3. I failed to become a freelance writer

This one hurts to say, partially because I tried very hard to become this, and partially because I don’t think I tried hard enough (again, because of fear). I did get a lot of writing done, however, but most of it will probably never see the light of day. Baby steps.

4. I failed in relationships.

But, at the same time, I’ve succeeded. Because even in failure you learn something. I’ve learned a lot about people. I’ve learned that sometimes people you love dearly will hurt you, and that people I love will be hurt by me. I learned quite a bit about myself,  and how things should and should not be. And that has been invaluable, albeit painful.  I also learned that puppies are always a good bet when you’re low on snuggles.

5. I failed to become completely free of shame and guilt.

This is a hard one to admit. While I’ve made much progress in personal development in 2015, I’m very much a work in progress still [I’m painfully conscious of this right at this moment). I’m starting to discover that whenever I think I can take a day off from everything– including passionately pursuing Christ– that’s when I start sliding back into the old patterns including dark clouds of shame and guilt and reliance on my own performance rather than God’s grace.

If there is one thing that God has been speaking to me in the last few months, it is that his strength is made great in our weaknesses. He has placed people in my path  when I am weakest to guide me along the way, and God has been present in my life, heart, and mind like never before. This is why I share these failures with you today; because I know God will use them better than any post I could write about how 2015 went well for me, or how I succeeded this year.

 

 

 

 

 

Galloping Along the Fence

Some nights are not for speaking of…

Some nights are beyond speech.

And yet I am motivated to put some words around them– not as a faithful rendering of the actual events, but to conjure up the evanescence of memory later on… memory made more clear by the recording of words.

My to-do list is screaming at me, but I am learning… or rather, trying to learn that I must tune it out to do what really matters. Sometimes. Other times, I really ought to tend to it more.

Lately I have been subconsciously dealing with a lot of “sufficiency” issues. I say subconsciously, not because I haven’t had these issues smack me in the batooky before, but because I didn’t recognize them in their insidious form this time. I merely recognized their manifestation as a deep, pervasive dread and fear of going to work.

I’m not afraid of hard work. I actually tend to enjoy it, once the initial hump of torpor is passed over. But the stresses, challenges, and sheer enormity of what awaited me at work after fall break made me tremble. I was so terrified that I couldn’t look through my fear to actually analyze what was making me so afraid.

So professional, right?

I managed to muscle my way through my first day back, thinking a mixture of “this isn’t so bad” and “this is so bad!” and, more prominently, “what am I missing and doing wrong?”

Thank(God)fully, I decided to stop by and talk with a much older (and wiser, and more experienced) teacher. I shared the more professional version of what I had been experiencing, and she told me something that I had apparently forgotten:

It’s okay to say no.

It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to not be superwoman. And please, stop being so hard on yourself.

The only person being that hard on you is yourself.

It was a wet slap to a numb face.

I had unknowingly, almost arrogantly, allowed my perfectionism to creep up, and had placed before myself ever-mounting goals and ideals that I, in my wilted, rookie, imperfect state have no chance of attaining. And so, naturally, I despaired. And so, naturally, I grew afraid of facing the fierce giant armed with a nuclear missile and a cute puppy (both of which are disarming, but in completely different ways).

Sometimes (okay, a lot of times) I forget that perfectionism is not a good thing. It is the stubborn malfeasance that gives you the audacity to think that you, of all people, know exactly what’s best— in every circumstance, and even more than God.

Yeeah.

Oops.

After work today, I decided to take a walk around my neighborhood. (My sedentary life lately has been, well, too sedentary.)

There’s a dirt road I walk down that has several families that own horses. At the end of the road is a small ranch with stables, and along the road there is a large corral which is usually empty. But tonight it wasn’t.

My heartbeat quickened when I felt the staccato thump-thump-thumpthump of hooves before I could see into the pen– I knew that a horse was cantering around the corral. I walked down the road, to where there were no bushes obscuring my view, and sure enough– a beautiful thoroughbred-quarter-horse mix was gamboling up and down the corral, having a wonderful time. A woman in a pink shirt walked towards the horse, and I thought she was trying to get close enough to the horse to bring her in.  Then she started  backing away while whistling, clapping, and talking to the horse– and the horse listened.

