A Hero and A Princess

I thought the days were supposed to be getting longer, not darker.

I remember in 1997 when the original trilogy was re-released for the 20^th anniversary and Star Wars started to show up in my life. The first Star Wars movie I saw was The Empire Strikes Back and even though I was quite the precocious child, I wouldn’t have said it changed my life then, even though I remember more about that day than I do about my high school and college graduations combined. I don’t think I really appreciated the role Star Wars played in my life until I started listening to others’ stories about representation.

See, it never crossed my mind that young women couldn’t rule the world. I’d seen Princess Leia do it a million times.

Carrie Fisher redefined what it meant to be a princess for me. A princess is a diplomat. A princess is a rebel. A princess sits in on war councils and gives commands and is the last one to leave the base when it is under attack. Even if a princess had to be rescued from time to time, it wasn’t because she was powerless or useless—it was because she had been taken captive by the Empire and it’s hard to beat Darth Vader. That rescue is not an escort mission—a princess grabs a blaster and gets them out of the poorly-planned mess they’re in, or takes the chain she’s been bound in and strangles a space slug/gangster overlord. And she does it all by being genuine and unapologetically in charge. Indomitable.

Every time I saw her in a movie after that, I was always delighted. Here was my hero, from before I even really understood that I had heroes, off doing something else. I love her in When Harry Met Sally. When I started getting into screenwriting and found out that she was a script doctor for Hook and Sister Act and so many other movies, my heart jumped again and I pulled those screenplays out first. I haven’t read any of her books yet because I was worried they would just be over-dramatic tell-alls, something that I regret intensely now. I had no idea how funny and honest she was and I have been depriving myself of a joy.

And then she comes on screen in The Force Awakens and of course she’s a general. Of course she’s leading the resistance. Of course she went back to the thing she was good at: leading. That’s what she taught all of us to do. While Luke was off finding himself and losing his hand and Han was off growing a soul, Leia was always fighting, always leading, always standing up for what is right. There’s never going to be another Princess Leia and there’s never going to be another General Organa. She blazed a trail and they broke the mold after they made her, all those clichés.

Those clichés apply to the lady we lost today as well. There will never be another Carrie Fisher. She fought her battles and taught us how to live our lives without undue concern for what other people think of us and left us with a legacy to enjoy and be inspired by. She’s gone too soon and I’m going to watch Star Wars on repeat to help deal with that fact, but at least we’re left with that.

Rest soundly, Carrie. You’ve earned it. 

Afraid

I think it's time to admit that I am frightened. I am frightened.

I am frightened by all manner of things. I am frightened by the presence that hovers near the front door in the dark when I get up to go to the bathroom in the mornings. I am frightened by the space underneath my bed and what could hide there between my luggage and shoes. I am frightened by faceless things in nightmares that find me night after night and hold me down in unbearable darkness or light until I remember that this is all a dream, and then become frightened because I cannot escape it.

I'm actually genuinely frightened that I'm going to fail some of my finals this week. I'm afraid that I'll fall asleep and the work won't get done and I'll have to repeat a class or a semester and I'll lose my scholarship or I'll have to leave and I do not know where I'd go. I'm afraid I won't get another job and I haven't fully planned for that financial possibility. I'm afraid that I'll have to go home and start everything over from scratch, only with more loans this time and fewer prospects. I am frightened by my unworthiness and how very publicly it could be displayed in the near future.

I am frightened by the news from Aleppo. I am frightened by the news of hate crimes. I am frightened by our incoming government. I am frightened by rising sea water and catastrophic storms. I am frightened by nuclear weapons and biological weapons. I am frightened by guns. I am frightened of people who are stronger than me and what they can do to me. For maybe the first time in my life, I am afraid for my body and my possessions and my security.

More than anything else, I am frightened because I am not more frightened for others. I am frightened because I am more scared losing something that was never mine than I am scared by the pain in the world around me. I am scared of how easy it is for me to be frightened by loneliness and mistakes, how quickly I choose to focus on fears of situations resolved months ago, the reopening of freshly-healed wounds. I am frightened by my inability to place my emotions completely to the side. I am scared that one day I will not be able to get out of bed, that I will not care about the humans on the other side of the door enough to engage with them, and that I will never again engage with them. I am afraid that no one else will either.

I am not frightened by death or the void or silence. I am afraid of what I leave behind in life, in the world, in noisy community.

I don't like talking about fears because I know that we are not given a spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind and because I know that there is a spectrum of rationality to my fear. I know that I am not called to be afraid, just as I know that some of my fears are born ghost stories and an overly analytical mind. I know what imposter syndrome is, guys, and I'm aware of how fear sells in the media. I know how my basic need for control, whatever its root is, is reflected across all of these fears.

But I don't want to explain away the importance of naming our fears. I don't want to shy away from analyzing what makes us withdraw from the world. The tensions and contradictions of human fear are fascinating and complex, but the reality of my fears and my fear of my fears is something I need to acknowledge and wrestle with without academic detachment. Because I shouldn't be driven by fear. Fear should not be what motivates my action. If I can see it, I can address it, re-shape it, speak life where it is lacking. All the same, I have to repeat again and again that fear does not define me. The foundation of my life isn't built on anything that can be taken away. I'll see my fear and work with it and know that my hope rests somewhere else.

Stolen

The stories we tell ourselves matter. The words we say to ourselves matter. And the words that we say to other people matter, because all too frequently, they become the words that people say to themselves.

