Revisionist Star Wars, Episode IX

 

[A beaten man stands against the ocean waves upon the wreckage. 

A hooded, shadowy figure approaches.]

B: Who are you?

A: Search your feelings, you know...[Removes hood to reveal glowing face]

Grandson.

B: I liked you better with the helmet.

A: You know, when Luke took the helmet off me, I thought it was the end of Darth Vader. 

But a lifetime of evil can’t be wiped away so easily, can it? 

The galaxy is still suffering for my crimes, and you...

[Pause]

I’m sorry, Ben.

B [turns away]: The past is dead-I make my own choices.

A: Oh, it’s not so easy to get free of the Emperor, is it? 

[pause]

But you’re right...you have a choice now.

B [turns back]: If you’re so concerned, why not come sooner? Why let the Emperor pretend to be you?

A: I’ve been here at Endor, waiting for you. 

This is where it happened, you know-where I was saved.

B: Saved? Don’t you mean destroyed?

A: Saved, destroyed...doesn’t it depend on your point of view? 

What would your mother say?

B [turns away again]: She’s gone. I’ve felt it.

A: You can’t see her or hear her, that’s true. But you can feel her presence still, can’t you? 

[Pause]

And your father. 

No one is ever truly gone.

B [shaking head]: You’re too late. It’s too late.

A [Looks at hand]: I had to be wounded by someone I loved, before I could see...

[Pause]

Even after all I had done, I had enough hope to let go of my hate. 

[Looks at B, opens hands]

B: I know what I have to do...but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.

A: You've always been strong. So do, or do not. But stop lying to yourself that it's anyone else's choice but yours.

[B ignites his lightsaber, and hurls it at the apparition, who disappears. It hurtles into the sea.]

Voice: The Force will be with you...always.

Night Prayer Novena for Year of Saint Joseph

 

Night Prayer Novena to Saint Joseph

A: Let us praise Christ the Lord, as we celebrate the memory of Saint Joseph.

A: Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit

B: As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, Amen.

A: At the close of the day, let us call to mind our sins and Christ’s mercy.

(Pause)

A: Almighty God, have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.

B: Amen.

In Praise of Saint Joseph (to simpler tune of Tantum Ergo Sacramentum)

Joseph, patron saint of workers,
blending skill with charity,
silent carpenter, we praise you!
Joining work with honesty,
you taught Christ with joy to labor,
sharing his nobility.

Joseph, close to Christ and Mary,
lived with them in poverty,
shared with them their home and labor,
worked with noble dignity.
May we seek God’s will as you did,
leader of his family!

Joseph, inspiration for workers,
man of faith and charity,
make us honest, humble, faithful,
strong with Christ’s true liberty,
Make our labor and our leisure
fruitful to eternity!

Prayer for Work

A: Glorious Saint Joseph, you are the pattern of all who work. Obtain for us, please, the grace to work conscientiously and to put devotion to duty before my selfish inclinations. Help me to labor in thankfulness and joy, for it is an honor to employ and to develop by my labor the gifts I have received from almighty God. Grant that I may work in orderliness, peace, moderation and patience without shrinking from weariness and difficulties.

B: I offer my fatigue and perplexities as reparation for sin. I shall work, above all, with a pure intention and with detachment from self, having always before my eyes the hour of death and the accounting which I must then render of time ill-spent, of talents unemployed, of good undone, and of empty pride in success, which is so fatal to the work of God. For Jesus through Mary, all in imitation of you, good St. Joseph. This shall be my motto in life and in death.

Both: Amen.

 

Word of God

A: A Reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Colossians (3:23-24)

A: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord, and not for yourselves. Remember that the Lord will reward you; you will receive what he has kept for his people. For Christ is the real master you serve.

(Pause)

A: The just shall blossom like lilies.

B: The just shall blossom like lilies.

A: They shall flourish forever in the courts of our God

B: The just shall blossom like lilies.

A: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit

B: The just shall blossom like lilies.

 

Intercessory Prayers

A: The Lord is the giver of holiness. Let us turn to him and pray:

B: Holy God, raise us up to new life in holiness.

