Nostalgia, Star Wars, and Even a Bit of Church

 

         Not long ago, while watching Rise of Skywalker, I wept. Not just a bit around the edges, but big tears rolled down my face. Even though I wasn’t sad, really. Or especially happy. Why?

 

         Was it the movie? Probably not. No one, even in a galaxy far away, is ever going to tell you that any of the nine Star Wars movies were high art. 

 

         Mind you, Rise of Skywalker had three Oscar nominations: Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. But besides not actually winning an Oscar, it certainly didn’t get any acting or drama nominations.

Rise of Skywalker Poster

         You probably know Rise of Skywalker’s plot, more or less, even if you didn’t see the movie. It is very nearly the same plot the other eight Star Wars movies had. In brief, the Resistance—the good guys and gals—is once again down on its luck and hiding. The evil Emperor Palpatine is back with a new fleet of planet destroyers. The last and most beautiful Jedi knight, Rey, is the chosen one to save the universe. And after several light sabre duels and gun battles; after jumping from one moving space ship to another and sailing a tiny boat across a raging sea; after dying and rising from the dead; Rey Palpatine—for it turns out that Rey is actually the evil emperor’s granddaughter—Rey Palpatine defeats the evil emperor and decides to change her name to Rey Skywalker (the good). The universe is saved. The end.

         Was it silly? Yes. Was it cartoonish? Absolutely. 

 

         And yet. I wept.

 

         Why the tears?

 

         Nostalgia. It just seized me, there, in front of my TV, and wouldn’t let me go. Nostalgia.

 

         I saw the first Star Wars movie in the summer of 1977. I was just 20 years old. I went with three other guys, a few days before we all hopped in a car and drove across Canada and back on ten dollars a day. I was so carefree back then. I wasn’t taking my studies seriously. I wasn’t thinking about the future or my dreams. I had a loving family that blessed my wanderlust. Life was good.

 

         But now, as I watched the last Star Wars movie and remembered the first long ago, I realized that of the four who went on that road trip, one of us—maybe two—has already died. I’ve lost track of them. So right off, sitting before my TV, I’m thinking both about how good life can be, and also about how brief and full of loss it can be. Most of you have been there.

 

         Nostalgia. It is lovely, but it hurts. Nostalgia is this sense of the past as something both lost and precious that informs our hopes for the future.

 

         Nostalgia is usually scorned because it is seen as a yearning for something that really never was and contempt for the present. Sort of like President Trump’s notion that America was great, once upon a time, in the long-ago past, but not now—or at least, not unless he is reelected. Nostalgia used to be scorned as a dreamy inability to face up to present reality by romantically inflating the past. 

 

         And there is some truth to this concern with nostalgia, because on the whole, the past was not always as wonderful as we imagine it was. In fact, on the whole, the past was pretty rough.

 

​         Not quite fifty years ago, mortgage rates were 18 percent and unemployment over 13 percent. The Vietnam war raged. Decade after decade, famines raged throughout the world. Not long ago most cancers could not be beaten, the cold war filled us with fear, labour strikes were regular occurrences, and acid rain had killed many of our lakes. Residential schools sundered children from parents and tribes. Looking a bit deeper into the past, infectious diseases were the number one killer, as many as twenty million people were starved to death by the Soviets in Ukraine, there was WWII, the Holocaust, slavery Jim Crow, and we lived, on average, twenty years less than we do now. 

 

         We should not idealize a past that never was.

 

         And yet, as with many things, there are two sides to this story. In fact, there is also a more personal, more positive aspect to Nostalgia.

 

         Contemporary Psychologists explain. For them, nostalgia is not a malady, but a powerful stimulant to feel optimistic about the future. What is past, even if lost, can fuel hope for the future. Constantine Sedikides recounts how concentration camp survivors often told stories to each other about past meals and gatherings. “This is what we did,” one survivor said. “We used our memories [of past feasts] to temporarily alter our perception of the state we were in. It was not a solution, but the temporary change in perception allowed you to persevere just a bit longer. And that could be crucial.” Nostalgia need not lead us down a rabbit hole of regret and anger. Nostalgia can encourage perseverance.

 

         Such nostalgia—let’s say, nostalgia around personal experiences, nostalgia at its best—may serve as an emotional anchor chain. Nostalgia may ground tomorrow’s challenging voyage in yesterday’s safe harbour, in good memories, in refuge and shelter, so that we can face what’s coming at us with hope for better times, and the energy to strive for them.

 

         Nostalgia, then—my tears at the Star Wars movie—need not be a sign of weakness, but a harbinger of tomorrow’s possibilities. Sure, nostalgia marks the loss of a past we can’t truly relive, but it may also serve as fuel for a life lived out of gratitude rather than bitterness; nostalgia is an invitation to more adventures rather than a decision to set down roots in the land of loss. 