I got on the red line train last Tuesday and the car was so crowded, I couldn't even reach into my pocket to get my headphones so I could block out all the humans and make the ride tolerable. With one hand trying to find a railing and the other clutching the book I was meant to be reading, I decided that instead of fumbling around for something to do, I would pray for everyone on the train. Now, I know I'm in seminary and so this should seem like it's in character, but I want to say right here and now that the only time I pray for large groups of people is when I'm asking for them to get out of my way. I am not present in a crowd. I enjoy the escape more than anything else.

But pray I did. I prayed for our journey to our homes and for what waited for each person when they arrived: their families, their meals, their loves, fears, frustrations, work, relaxation. I prayed for the people who jostled and bumped me on their stumble toward the door. There were a couple of people in eyesight that seemed particularly weighed down and so I prayed for a blessing in their lives, that whatever held them low would be removed or mitigated. I prayed grace on everyone.

I felt lighter when I got off the train. I didn't put my headphones in, didn't open my book. I just kept the headspace I was in and thought about what I would do when I got back to my empty flat. Something needled at the back of my mind, but I assumed it was just something I had forgotten about work or school or something. There's always something. But the bus ride and the subsequent walk home were pleasant, I think. We've been having a lot of the kind of crisp fall days and nights that require a jacket and a scarf, but gloves are optional. The air's easy to breathe. It was nice.

When I got home and put my bag down, I realized that one of those humans that I had prayed for had stolen my laptop.

Well, I suspected. I put off the panic because maybe I had just left it at the office and anyway, there wasn't anything I could about it right now. The next morning was the day before Thanksgiving so the usual people who opened up the office weren't there and I ended up putting off the search for my laptop for another hour or so. And even when I did get to my desk and saw that my laptop wasn't there, I didn't feel anything except a sinking feeling in my stomach. Okay. My laptop's really gone. So we're dealing with this.

Over the next few days as I assessed the damage and looked up replacement options, I would say, "My laptop got stolen." My laptop got stolen. I was clear it wasn't missing, that a theft had occurred, but I couldn't figure out why the sentence sounded so odd. My laptop was stolen, maybe? Correct that grammatical "mistake"? And anyway, isn't the end result the same, no matter what words I use? I don't have my laptop. It is no longer in my possession. It was taken from me. Who cares how I express that thought? The facts on the ground are the same: I don't have it.

Except it does matter. Someone stole my laptop. I don't know who did it, but it's not some passive event that occurred. A person made the decision to reach into my bag and take out my life and it's debatable just how over-dramatic that statement is: my work from this semester, any projects that I've been working on for the past few years, and all my notes and research from last year are gone, not to mention some of the music and pictures that mean something to me. My half-marathon sticker was on the case, as was my save the whales sticker from Iceland. And all those things that made it matter, the data and the memories, those are the first things the thief is going to wipe from the computer so that he or she can resell it. Keep the computer, then. Give me back what I care about.

To fail to hold people accountable for their actions is to participate in the problem. I won't find the person who stole my laptop, probably, and this is not a loss that I need to go Batman over; by the grace of God (and that is not an insignificant thing), this is a hit I can take on the chin and carry on. I've been surrounded by coworkers, family, friends, who have comforted me, cheered me, and helped me figure out what to do next, how to report, how to look, and how to replace. But just because I can absorb the hit does not mean that the problem needs to be ignored. This was not some indifferent force of nature or some act of chance; a person acted here, a person who is part of a system, with a level of malicious intent in their heart that could range from indifference to hatefulness, and people and systems are things that we can question, we can push, we can try to change, we can hold accountable. If not in this particular situation, definitely in others.

So everyone, back up your data. Carry your belongings in a bag that can be secured, especially when you go into crowded spaces. If you see something, say something. Learn from my life. That's what lives are for, after all. But see the bigger threads, too. Think about how you speak about events. Think about what you tell yourself about events. Have that second-check on the reality that you perceive. Think about inevitability and think about action. Think about what you can do. Be aware.

For days, I told myself that my laptop got stolen, that this was my fault and my stupidity and that I deserved to pay for it. But to tell myself that story is to continue in my personal history of unkindness towards myself and indifference towards injustice. Of course there are things that I could have done differently, but that doesn't mean I was asking for it. Someone stole my laptop. The better sentences to speak, once the comfort and grace have done their healing work, are questions, and questions in search of answers. Why did someone take my laptop? Did they feel entitled to it? Certainly not. Were they thinking just about themselves? Maybe not. What situations in their life led to this moment? Is there a way to balance accountability for the wrong committed with grace and understanding for the wrongs committed against them? What can we do here?

I'm known for drawing a whole heap of thoughts out of an event and I think I probably stopped thinking about laptops long ago. I don't want to have a conversation about hardware-- I want to talk about systematic inequality and our inability as a nation to hold people accountable for their words and their actions. I want to talk about honesty and where it's lacking. I want to talk about blame and how I'm finding it to be an unhelpful concept, or maybe a concept with an unhelpful gloss. I have questions and thoughts enough for a lifetime and maybe I fill my days too much with them. So let's end with something that just slipped on by as the story unfolded: my thankfulness for those around me and for those memories that were saved. Now I feel less bad about all those Scotland photos I practically spammed my facebook with.

Find joy where you've got it, friends, and take seriously your thoughts and your questions when they come.