Both: God our Father, graciously hear us

A: Lord our God, you called our ancestors in faith to walk before you in holiness of heart.

B: May we follow in their footsteps, and obey your command to be perfect.

Both: God our Father, graciously hear us

A: You chose Joseph the righteous to care for your Son in childhood and youth.

B: Teach us to care for Christ’s body by caring for our brothers and sisters.

Both: God our Father, graciously hear us

A: You entrusted the earth to humankind, to people it and make it prosper.

B; Inspire us to work wholeheartedly in this world, seeking always to give you glory.

Both: God our Father, graciously hear us

A: Father of all humankind, do not forget what your hands have made.

B: Grant that all who work may have secure employment and a fitting standard of living.

Both: God our Father, graciously hear us

 

Novena Prayer

Both:

O glorious Saint Joseph,

faithful follower of Jesus Christ,

we implore your powerful intercession

in obtaining from the merciful heart of Jesus

all the helps and graces necessary

for our spiritual and temporal welfare,

particularly for the grace of a happy death

and the special favor we now request...

 

(State your requests here.)

 

O guardian of the Word Incarnate,

we have confidence that your prayers

in our behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God.

Amen.

 

Closing Prayer for the Spirit of Work

A: God our Father, Creator and Ruler of the universe, in every age you call us to use and develop our gifts for the good of others. With St. Joseph as our guide, help us to do the work you have asked and come to the rewards you have promised. Please grant this through Christ our Lord.

B: Amen.

Final Blessing

A: May almighty God bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.

B: Amen

Church Leaders Urge Faithful to Ignore Letter from 'So-Called' Apostle Paul

Calling the letter-writer an angry partisan with scores to settle in the church, the bishop of Corinth urged the faithful to ignore a letter from self-styled apostle "Paul" (Saul of Tarsus), a former key Church emissary to the prosperous region.

"He is exploiting an already difficult situation to promote his own version of the Gospel, calling us 'unspiritual,'" the bishop explains from his comfortable home, adding, "this name-calling is hardly what we need in this troubling time."

The Corinthian Church has been roiled by the emerging scandal that prominent leaders knew about a man living with his father's wife, a situation that has brought charges of hypocrisy on a congregation already maligned by their neighbors for belonging to a religion with oppressively restrictive views on sex and worship. "He is an extremist obsessed with sexual morality and personal piety," the bishop observes, "who praises celibacy and condemns the reasonable accommodations we have made in Corinth to our surrounding culture."

Paul's letter has exacerbated tensions in a church already divided into factions. Some of his own party have praised his integrity and noted his prominent position in the church means he should at least be taken seriously, pointing out that he gained nothing financially from his service in Corinth.

However, this is not the first controversy to which Paul has been a party. "He has shown disrespect to Cephas himself," reports the bishop of Galatia, adding, "I am just raising objective concerns and not at all angry that he called me stupid." "This is a man whose past is checkered, who stood by at the stoning of Stephen," adds a Thessalonian, "How can we accept what he says now?" 

Paul, known for his temper and ambition--calling himself an "apostle," although he was not one of Jesus of Nazareth's original followers--has urged the group to "cast out" those involved in the scandal. But he does not stop there, tying it to his larger crusade against "immorality," greed, eating meat sacrificed to idols, and other supposed sins. "He wants us 'not to even eat with' someone who breaks legalistic rules about sex, money, or drinking," complains the bishop of Corinth. "How is this consistent with Christ's Gospel of Mercy? Pharisee!"

"You have to look at motive, and the flaws of the messenger," concludes the bishop, "and this allows you to disregard the message."

All the enlightened church leaders agree--ignore this letter, belittle its author, and it will simply go away.

The food chain--a cat's paradise

I've been thinking recently about "the food chain."

Humans like to think they are on the "top" of the food chain. I submit this is true despite recent efforts to make humanity "one species among many." Just as often as someone defends the dignity of man, based on reason or freedom or the ability to drive a car 500 laps in a circle and not usually crash, there is someone at least thinking that we're the best by the simple fact that we are more likely to eat than be eaten.

The food chain is supposed to look like this.
Plants.

We make them into bread, but we also intentionally feed them to other animals that we want to eat.