I watched in awe as the mare started galloping (okay, somewhere between a gallop and a canter) along the edge of the fence– dangerously close, especially when rounding the corners and turning around. It was amazing to see how the horse responded to her master’s cues– claps, “good, good!” and “easy on the turns.”  Then there was the horse itself– pounding the dust into the air, breathing in quick snorts  (longer ones as the exercise continued), gleaming in the fading light, proud of her strength and glorying in the activity and her prowess.

I was amazed at all the horse was able to do under the tutelage of her owner– and yet, as I watched, I realized that what she did was not too much of a stretch from her natural proclivities and propensities. Yes, the mare was diving and turning with far more finesse than she would in the wild; there were just inches between her and the fence.  But she was still diving and turning like a horse ought, not growing hands and changing the tire on a car.

The thought rushed on me as she rounded the pen once more, thundering towards me: I am quite a bit like this horse.

God gave us natural proclivities and propensities, and natural aversions to other things, and while he may very well stretch us and grow us– tell us to gallop very close to the fence– he is not going to tell us to jump the fence and start a mariachi band. I think I have very much been trying to be something I am not– I have been leaping over fences, and expecting myself to suddenly possess the knowledge and know-how to take an engine apart and re-build it for street racing. Which doesn’t seem that realistic to me (even if I wasn’t a proverbial horse in this scenario).

And back to my original dilemma– Work. Teaching. Learning how to teach.

I can’t expect myself to become a world-famous mariachi musician when I’m barely learning how to round the corners. So instead of feeling like a failure because I can’t jump the fence and join a band with really swirly dresses, I’m going to listen better to the One who is telling me to take the corners a little easier, and to make those turns a little sharper. And who knows– He may eventually teach me how to stomp in time with mariachi music.

Coffee and Christ. And philosophy. And writing. Must needs I say more?

I Was a Failure In College: The Dark Side of Academic Success

Here’s my story of  learning about the things  they don’t tell you in a college brochure or in any acceptance letter.

The New York Times has a front page article today about the suicide rate and propensity of suicide in high-ranking schools [Campus Suicide and the Pressure of Perfection]. It tells of a high-achieving freshman at UPenn who sinks into a depression and nearly commits suicide when she realizes that as a straight-A student, sorority member, intern teaching elementary school-aged kids, and a participant in additional extra-curricular activities, she is simply not doing enough. She has no time to think, rest, develop as an individual or possibly consider that all these higher achievers around her are feeling as equally insufficient and overwhelmed as she is.

I remember when I got my first B in a class at the University of Arizona. I was distraught and it bothered me for months. I resolved to never let it happen again. I assumed at the time that this failure was a lack in motivation, studying, and dedication to the task at hand; but looking back, I doubt it.

I thought I was a generally good student, and definitely a high-achiever. I was enrolled in the Honors College. I was taking Arabic, and I was good at it. I was a double major in Creative Writing and Linguistics. I was slated to graduate early, despite the double major.

I thought I was in good shape until I started meeting students who were not only taking a 17-20 credit course load (I was taking 17), but were also working part-time, had one or two internships and independent studies, were taking trips to local attractions on the weekends, and were already applying for positions to launch their career into the stratosphere post-graduation. I met double-doubles: people who had two majors and two minors. I met triple-majors, who would graduate with a B.S. and a B.A. I met people taking two, and three language classes per semester. I met students who were already so buddy-buddy with their professors by the time the semester started that it felt like I was fighting a lost cause to introduce myself to them.

I was barely managing my straight A’s and a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant on the weekends. I was a transfer student who was shy, and the idea of asking a professor for independent study opportunities was enough to give me a panic attack. I felt under-read in literature when talking with my English buddies, and I felt under-exposed to cross-linguistic typologies and languages that my linguistic friends would discuss with gusto after class or over dinner.

The impression that everyone around me was doing twice as many things as I and with double the finesse and efficiency exponentially increased my feelings of inadequacy and failure; which in turn incapacitated me with fear and anxiety that kept me from pursuing opportunities that would help me more than graduating with a 3.94 GPA would.

