21

How to Save a Galaxy.

Darth Vader, an asthmatic villain for the ages. Everything about him spoke evil to us as kids.

And then George Lucas blew our tiny minds at the very end of the original Star Wars trilogy with the revelation that Darth was less inherently evil, and more temporarily corrupted. Sickened, but now made well by the courageous love of his own son. There was plenty good in him all along. I wouldn’t suggest the subsequent prequels merit equal adoration, but learning the young boy who’d become Darth Vader was actually a misdirected, angry child gave more dimension to what was initially only a flat, wheezing antagonist. Evil is, shy of it being some shade of psychopathy, often far more complex, far more responsive to Compassion than we first imagined.

Many of my kids’ favorite stories repeat this theme.

The Grinch was a scary mountain troll who wanted nothing more sophisticated than to do bad to the good Who people below. But the Grace and Love of one young Who proved he wasn’t evil, but isolated, misunderstood and angry. This Grace and Love enlarged his heart and shrank his petulance, rescuing him.

Despicable Me’s Gru is a more recent villain. A measure of Gru’s villainy is his little yellow Minions responsible for product tie-ins ranging from one-eyed yellow Tic-Tacs to toilet scrubbers. Is there something to learn in these products representing both ends of digestion? I digress. Gru comes out on the screen as proudly sinister. And then Love and Compassion show us Gru wasn’t evil at all. Just temporarily intoxicated with a childish reaction to being rejected and feeling like a constant disappointment. He didn’t become good. He discovered he already was.

Megamind is another modern variation on this theme. This villain was the bad to Metro Man’s good. And then, with time, Love helps him – as well as us in the process – see he’s not so much evil as he is unloved, unsupported and frustrated. He’s actually brilliant, though misdirected. Love shows him the good – what Jesus may have called the immediately available Kingdom of the Heavens – in him all along.

Perhaps Loving our enemies is good advice after all. Hard as it is, it’s saved multiple planets in at least two galaxies in just the last few decades.

“Love is not blind. There’s nothing so seeing as love!”

A blind man came to Jesus, which might always be the accurate way to describe first encounters with the Divine. Jesus forgoes snapping his fingers to fix the man’s eyes and instead employs a little bit of theater. He spits on the ground and makes a dollop of mud. Then he smears this mud on the man’s eyelids. Then he asks the man to review the bizarre operation.

“Ummmm…” said the man, squinting, confused. “I can see. Uhhh, but, so far as I can tell, I am seeing people as walking trees.”

The disciples must have looked at each other, concerned. Did Jesus just botch a miracle?

Jesus touched the man again. “How about now?”

“Wow! Got it. Now I see things as they are!”

Because there is a kind of seeing that lacks that second touch. That deeper layer that transcends the eye’s limitations and helps us really observe reality. That touch of Christ, that brush with Love Himself that helps us to honestly evaluate our first impression of others, to remain aware of our projected, limited understanding that wants to lodge itself in our minds as the truth. Love, on request, touches our eyes again and helps us see a far clearer, far more comprehensive picture.

And perhaps this is a place to grow in prayer; Not asking God for circumstances to change as much as for eyes to really see the people who populate them.

To ask for Compassion enough to at least imagine another’s prequel, their backstory behind this woefully incomplete moment I’m tempted to judge. For the power to resist rendering judgment quickly, although it makes me feel better to make up my mind about you, what you are, what you want and all that. To Love enough to really see – to beg God for eyes that do more than see, but Compassionately observe, as only healthily adjusted selfishness can allow.

Our undisciplined, uncalibratedly-selfish brains hate gaps in knowledge so much that it actually registers in our neurology as a thing to fear. So we fill in the gaps with something negative or prejudiced or unfair and that’s that. Putting something in the context hole is better than nothing. Ah, figuring someone out is such sweet, misinformed relief.

But this is not really seeing. This is generally making crap up about people with half truths or less. It’s mud-caked eyes primed for a second touch from the one who grants really, awakened observation. We’ll only ask for renewed eyes when we understand that this is exactly what we’re hoping everyone else will do for us; Love us enough to suspend judgment and assume they’ve got us all wrong, there is plenty more to get to know.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”