Then, we combine the two and eat them.

Herbivore + carnivore = omnivore.
Sure, some people decide to forgo eating meat, but that only proves the point--what other species consciously chooses not to eat a key part of its natural diet. Only the best, obviously.

Now, there are these folks--the top predators.

We don't normally eat them, and in some time periods, some situations, and some countries, we have real trouble with them eating us.
Still, we've by and large reached the point where, if we wanted to wipe them out, we could. And in fact we are to a significant extent doing that, by a combination of people who want to (because they face real threats from these predators) and people who don't mean to, but whose choices shrink habitat or otherwise impede their ecological necessities.

And you may have heard on the news, some of us still like to kill them just to show off.

But I haven't been thinking about this problem just because of that news. I've been thinking about it because my daughter's leg was looking like this:

(I couldn't put a real picture of bites--too gross).

Now, I know, mosquitoes don't "eat" humans whole.
But:
1) They kill a lot of people--an estimated 1 million people worldwide per year.
2) We could eradicate them, but only with really nasty pesticides that would harm us and a lot of other things.
3) We kill a lot of them when they bite us, but--trust me on this--there are always more!

But that doesn't mean mosquitoes--even the "Asian tiger" mosquitoes (interesting name) we seem to have in my area--are the top of the food chains.

 (Look out mosquito, the purple martin is coming for you).

And what eats birds? Well, mostly other birds, but that's not where I'm going with this.

The domesticated cat is the top of the food chain. Because they have allied with us, these cats benefit from all of the "we-kill-what-we-want-to" advantages that humans have. But they also stand as the things that eat the things that eat us.

This raises the question--did we domesticate cats, or did cats domesticate us? Did cats get together when we were getting good at teaming up on large predators and say, "The only way to conquer them is to make them our slaves"?

Now, domesticated cats are too small to actually attack us--this was the compromise they had to accept in order to carry out their plan and enjoy the population growth and protection that they've gotten as "pets." They could have tried to stay big and urge one another to act nice and domesticated, but as we all know, nobody can hold a cat to anything. Giving up their size advantage was the only option.

But, cat lovers, raise your hand if you think your beloved feline would hesitate to eat you if you accidentally shrunk-rayed yourself to mouse size?

You may protest that cats don't eat that many mosquito-eating birds. But that's not the point. They don't have to, because we serve their food up on a platter.

 Maybe we do this, not only out of interspecies-friendship, but to acknowledge the true heads of the food chain, who "graciously" deign to allow us to serve them.

Lucasfilm and Disney Eliminate Return of the Jedi and Expanded Universe

Star Wars Return of the Jedi and its Expanded Universe have been retired. Also, expect a new cut of Episodes I through III at some point.

For years, like our universe, the Star Wars "Expanded Universe" universe expanded at an ever-increasing pace: comic books, animated series, conventions, bad holiday specials, video games, theme park rides, spoofs, tie-in novels, YouTube viral videos, Pentagon defense programs, and so on. Some of these filled in back-story on the Intergalatic Republic or Han Solo or certain Ewoks. But others, crucially, told the story post-Return of the Jedi, of Han and Leia's children as well as Luke's wife and child.

With new ownership from Disney and the plans for a new Star Wars movie trilogy covering the story of Han and Leia's children and any Skywalker wife and/or child, it was long expected that Lucasfilm would have to clarify the relationship between the Expanded Universe and its new film, along with the tie-in animated series, books, theme park rides, etc.

Here's the relationship: the new stuff voids the old stuff. You can still buy the old stuff, under the Star Wars "Legends" moniker, but it isn't canon or even quasi-canon. It could be fodder for future canon, but how many of those EU storylines will appear in the new Disneyfied Star Wars remains to be seen.

The stunner, though, was when a Lucasfilm spokesperson confirmed that everything following the iconic "Luke, I am your father" scene is also noncanonical, which includes the end of Empire Strikes Back and the entirety of the third film in the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi (also known as Episode VI), has also been deemed non-canonical.

