By JT Santana

I suppose I should confess something before going any farther, particularly before some devoted Star Wars fan tracks me down and demands that I surrender my cultural literacy card.

I have never seen Star Wars.

Not one movie.

Yes, I know.

I can practically hear the collective gasp.

I have made it through several decades of American life without sitting down and watching Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Yoda, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or whoever else is running around that galaxy trying to save civilization from itself. I have managed to avoid the films so completely that, statistically, I may qualify for some sort of endangered-species protection.

Yet I know Star Wars.

Or, perhaps more accurately, I know about Star Wars.

I have read reviews, essays, interpretations, cultural criticism, arguments, retrospectives, fan discussions, theological reflections, philosophical analyses, and more debates about the meaning of “the Force” than anyone who has never actually watched the thing probably has any right to read. I know that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, which I gather was once considered a spoiler rather than basic human knowledge. I know Yoda rearranges English grammar as if syntax personally offended him. I know there are Jedi, Sith, lightsabers, Death Stars, stormtroopers, droids, rebels, empires, and a truly astonishing amount of family drama.

At this point, Star Wars is difficult not to know.

It has been quoted, parodied, analyzed, imitated, commercialized, debated, theologized, and turned into everything from lunchboxes to university lectures. People who have never watched a complete Star Wars film still recognize Darth Vader’s breathing. They know what someone means by “the dark side.” They understand “May the Force be with you.” Yoda can appear in a meme without anyone needing an explanatory footnote.

That kind of staying influence is interesting to me.

A movie can be popular for a few years. A franchise can dominate the box office for a decade. Star Wars has done something stranger. It has become a vocabulary through which people talk about morality, temptation, fear, identity, politics, fatherhood, redemption, evil, sacrifice, destiny, and hope.

I may never have watched Star Wars.

I have certainly watched what Star Wars has done to the culture around me.

And spiritually, that may be the most interesting part.

The Force Is Really a Story About Connection

The central spiritual idea in Star Wars is the Force, described throughout the franchise as something flowing through living things and connecting them.

That concept immediately explains part of the franchise’s appeal.

Most spiritual traditions wrestle with the same question in one form or another: Are we isolated individuals moving through life alone, or are we participants in something larger than ourselves?

Different religions give different answers. Philosophers give different answers. Scientists may describe networks, ecosystems, social systems, inherited biology, and cause and effect without using spiritual language at all.

Star Wars gives us the Force.

It is elegant storytelling. You do not need a theology degree to understand it.

Everything is connected.

That idea becomes far more interesting when taken outside a fictional galaxy. Human beings are connected through family, memory, culture, language, economics, trauma, friendship, politics, geography, institutions, and countless small interactions we barely notice.

A teacher says something that stays with a student for forty years. A cruel comment becomes part of how someone sees himself. A stranger offers help at exactly the right moment and never realizes what came from it. A parent hands down fear, courage, prejudice, humor, shame, tenderness, or some messy combination of all six.

None of us is entirely self-created.

That strikes me as deeply spiritual.

Call it God. Call it human connection. Call it interdependence. Call it community. Call it the Force if that works for you.

The name interests me less than the recognition that what we do travels beyond us.

Fear May Be the Most Dangerous Character in the Story

One of the most famous ideas associated with Star Wars is Yoda’s teaching that fear can lead to anger, hatred, and suffering.

Even without seeing the scene, I understand why that line lasted.

Fear itself is not evil. Fear is human.

We fear losing people. We fear rejection. We fear illness. We fear being alone. We fear death. We fear humiliation. We fear becoming irrelevant. We fear that something we worked years to build can collapse in an afternoon.

A spiritual system that tells human beings simply not to fear is not offering much help.

The more interesting question is what fear persuades us to do.

Anakin Skywalker’s transformation into Darth Vader, as I understand it, grows largely from his fear of losing the people he loves. His desire to prevent loss becomes a desire for control. His desire for control becomes vulnerability to manipulation.

That is an extraordinarily human progression.

Fear whispers that control will save us.

If I can control this relationship, I will not be abandoned.

If I can control every possibility, I will not be surprised.

If I can control what people think, I will not be rejected.

If I can control enough money, influence, information, institutions, or people, maybe nothing can hurt me again.

Life does not make that bargain.

Trying to eliminate vulnerability can make us cruel.

Trying to prevent every loss can make us possessive.

Trying to control everything can leave us controlled by fear itself.

There is something almost painfully recognizable in the idea that a man destroys much of what he loves trying to guarantee that he will never lose it.

No lightsaber required.

Love and Possession Are Very Different Things

The Jedi teachings about attachment have generated plenty of criticism, much of which seems deserved.

