COVID-19 and Star Wars

At the risk of sounding trite, I’ve been thinking today of the Star Wars saga (It WAS May the 4th earlier this week, right?) in relationship to the pandemic and efforts to grapple with it, limit its deadly impact, wipe it out, and return to sanity and the good life.

I think of long, dark phases of the epic Star Wars episodes that I’ve been viewing since I was 18 years old. We know this story. The Empire/dark side repeatedly asserts deadly, overwhelming, seemingly irresistible grips. Rebel leaders are frequently deeply conflicted and divided about how best to address the Empire (even the wise Jedi counsel gets deceived).

There were no guarantees for a way out—neither are there now. Just grit and guts and loss and grief and intelligence and ingenuity and perseverance and hope and love and the force. And always, of course, the refusal to let anger and fear control.

We are in for a long haul with many twists and turns. Hang on, it’s likely to get worse. This appears to a primal, global test of our lifetimes. There are no prepared plot lines. We are writing the script with our lives every day. It strains and exposes all our securities and insecurities, strengths and weaknesses, capacities and vulnerabilities, solidarities and divisions. There is no way out—only through. Together.

We already know many first-response, frontline heroes are tending our wounded and searching for a vaccine. We know and salute essential workers who are holding our fragile systems together with their lives on the line—voluntarily and involuntarily.

All of us, in our own ways, are called upon to make a difference—even if it is, for now, staying at home, social distancing, masking, sanitizing, checking up on neighbors, supporting causes, and sharing information and inspiration. Let’s do what we can with what we’ve been given.

And may...