"George Lucas always told Disney the only truly canonical works were the six films and the latest Clone Wars animated series," said spokeswoman Notta Realperson. "So we were going to go with that. But then Bob Iger [Disney CEO] and Kathleen Kennedy [new head of Lucasfilm] watched the alternative ending over at How It Should Have Ended on YouTube. I mean, have you seen that? After Luke's arm is cut off and he tries to get away by letting go and falling into the giant drop, Vader just grabs him by the Force and pulls him back up. And Bob and Kathleen said, 'yeah, that's what should have happened.' When George conceded he hadn't thought of that, and that it could have happened, we knew we had to go a different direction."

The full Lucasfilm statement further explains,
"While George Lucas tried to create a thrilling and coherent conclusion to his original Star Wars trilogy, we all know that trilogies are very difficult to complete. The new Star Wars timeline will thus erase such unfortunate elements such as the Ewoks and the greatest bounty hunter of all time, Boba Fett, being accidentally killed by a temporarily blind guy. With the new timeline, we have a chance to create a believable logic to the Star Wars Universe like never before. Elements of the 'Legends' Return of the Jedi, like Han and Leia's love story or Luke's face being half-lit so that it is also half-dark, will of course be retained."

As it would be difficult to re-make Return of the Jedi while also making a new trilogy of movies, the re-told third saga of the original trilogy will be retold first in exciting new entries in the Star Wars encyclopedia, Wookiepedia, which will be followed by video games, novels, and the like. As for what to expect from this revised storyline, spokeswoman Notta Realperson commented:

"The details aren't all set, but it's a fantastic storyline. Because Darth Vader has Luke in custody but Luke won't turn to the Dark Side, the Emperor orders Darth to kill his son. When Vader refuses, we get an actual Star War between those elements of the Empire that side with the Emperor and those that follow Vader. On a large scale, that means the Rebellion will be able to step in after a bloody civil war, which when you think about it makes a lot more sense than their little fleet taking over the vast empire by itself. On a human scale, you have Luke's struggle to win over his father while not falling into Darkness himself, and there's plenty for all the other characters to do as well. But it's probably worth mentioning that Boba Fett doesn't die and plays a bigger role than ever."

In a further clarification, Lucasfilm explained that, despite some fans' hopes to the contrary, the events from Episodes I through III are still canon. However, the dialogue would all be re-written and re-dubbed by Disney lackey Joss Whedon, director of Avengers, Avengers 2, and some other obscure but cool stuff. Spokeswoman Notta Realperson explained, "Once we determined there was not an opportunity for a Marvel-Star Wars crossover, we looked for other ways to utilize our cross-brand talent. Bob and Kathleen noted that a lot of the lines in Episodes I through III are real clunkers, and that Joss is the best snappy comeback writer in the business."

Most of the Episode I through III actors will reprise their roles as voice actors, but there will be some notable exceptions. Robert Downey Jr. is rumored to be replacing  the voice of Jar Jar Binks. An unnamed source close to the Iron Man quoted him as saying, "They could never afford me, but my kids just begged me to help fix those films. And who can disagree--if you could just replace Jar Jar with someone actually funny, how great would Episode I be?" Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman, both of whom are dying to be in Episodes VII through IX but whose characters are, in fact, dead, are among those expected to return for the re-dubbing.

Also, it should be remembered that many people have sunk a whole lot of their time, energy, and money into those Expanded Universe properties as well, and Lucasfilm has tossed all of that aside. Lucasfilm acknowledges that kind of sucks, but not enough to actually apologize. Instead, they've created a video that memorializes the now-obsolete content which they still hope to sell. "A lot of people love the EU," commented the spokeswoman Notta Realperson, "I mean, probably more people than love the actual European Union-EU. It means a lot to me personally; I was named after Notta Karr, who is better known as the Old Republic Jedi Atton Rand. You know, 'Jaq'? You don't know? Look, a lot of people know what I'm talking about. Really, it's a lot of people. Really."