I wish I’d done things differently. I wish I’d plucked up the courage to do more independent studies (I did do one year of thesis-focused independent studies), to engage with my fellow students more. I wish I’d done more than just percolate my fears and inadequacies into an ever-strengthening brew of self-disgust and hatred that recursively confirmed that I was, indeed, a failure, and that I would always be one.

I wish someone had told me that straight As don’t get you jobs after school- practical experiences and connections with professors and faculty did. I wish I’d pursued relationships with people who were more knowledgeable and smarter than me, who I deemed off limits because I wasn’t “cool” or “advanced” enough.

When you base your identity in excelling in academia and your best efforts are not enough, your identity takes a major blow. You find yourself crying in the library bathroom, or having a difficult time deciding where to go for lunch because you don’t want to risk running into someone you know who will see “I am a failure” written on your forehead just like you do. You will find time to marathon-watch a season of a TV show but not to work on your next project, because the mere thought of failing one more time leaves you paralyzed.

I started to come out of my shell in my final year of college. I went to Jordan to study Arabic, even though it didn’t contribute to my major or minor. I busted my butt on my thesis (though I still consider it a shadow of what it could’ve been). I took a job as a specialized learning tutor. I deepened friendships with professors. But it still didn’t seem like enough, and as I look to applying for grad school, it definitely doesn’t seem like enough.

When you base your image and identity academic excellence and that image is destroyed by failure, you begin searching for another source of identity. You start to realize how much your own identity is fused with the idea that you cannot fail. You start to realize how destructive and absurd an identity is based on a vacillating estimation of success.

You start fighting back against the feelings of anxiety and inadequacy, armed with the knowledge that you were created by a perfect God, who delights in you even when you can’t stand yourself. You start to realize that life is far more fulfilling when lived caring for others regardless of what they can offer you in academic circles. You realize that treating others as the unique, complex and imperfect individuals they are rather than treating them as competition or as a mere obstacle to your next goal makes life worth living again. You realize that you are starting to grow up.

 

 

In Syria, Wars rage; in Amman, Falafel Fries.

It was hot in the open-door falafel shop near the seventh circle in Amman. As we entered an Irishman looked up from behind the counter, and shock mixed with the mouth-watering scent of frying batter embraced me. He had dark red hair cropped short and fair skin lightly splattered with freckles. The illusion was shattered when he greeted us in Arabic with an accent that was different from the lilting, distinguished city dialect. He wore an emerald-green shirt emblazoned with the word “CALIFORNIA.”

I sneaked a picture of him while he was making the falafel… He looked up right after I took the picture, and he didn’t look real pleased but he basically ignored me.

I expected him to laugh at any moment, and in a staunchly American manner, say “Just kidding, guys! I’m not really Arab. What’s up?” But he didn’t. Instead he stared blankly at us while we fumbled through our Arabic dictionary to find the right words.*  I forced myself to find the right words, combatting the oppressive June humidity and communicated to him that we needed some 40 falafel for the evening meal.

I watched him scoop up the falafel batter into a half-sphere mold, shaping the top of the ball with a spoon in his left hand, trimming the excess dough with six sharp movements. The spoons clacked together with each movement, six clicks forty times over, popping each ball into the sizzling oil. The rich smell of greasy, deep-frying falafel filled the air.

We learned that he was from Syria, and he’d come to Amman two years before to work in his brothers’ falafel shop. We didn’t ask him if it was the war that had forced him to move, mainly because we didn’t have the vocabulary to do so; partly because he didn’t seem open to discussion. He didn’t seem very chatty, beyond our initial conversation. He was reticent, focused on the task at hand. But half of Syria’s population has been displaced in the fighting that has enveloped the country; there really wasn’t much of a question as to why he was there.

Today I learned of the suicide bombing in Syria attributed to the Nusra front: two dozen loyal to Al-Assad were killed in Aleppo. ISIS has also retaken the city of Ayn Issa (which means “eye of Jesus”) in the past few days. I thought of the Syrian falafel maker I met last June; I wonder if he lost any friends or relatives in the latest skirmishes. I wonder if he had anyone left to lose.

You can learn a lot about someone by their actions; more so than by their words. So when I watched the Syrian make the falafel, forming the mounds with as much efficiency as a machine and far more grace than one, I got a glimpse into who this man was, if not what he’d been through.