From everything I have read, the Jedi can occasionally sound like people who encountered a traumatized young man and responded, “Have you tried being less emotionally complicated?”

Wonderful.

Perhaps next they could recommend herbal tea.

Still, the distinction between love and attachment is worth examining.

Love allows another person to exist outside our control.

Possession does not.

Love says that I care deeply about you.

Possession says that you must remain where I need you.

Love recognizes that another person has choices, desires, boundaries, fears, dreams, and an identity separate from ours.

Possession turns another person into part of our emotional infrastructure.

The tragedy of Anakin and Padmé seems to sit right in that distinction.

His fear of losing her begins to overpower his respect for who she is. Protecting her becomes controlling her. Loving her becomes needing her survival to secure his own emotional existence.

At some point, the language of love remains, but the behavior no longer resembles love.

That feels relevant far beyond Star Wars.

People sometimes hurt each other in the name of love.

Parents control adult children “out of love.”

Partners become jealous “out of love.”

Institutions silence criticism “to protect the community.”

Governments restrict people “for their own good.”

The word love can become camouflage for control surprisingly fast.

Real love has to leave room for another human being to remain a separate human being.

That is harder than it sounds.

Compassion May Be the Real Strength in Star Wars

The Sith apparently prefer domination.

The Jedi, at their best, prefer service.

That conflict gives Star Wars a moral structure that children can understand and adults can spend decades arguing about.

One of the scenes I have read the most about occurs near the end of Return of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker refuses to kill Darth Vader in hatred. He throws away his weapon rather than becoming what Emperor Palpatine wants him to become.

I have never watched the scene.

Yet I understand why people keep writing about it.

The hero wins by refusing to become cruel.

That is much more interesting than simply winning the fight.

Luke has reasons to hate Vader. Quite a few, apparently. Vader has terrorized the galaxy, harmed people Luke loves, participated in mass violence, cut off Luke’s hand, and delivered what may be cinema’s most famous surprise paternity announcement.

Luke still refuses to reduce him completely to those acts.

That does not mean Luke pretends Vader is innocent.

Compassion is not pretending harm never happened.

Compassion says that another person remains human after doing something wrong.

Sometimes very wrong.

Sometimes horrifyingly wrong.

That is uncomfortable territory.

Our culture often prefers easier categories.

Good person.

Bad person.

Hero.

Villain.

Victim.

Monster.

Star Wars complicates those categories.

People become things.

People can become other things.

That brings us to redemption.

Redemption Is One of the Most Radical Ideas in the Franchise

Darth Vader’s redemption fascinates me, perhaps more than anything else I have read about Star Wars.

This character commits enormous atrocities.

Then, in the end, he makes another choice.

That final choice does not erase what came before.

Redemption cannot function like a cosmic delete key. The people harmed do not suddenly become unharmed. The dead do not return. Destruction does not magically repair itself.

Yet the story insists that moral choice remains possible.

That idea is profound.

Human beings love permanent identities.

Once someone has failed badly enough, we often decide that failure is who they are.

Once someone has committed a crime, struggled with addiction, betrayed somebody, lost everything, embarrassed themselves publicly, or spent years making terrible decisions, society becomes very comfortable declaring the story finished.

Star Wars seems to reject that.

The past has consequences.

The past has weight.

The past is real.

The past does not necessarily get the final vote.

That is a spiritual teaching I can get behind without ever seeing one second of a lightsaber duel.

A person can be accountable for yesterday and still choose differently tomorrow.

Those two ideas do not cancel each other.

The Jedi Apparently Have an Institutional Problem

One aspect of Star Wars that fascinates me is how frequently the Jedi themselves are criticized.

They are supposed to represent wisdom, restraint, discipline, and service, yet the Jedi Order becomes rigid, politically entangled, overconfident, and astonishingly poor at noticing that evil is operating right in front of them.

I find this delightful.

Not the galactic catastrophe part.

The institutional commentary.

An organization can possess admirable principles and still behave badly.

Religious institutions know this.

Governments know this.

Universities know this.

Nonprofits know this.

Political organizations know this.

Advocacy groups know this.

Every institution eventually faces the temptation to believe that defending itself is the same thing as defending its mission.

Those are very different activities.

The Jedi seem to become so confident in their understanding of the world that they stop seeing the world clearly.

That is an ancient human problem.

Certainty can become blindness.

Tradition can preserve wisdom.

Tradition can preserve mistakes too.

An institution that cannot question itself eventually begins confusing its survival with moral righteousness.

At that point, somebody probably needs to invite Yoda into the board meeting.

Failure Does Not Have to Become Identity

Yoda is famous for teaching that failure can be a great teacher.

I appreciate that idea more when I remember that Yoda himself failed rather dramatically.