Family and Identity: Changing Last Names for Marriage

In a clearly-written entry at the Huffington Post entitled Why I'm Not Changing My Last Name for Marriage, "Reflective Bride" explains why she isn't changing her surname for marriage. The dubiously patriarchal background to the practice of women taking their husbands' surnames is one reason, but not the main reason; the main reason is that she feels attached to her name is "my name is my identity." She is not changing her name, above all, because "I just don't believe in changing one's identity for marriage." She juxtaposes this conviction with her friends' rejoinder that having the same last name is "nice." I want to spell out reflectively what might lay behind her unreflective friends' sense of "niceness."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reflective-bride/why-im-not-changing-my-la_b_5172581.html?fb_action_ids=712621948784595&fb_action_types=og.likes

While I agree with several points in her article, whether or not a woman or man do change their names when they marry, I think this reason reflects a misunderstanding of what marriage is. In short, you cannot marry without altering your identity, whether you change your name or not--and if you are not willing to be altered, you are not really getting married. Stephen Sondheim has a wonderful song about marriage without personal alteration in his show Company, entitled "Marry Me a Little."

Marry me a little
Love me just enough
Pure and clear and easy
Just the simple stuff
Keep a tender distance
So we'll both be free
That's the way it ought to be.

This doesn't work out too well for the protagonist, and he comes to a more realistic understanding later:

Somebody need me too much.

Somebody know me too well.

Somebody pull me up short,

And put me through hell,

And give me support,

For being alive.

Make me alive.

Make me alive.

But saying that marriage requires personal sacrifice isn't the same as saying it requires sacrificing one's identity. Women aren't "chattel property" after all. And even Sondheim's lyrics don't get at the heart of what's really happening in marriage, because the horizon still seems to be of marriage as an interaction of individuals, when in fact the essential dimension of marriage is the formation of family.

Consider Reflective Bride's definition of a wedding (and this is from a woman who is a wedding blogger): weddings "bring together family and friends, celebrate your love, and are an excuse for an awesome party." But weddings don't just "celebrate your love," although they do that. They celebrate the formation of a new nuclear family, which then carries with it various relationships to existing maternal and paternal family members. Fathers and mothers "don't so much lose a daughter as gain a son" (and vice versa). Weddings anticipate or bless the existence of grandchildren who will belong to both family lines.

In more traditional societies, what I'm referring to as "formation of family," was rather more like "the continuation of family." In patriarchal societies, this would mean the wife leaving her father's house and joining her husband's father's house. Each "nuclear" family unit was less like a start-up firm and more like a subsidiary of a larger firm that might, perhaps, rise to be the governing force of the larger family, but otherwise perpetually remained beneath it. I know there were also matriarchal and matrilineal societies and many variations, all of which I have forgotten if I had ever read about them. But it seems safe to say that the nuclear family as a mostly independent entity is historically unusual, and thus we cannot speak of the "traditional" family except insofar as we "receive" that tradition, preserving its best traits while casting a critical eye towards what came before.

The subjugation of women in this tradition deserves such a critical eye, so I think Reflective Bride is right to challenge men to ask, "Why wouldn't you change your name?" If a man can't reflect on the tradition enough to have a reason he expects his wife to change her surname--while he would never consider changing his--then he can hardly answer the challenge of sexism. What I am arguing is that forming a new nuclear family is the creation of a unity to which each of the partners needs to learn to subjugate their own individual identities (although only to a certain extent) for the good of the whole.

Thus, even if the "maiden name" assumption is challenged, the problem still remains: how do you take two disparate people and forge a single unit--the family, that is, the nuclear family. Or rather, how do you recognize that this is what you are doing when you marry? A common and very fitting way to recognize this union is the assumption of a single surname.

It would almost seem fitting, in the era of nuclear familialism, to come up with an entirely new name just for these two people and any offspring they beget or adopt. But I've never heard of anyone actually doing this in part because modern kinship ties, though weaker than ever, still count.

Indeed, the personal identity we carry in our surnames is generally built upon our family history, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer. This is because our "personal identity" is never merely individual, but always comes from somewhere and points somewhere. Reflective Bride acknowledges that the name she wants to keep is "her father's name," but simply says that this unchosen origin of her name is now irrelevant because "that's who I see myself as." But if we acknowledge that in fact, our surname is familial, that is represents that part of ourselves which (unlike a first name or middle name or nickname) belongs to others, then changing it is simply an acknowledgment of a new belonging that has to come first, ahead of other belongings. I suggest that this sense of unity, of belongingness, is what is so "nice" for her friends about taking their husbands' surname. We are no longer merely you and me, we are also we.

