Bendemption: Here and in a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Part Three: A contrite heart you will not despise
In Part One I set the context for Bendemption in Western
society: #MeToo the “cancel” culture that followed it. In Part Two I discussed
why Bendemption can’t occur via Reylo, but held out hope that Ben’s return can
be a compelling lesson in the dual movement of men stepping back to reflect and
make space, and then stepping forward as active, constructive partners in
relationships and in society as a whole. As Luke Skywalker reminds Del Meeko in
the Battlefront II story, we all have the choice to be better, and
to be active agents in a better world.
And so for Luke’s nephew, redemption won’t simply be the act
of leaving Kylo Ren: it’ll involve the opportunity to be better for the
galaxy, for Rey and for himself. Now in Part Three, I can turn back to Psalm 51
to help us see what Ben’s moment of reflection might look like: what he might
have to leave behind and what he might learn anew. I’ll quote portions of the
Psalm, but the whole thing is worth reading here (it isn’t that long).
Notably, the Psalmist directly confronts the limits of the
law, that it can only get us so far. He addresses God with the conviction,
“You have no delight in sacrifice [in this case, the legal
demands of justice];
if I were to give
a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and
contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Ben may indeed have to be “postponed” for a time, but this
cannot simply be to keep the galaxy safe from Kylo Ren, as if Ben no longer has
anything to offer.
Nevertheless, the first task of this moment would be to get
in touch with his sense of contrition. It would provide him the opportunity to
gain an awareness of the ways he has harmed others. As the Psalmist cries, “I
know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” But what is the scale
of the Psalmist’s transgressions? “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and
done what is evil in your sight.” This is a curious claim: David has very much
sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, and Kylo has sinned against Rey and against
his own father. But this claim refuses to reduce the Psalmist’s actions to two
isolated individuals, because one is too many. And why is one too many? Because
the harm brought to one relationship is harm against all relationships, against
relationality itself, and therefore against the God who is Love. Relationships
are personal, and political, and matters of identity. For the King of God’s
Chosen People and for the Supreme Leader of the First Order, the political
dimensions are more apparent: they are national, global, galactic, cosmic. But
for all of us, causing harm to relationships is an opposition to the God of
love, to the Balance of the Force.
But this is precisely where the story turns, because the
only reason we’re capable of affecting others for evil is because we can affect
others at all, so we can affect them for good. We risk the harm of
relationships because we need the good that comes from connecting with others,
since that relational connection is intrinsic to our human identity as
persons-in-community. The rest of the Psalm is devoted to learning this
goodness, first with the posture of a humble student, a Padawan who turns to a
power beyond himself:
“You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me
wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I
shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that
you have crushed rejoice….
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and
right spirit within me….
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me
a willing spirit.”
This turn to goodness is made clear by repetition, as is
common in Hebrew poetry. Just as notable however is what the Psalmist doesn’t
say, what he doesn’t do. Throughout this process, the Psalmist refuses to shame
victims, or to make himself into a victim of some sort of counter-revolution.
That victim-narrative is the same sort of political game that would use “cheap
grace” as an excuse to continue harming others. Not only is the Psalmist
prevented from descending into these political games: he finds that he doesn’t need
to in the first place. He is free to quit the game, and find his own
well-being, the “joy of salvation,” in the Perfect Life of God, because he is free
to be vulnerable again. This freed vulnerability offered by the moment of
repentance opens us up to the Spirit's work of "grafting us
into" the Perfect Life of Christ, who gathers this family of imperfect
followers together in lives of mutual responsibility, respect, care and love,
and restores penitents to these relationships with God and with others. The
“moment” may be lifelong, but it is tangibly real: ask anyone who has been
found by this hope to tell you their story.
In fact, the Psalmist is most decisively set on the lifelong
way of redemption when he is ready to tell this story to others. Like Yoda, he
continues to be a humble student who has been “[taught] wisdom in [his] secret
heart,” but is therefore able to pass along his wisdom to others:
“Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will
return to you.
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my
salvation,
and my tongue will
sing aloud of your deliverance.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will
declare your praise.”
He is no longer “postponed,” but an active agent who
proclaims the right order of the cosmos, pursues the Balance of the Force, and
aids others in following that path. He has found the family that Rey, Poe,
Finn, Rose and others have found, and able to actively treat them well. Why?
Because he has returned to himself, acknowledged his sin as well as his need
for family, for home, and the desires that express this need.
This may all be too much for Ben to undergo in one film: we
may only see the start, the initial moment of contrition and surrender, and
possibly the first steps of dismantling the effects of his past actions:
destroying his shrine to Vader, confronting Sidious. But that beginning may be
what we need as a society in order to start teaching men and boys to return to
themselves, return to that spark of light and compassion that we all contain. The
most compelling possibility for Ben’s return to himself is hinted at even in
the Psalmist’s reflection on our fundamental sinfulness:
“Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my
mother conceived me.”
I was ultimately convinced of the storytelling power of
Bendemption when I began to consider the role that Leia might play in his
narrative. Rather than being derivative of the Luke-Anakin story, it would
provide a powerful mirror image within the Skywalker family that opens
up the character possibilities that were closed when Anakin died, the
opportunity for Ben as an active agent of the light that I described above.
This isn’t to reduce Leia’s story, or womanhood itself, to
the role of motherhood. It merely takes advantage of the fact that being Ben’s mother
is a part of who Leia is, one of the many ways that she can bring hope
and light to the galaxy. Also, ask healthy parents just how much their roles as
parents become parts of their own core identities, and how much they want their
children to, in Yoda’s words, “grow beyond” them. Leia’s story was well told in
the Original Trilogy, so she can and does have a supporting role for
Rey, Ben, Poe and the other main characters of the Sequel Trilogy.
Hopefully there’s enough archival footage of Carrie Fisher
to tell this story convincingly, because convincing it would most certainly be.
Ben’s mother is powerfully positioned to help him return to his core
identity, to his first home in her womb, which we were given a glimpse of in
the Aftermath trilogy. Because there’s that other Psalm of praise about
birth, which hearkens back to the beginning of the Skywalker lineage and its
destiny for the galaxy:
“For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me
together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your
works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven
in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.” (Psalm 139:13-16)
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