 

         As usual, I tend to look at these memorable moments through the lens of my experience as a minister. Churches of every stripe—liberal ones first, though now the evangelicals are following hard on our heels—are struggling with membership decline and all of its attendant troubles. In my last, liberal, congregation, I sometimes heard people describe a Sunday school that years ago had two hundred kids or a sanctuary packed with five hundred adults. 

 

         That must have been nice. Those were the best of times and those kids and adults went on to help make Canada and the world what it is today. Amazing stuff, really. We should be thankful for those memories and those people.

 

         But what I’ve also heard, once or twice, is a longing for the past not balanced by hope for the future, as if this past is a reproach of the present, a criticism of what we have become. I have heard what I think of as a weaponized past that stands in judgement on what we could be for each other, a "make our churches great again," fighting words refrain.

 

         But I’m not for the weaponized past. At its best, nostalgia, as I said moments ago, is fuel for a life lived out of gratitude rather than bitterness. Memories that help us navigate the present in order to seize the future. Nostalgia is an invitation to adventure rather than inertia. Nostalgia is an invitation to carry on, hope for—work for—more and better and tomorrow.

 

         The churches I served were all safe, encouraging, holy places in times of trouble or uncertainty or change. And now,  our liberal churches are hidden treasures just waiting to be found and brought into the light again, so that the world will remember that Jesus’ example, courage, and vision are not now merely dim reminiscences, but a roadmap for tomorrow.

 

         For us, it’s very exciting. I could almost cry. Which I did. At the last Star Wars movie.

 

            Just over two years ago, just before Covid, I found myself weeping in a theatre. The movie, The Rise of Skywalker, was part of the Star Wars franchise. 

            Why the tears? The movie, was not, after all, high art. It’s a cartoon drawn with live actors and full of especially silly effects.

Luke, Leia, and Han!

            A bit of background. The Rise of Skywalker’s plot is much the same as that of every Star Wars movie. The Resistance—good guys and gals—is once again down on its luck and hiding. The evil Emperor Palpatine is back with a new fleet of planet destroyers. The last and most beautiful Jedi knight, Rey, is the chosen one to save the universe. After several light-saber duels and gun battles; after jumping from one moving space ship to another; after sailing a tiny boat across a raging sea; after dying and rising from the dead; Rey Palpatine—for it turns out that she is the evil emperor’s granddaughter—Rey Palpatine defeats the evil emperor and decides to change her name to Rey Skywalker (the good). The universe is saved. The end.

            Silly? Yes. Cartoonish? Absolutely. 

            And yet. watching a The Rise of Skywalker matinee at Yorkdale theatre in Toronto, I wept. Not just a bit around the edges, but big tears rolled down my face. Why?

            Nostalgia. I saw the first Star Wars movie in the summer of 1977. I was 20. I went with three other guys, days before we all hopped in a car and drove across Canada and back on ten dollars a day. I was so carefree back then. I wasn’t taking my studies seriously. I had an uncomplicated relationship with church and faith that fed me. I wasn’t thinking about the future or my dreams. I had a loving family. Life was good.

            But now, as I watched the latest Star Wars movie and remembered the first, I realized that of the four of us who went on that road trip, two have already died untimely deaths. So right off, sitting in that theatre, I’m thinking both about how good life can be, but also how brief and full of loss it can be. You know. Several family members have died. My church and faith life have become hugely problematic. And all of it choked me up.

            We’ve come a way since the Psalmist said we might live to be seventy—or eighty if our strength endured. Many of us will actually live to 90 or even 100. Still, I won’t live forever, and my life, like yours, is now full of cares and concerns, as well as joys and satisfaction, that I could not have imaged when I was 20. Watching Rise of Skywalker triggered memories of my first Star Wars movie and homesickness for carefree times. Those were the days, my friends. 

            Once, a few years ago, before my tears, I wrote a sermon critical of nostalgia. I said that nostalgia has a sweet aroma, but we too often weaponize it. For example, we may unrealistically remember the past as nothing but a time of surpassing blessing and think less of the present by way of comparison. This sort of nostalgia that inspires slogans like, “Make America Great Again.” But if you think about it, “great” like when? When Ronald Reagan was president? But his campaign slogan was also “Make America Great Again.” So great like when? Like the pre-civil-rights era? Great like the Great Depression? Great like during the slavery or reconstruction eras? Great like when Sir John A. McDonald and other Fathers of Confederation conspired to cultural – and physical -- genocide by setting up Residential Schools and using hunger as a political tool?

           Nostalgia can also be weaponized by using true memories to beat on the present. This happens in churches, a lot. Why don’t we have two hundred kids in Sunday School anymore? Why is church empty compared to thirty years ago? Why is there so much strife and anger in our denomination compared to when I was a kid? 

            But nostalgia doesn’t have to be weaponized. As with other human emotions, nostalgia can also build us up. Nostalgia can inform our hopes and dreams for the future, even if we’re in trouble now. 