In my own experience, this use of surnames is very much in evidence. We talk all the time about the Richardsons or the Flaherties, and my wife and I get called jointly by our surnames all the time. Never is this taken to mean, "Mr. Richardson and his chattel," still less, "the slaves or possessions of Patriarch Thurber." It allows these families to be seen linguistically as what they are--units. So much so that with marriages who did not take the same surname we tend to mash them up into funny shipping titles ala "Bennifer."

This doesn't make the traditional presumption of taking the patrilineal name any more equal, and so, as Reflective Bride observes, there are a number of more or less satisfying solutions that are tried, mostly involving hyphenation. For anyone who cannot stand this historical inequality, or who has compelling reasons not to take their spouse's name (such as professional name-branding, or any of the other hypotheses lobbed at the Reflective Bride as to why she is keeping her inherited surname), the need for a single surname is not overwhelmingly compelling. But it is sufficiently fitting that we should not bat an eyelash that the presumption is for a name change, whether or not it is "old-fashioned."

Also, cultural expectations shouldn't be completely ignored--if everyone is driving on the right side of the road, it's what people expect. A family with one son may be hurt if he "abandons" the family name, whereas the "surprised" family whose daughter and her children keep their family name may not have invested as much in the possibility. Whereas following tradition generally garners a shrug, breaking it may be seen as a personal slight.

My personal opinion is that men and women looking at marriage should weigh all of these considerations, and that men should look at taking their wives' names or hyphenating their name and having the kids bear their wives' surnames. And then men and women should look at retaining a name professionally while using the family surname in their private lives. By "all of these considerations," they could be wide-ranging and include many things Reflective Bride mentions--being much closer to one side of the family or another, the reactions of extended family, how the names sound together, weeding out particular unfortunate surnames, and the like. The safest route, if taking the husband's surname is problematic, may be for the wife to keep her surname rather than doing something unusual that might offend the family. In my own case, had I taken my wife's surname, I would have had the same name as a rather notorious politician.

None of this means that the woman (or man) should be subsumed into the other. Unlike the practice of referring collectively to the "Coxes," the practice of calling a woman Mrs. John Smith--of subsuming her identity entirely--could be confined to irrelevance; I think it already sounds merely old-fashioned anyway. In any case, I am unaware of any contemporary women who have literally given up their first and middle or any other names, so that the couple became referred to as "Kevin and Mrs. Kevin." That's because the taking of a surname only touches part of one's identity, while the most personal of portion of our identity--the first-name basis--remains wholly our own.

To begin to wrap up, my argument could be said to break apart on the grounds that postmodern families are "blended" and thus already past the nuclear familialism I have presupposed, and that the notion of the nuclear family as a "unit" or a "whole" is "old-fashioned." I will respond that, in the absence of the notion of a common good that is larger than either spouse, sacrifice and benefit become a zero-sum game between the spouses, such that the best that can be achieved is a constant attempt to be fair and equal. Should this mutually beneficial arrangement break down, such as when one spouse suffers illness or injury and can't "pay their fair share," even a relatively good marriage itself may break down with it. A marriage, on the other hand, that has become "we" (without subsuming either I, but acknowledging that each's identity has been changed in important ways) can instead hope all things, believe all things, love all things, and endure all things. Surnames don't accomplish all this, of course, or even very much of it, and a family of many different surnames and personalities can certainly become a unit. But, I'll use that word again--having the same surname is fitting to it.

In conclusion, Reflective Bride notes at the beginning of her article that marriage "doesn't feel any different" for her. I have to say that my experience was completely the opposite, and not just because of the old-fashioned mores respected by my wife and I, which kept us from living together and other intimacies. I knew that my life had changed, even though my name had not changed, because this woman had entrusted her life--even her name--to me, and that she was my responsibility as much as I became hers. For as long as we both shall live, my identity is forever changed, and I have no hopes (or fears) of recovering "who I am" apart from her, but rather walk side-by-side with her towards my destiny through the concrete sacrifices of the family life we live together.