As the falafel finished cooking, he handed us samples. The falafel was so hot it burned my fingers through the paper wrapping he handed it to me in. Once I got it in my mouth, it melted, a perfect crispy shell crystallized by the hot grease, surrounding a soft center gritty with spices and full of flavor.

We thanked him profusely in our horrible Arabic, and as we left a hint of a smile pushed up on his mouth.

Postscript: I have recently been doing a lot of reading on the conflicts involving ISIS and resistance groups in the Syrian and Iraqi area; this post is the result of that research (and my time in Jordan, of course). One of the reasons why ISIS has been so successful in its advances is the general instability that has plagued the region for years—generations, really. Factions, tribes, and religious sects have been largely unable to unite for a very long time, and ISIS, with their focus and drive, has taken advantage of the splintered infrastructure to gain holds in Syria, Iraq, and even along the Turkish border (not to mention Libya). This is to say nothing of the political strife in Egypt, or further east in Afghanistan and Iran. Pray for the people of Syria, Iraq, and all of those living in the region; pray for relief workers and resistance groups. Most of all, pray that many would be exposed to the peace of the Gospel and come to know Christ.

If you want to help Syrian refugees in need, consider donating to the Nazarene Syrian Relief Fund.

*As this was only my second or third day in Amman, Jordan, I had no idea that red hair and fair skin is actually not a horribly uncommon combination to see in the Levant, esp. (?) for Syrians.

An Inside Out World

My previous post was on why Inside Out made me cry; this post is about what happened when I cried.

I tried to pretend I wasn’t crying.

I mentally berated myself for taking so seriously the death of a furry, pink imaginary friend who chatters like a dolphin and cries candy.

After the movie, my sister, niece and I were walking out of the theater when I heard my sister say, “Man, I can’t believe I cried!” I was quick to assent that “I cried too!” and my niece softly chimed in “Me too…”

I was so relieved to find out that my niece had cried at the same time as I had in the movie. But I had tried to avoid and hide the fact that I’d cried; so did my family. But what was the big deal? Why did I feel such a pressing need to hide my emotions? And perhaps more disturbingly, why did my 11-year-old niece already have a similar compulsion in place?

There is a huge societal stricture in place that tells us we must not show our (true) emotions in public (or even at all). There is this obsession with appearing happy, even when we may not be. This may seem an extreme statement to link with shedding a few tears over a kid’s movie, but if I don’t feel comfortable showing my emotions in such an environment, why would I be at ease showing emotions in more “adultish” situations? I think we in the western culture are consumed with the idea that everything must look at least alright, good, or preferably, perfect.  If someone peels away the false nacre of superficial happiness, we immediately scatter. We call it depression. We avoid “those poor people.” We call it a “phase.”

We are scared to admit that our lives are not perfect when our lives are comically, Michael-Bay-is-helming-the-next-Oscar-winning-drama- far from perfection. We refuse to abandon the hallucination that the world is okay, that things are fine. Things are not fine. This world is f—ed up. There are more mass murderings, more slavery than ever before in history, more human trafficking, more wars, diseases spreading every day, and it doesn’t stop. It has never stopped. This world has always been messed up. And only when we abandon our false idea that the world is ‘okay,’ and only when we acknowledge the sheer, quivering morass of depravity of our world can we maybe turn from our delusions of ‘rightness’ to the real solution.

The solution isn’t more government; there have been good governments and bad governments, but they all fail. The solution isn’t a redistributed social or economic structure. It isn’t religion; religion has been used and tried and found as empty as ever.

There is only one thing that I have ever found to still my trembling heart, to take the weight off my soul of a million sins. And that thing is a relationship with Jesus, the Christ, God’s son. I don’t mean Jesus as some paint him—the harbinger of hatred and doom. I don’t mean Jesus as some milquetoast man who preached a vague sermon on acceptance and love that accepts everything, even things that will kill the soul. I’m talking about the Jesus who loved fiercely, extravagantly, and who hated sin and death, those things that would dare steal away his beloved, messed up humans who he died for.

It says in Corinthians that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. So maybe it is foolishness (or seems like foolishness to some) to place my trust in Christ, but when compared to the choice of trusting in a world that has always let us down, is always broken and decaying… Well. I don’t think I’m the foolish one.