The Republic collapses.

The Jedi Order collapses.

Anakin becomes Darth Vader.

Palpatine rises.

Yoda winds up living in a swamp.

That is not exactly the résumé of somebody who got everything right.

Yet failure becomes part of his wisdom.

That is important.

We often treat failure in two equally unhelpful ways.

Some people deny it.

Others become it.

“I failed” and “I am a failure” sound similar.

Spiritually, they are miles apart.

One describes an event.

The other declares an identity.

Failure can teach us where our assumptions were wrong. It can show us where pride got involved. It can expose harm we did not see at the time. It can reveal that our methods contradicted our values.

Failure can hurt terribly.

It can still teach.

That lesson appears throughout the Star Wars interpretations I have read.

Characters are constantly confronted with the question of whether yesterday determines tomorrow.

Apparently, in that galaxy, it does not.

I suspect the same is true in this one.

Grief Cannot Be Controlled Into Submission

One of the darkest spiritual themes in Star Wars is grief.

Anakin’s fear of loss drives much of his collapse.

Other characters lose parents, children, friends, worlds, identities, communities, and entire futures.

The Jedi response can sound painfully detached. Telling someone to release what they fear losing may contain spiritual wisdom, but I would probably recommend considerably more compassion in the delivery.

Grief does not respond well to instructions.

You cannot reason it away.

You cannot bargain it into leaving.

You cannot schedule it for Thursday between 2:00 and 3:30.

You cannot control love enough to guarantee that loss will never arrive.

This may be where Star Wars carries one of its hardest teachings.

Loving someone means accepting vulnerability.

The only guaranteed way never to grieve deeply is never to love deeply.

That seems like a terrible bargain.

Star Wars uses Force ghosts to dramatize the idea that people continue after death in some form.

You do not have to believe in literal spirits to understand the metaphor.

People remain in us.

They remain in habits, stories, language, memories, values, scars, jokes, recipes, photographs, arguments, lessons, and all those strange little things we realize years later we picked up from them.

Death ends a life.

It does not necessarily end influence.

We Are Not Our Bloodlines

Star Wars seems unusually obsessed with genealogy.

People discover fathers.

They discover grandfathers.

They discover family secrets.

Apparently nobody in this galaxy can simply take a DNA test and quietly process the results.

Yet the stories repeatedly insist that ancestry is not destiny.

Luke does not have to become Vader.

Leia does not have to become Vader.

Rey does not have to become Palpatine.

Finn is raised by the First Order and still chooses conscience.

That idea resonates strongly with me.

We inherit things.

Family patterns.

Trauma.

Beliefs.

Economic circumstances.

Expectations.

Names.

Stories.

Sometimes shame.

Sometimes courage.

Sometimes both.

Inheritance influences us.

It does not own us.

Where we came from can explain parts of us without dictating who we must become.

That is spiritual freedom.

Maybe This Is Why Star Wars Refuses to Go Away

I have never watched Star Wars, yet I have spent decades encountering its ideas.

That says something.

Very few stories become so culturally embedded that people who have never experienced the original text still understand the moral vocabulary.

I know what “the dark side” means.

I understand what people mean when they talk about someone having a Darth Vader moment.

I know that the Force represents something larger than individual ego.

I know Yoda represents wisdom mixed with highly questionable sentence construction.

That kind of cultural staying strength does not come entirely from special effects.

Technology ages.

The spiritual questions do not.

What do we do with fear?

What do we do with grief?

Can people change?

Does love require letting go?

Can institutions become so certain of their goodness that they stop recognizing their failures?

Can a person carry a terrible past without being sentenced to repeat it forever?

Can compassion survive anger?

Can we admit that we were wrong without deciding that we are worthless?

Those questions are older than Star Wars.

They will probably outlive it.

George Lucas gave them spaceships.

Maybe that is part of the genius.

I still cannot tell you whether the movies are actually good.

For that, I would probably have to watch them.

Let us not get carried away.

What I can say is that a story does not survive nearly fifty years merely through nostalgia. Something inside it keeps speaking to people.

From everything I have read, Star Wars keeps returning to one idea more than almost any other: our emotions are real, our histories are real, our wounds are real, and none of them has to make our next decision for us.

Fear can speak.

We do not have to obey it.

Grief can hurt.

We do not have to let it destroy everything around us.

Failure can shame us.

We do not have to turn it into identity.

The past can follow us.

We do not have to hand it the steering wheel.

Perhaps that is the strangest part of writing about the spiritual teachings of a movie series I have never seen.

I came looking for what Star Wars supposedly teaches.

I found ideas I already recognized.

Maybe that is why millions of people keep going back to that galaxy far, far away.

The scenery may be different.

The questions are ours.