           

            Constantine Sedikides recounts how concentration camp sustained themselves by telling stories about past meals and gatherings, before the Nazis came. “This is what we did,” one survivor said. “We used our memories to temporarily alter our perception of the state we were in. It was not a solution, but the temporary change in perception allowed you to persevere just a bit longer. And that could be crucial.” Nostalgia insists on emotionally monetizing the past, even when it wasn’t perfect.

            Nostalgia, then—tears at a Star Wars movie—doesn’t have to be a sign of weakness. On that day nostalgia was mostly a harbinger for tomorrow’s possibilities. There will be more road trips, more friends, more loving family, and more carefree days—along with disappointments, too.

            But I will face these disappointments with gratitude rather than bitterness. Nostalgia’s sweetness—in spite of difficult memories mixed in—is an invitation to new adventures rather than a setting down one’s roots in the land of loss. 

            It’s very exciting. I could almost cry. Which I did. At the Star Wars movie.

Thanksgiving Nostalgia

       Rolling Stone magazine called this Beatles song the best song of the twentieth century. It goes like this:

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

       Yesterday. Remember? Canada’s Happy Days. The Mounties were beautiful in scarlet and above reproach. Archie’s biggest problem was choosing between Betty and Veronica. 

       The past. Remember? Everyone who wanted a factory job had one at the Motors in Oshawa or GE in Peterborough. Women stayed home and wore aprons and the only people who said “me too,” were kids who wanted dessert.

       Yesterday. Remember? Expo 67. The Leafs won a Stanley Cup. Paul Henderson scored—not once or twice, but three times. Kids played baseball at the park and road hockey in the streets. Screen time meant The Brady Bunch or I Love Lucy.

       The best of times. Donald Trump misses them, so he promised to, “Make America Great Again.” During the presidential race he was asked by a journalist when exactly that was. Trump said, “well, America was great when Ronald Reagan was president!” 

       So, do you remember what Ronald Reagan’s campaign slogan was? You guessed it. “Make America great again.” We have always believed in yesterday.

       And lest we think that is just an American thing, don’t forget Doug Ford. He said, “We will return our province to where it belongs. Ontario will be open for business.” He said this when our unemployment rate was near historic lows and businesses are complaining that they can’t hire the help they need. 

       We believe in yesterday. Nostalgia is a worldwide phenomenon. Chinese president Xi Jinping calls for “a great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.” Russia’s Putin insists that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster that he will help Russia recover from. After the Brexit vote, British politician Vince Cable said, "Too many were driven by a nostalgia for a world where passports were blue, faces were white, and the map was coloured imperial pink."

       Yesterday. Actually, the best of times, but also the worst of times.

        Not quite fifty years ago, mortgage rates were 18 percent and unemployment over 13 percent. More than 400,000 people died of starvation in Ethiopia. The Vietnam war raged. Residential schools sundered children from parents and tribes. Not long ago most cancers could not be beaten, the cold war filled us with fear, labour strikes were regular occurrences, and acid rain had killed many of our lakes. Looking a bit deeper into the past, there was WWII, the holocaust, the 1918 flu epidemic, as many as twenty million starved to death by the Soviets in the Ukraine, and we lived, on average, twenty years less than we do now. 

       Nostalgia has a sweet aroma, but as a plan for the future, it is poison. Our memories are very selective.

The truth is, as Calvin so aptly observes, when you think about it, our lives now are actually pretty nice. A lot of kids don’t have as good a home life as we do. We have a lot to be thankful for today. We can’t really complain.

       Which is not to say there are no problems. Our lives are always a mess of broken windshields and relationships and worries of deep concern about big worldwide problems. I write about those problems regularly. But we will never find a solution to those problems by idealizing a past that gave them to us. We must find solutions to those problems, in part, by seeing things as they are now.

       I’m a writer, and so perhaps I have an over active imagination. But I play an odd game with myself, sometimes, when I’m driving through town, by myself, at night. 

       I imagine that my great grandfather, Willem Suk, who died in 1909, is sitting beside me in my car. Willem died of lung disease from working in a cement factory after spending most of his adult life selling groceries door to door out of a dog cart. His family was left in heartrending poverty. Anyway, as I drive along, I describe for my grandfather wonders he could never imagine: jetliners landing at Pearson passing overhead, Audis and Buicks, electric street lamps and three-bedroom bungalows with in-door plumbing, air conditioning, and my groceries in the back seat. He would have been amazed that his own tragic life did not result in generations more of pain and poverty for his descendants, the same pain and poverty that was commonplace for his ancestors.

       Today is Thanksgiving. Let’s embrace how far we’ve come in order to tackle the problems we have.

       The truth is, our future can be even more bountiful, more life-sustaining than our lives are today, so long as we do not wallow in yesterday, but rather, roll up our sleeves, and with hearts full of gratitude, live by ideals worthy of the future we want for our own grandchildren.