STAR WARS & Keeping the Faith

It was a picture perfect Southern California day.  My son needed a ride from Los Angeles up to Santa Barbara to visit a friend, leaving me with about 8 hours to myself in the town where I attended college 30 years ago.  Even though it was the first week of January, the weather was ideal – sunny and 70 degrees. So of course I spent the first two hours sitting in a movie theater. We are talking about the last installment of Star Wars and someone who grew up on the saga, therefore, I rationalize, it was a must-see and an excusable use of 2 daylight hours.  Afterward, I strolled downtown for a bit, then headed north to my old haunts in the university town of Isla Vista. As I drove through campus, it became very obvious the University of California was thriving as was the surrounding community. Everything looked so different, I missed my intended turn. The next left took me past St. Mark’s Church where I attended services back when I was in school.  Unlike most of the community, it had not changed – no upgrades, not even a new coat of paint. On the outside, it was the same old ugly square building with a flat roof. Back then, the inside wasn’t much better – merely a hall with benches and a small corner chapel formed by a folding room divider. It was a poor parish after all. College students and a neighborhood of the working poor are not going to support a cathedral. 

I drove on until I found an old favorite eatery where I used to go on Friday nights after the typical college-aged kids’ shenanigans: the original Freebird’s. Food was just as good as I remembered. When I finished, I went for a long walk.  Except for Freebird’s, a pizza joint where we used to get pitchers of beer, a sub shop, and the food co-op, none of the places were the same. I walked by the different houses where I lived during my three years after the freshmen dorms. The buildings looked different – better, but somehow smaller.  This town was my whole world back then, but now I could not find any connection to that past. In truth, I did not have a single friendship survive from that time. So much for nostalgia. What about me? Back then, I was an idealistic, young man with dreams of changing the world. And what was I now? At the moment, disillusioned.  Looking around, the surroundings reflected prosperity. That could be in large part attributable to the cost of going to school increasing tenfold since I graduated. Higher rents and wealthier students would lead to improved curb appeal. But underneath the surface, I wondered if the character of the place had changed for the better. After all, this college community had endured two mass killings in the last two decades – one young person plowing through a crowded street with a car and another firing away with a gun.  When I thought about it, I was having difficulty thinking of any connection to my time here and whether I really wanted one. Memory Lane turned out to be completely unfamiliar and littered with potholes. Were I to tell my kids more about my college experience, I might as well be talking about someone else.  

Maybe it was because my faith had persevered since back then that I decided to revisit St. Mark’s Church and its unchanged face. Not surprisingly, the door was locked.  It was the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday during winter break. I stepped through some bushes and pressed my face up against a window to look in. The unchanged appearance of the outside did not match the inside. The old, worn carpet had been replaced with tile. There were rows of chairs. A full chapel occupied one side of the building. The church was decorated for Christmas, looking better than I ever remembered it. Still, because it was only decorations and furniture, I wondered if the differences were superficial like everything else in the town. It was hard to believe the faith of the church community was strong, given it was pretty weak back then amongst the students. And people have been abandoning the Catholic Church in droves since that time. When I circled around the building I found my reason to have hope again.  In the parking lot were three folding tables piled with boxes of produce and canned goods. They stood adjacent to a delivery truck with its rear door open. People lined up and an older gentleman stood on the lift telling the waiting women and men that he had bread and eggs. Here on the asphalt behind the old building with late afternoon shadows lengthening was the reason to know the faith of the community was as strong as ever. The hungry were fed. Bellies would be filled and souls were nourished. Having to know more, I approached the old-timer. After I declined his kind offer of food, I asked him about what he was doing. First, Tom told excitedly of the 700 donated turkeys they had given out between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He spoke about how there are so many people who go hungry in the area and there is a ton of food that otherwise goes to waste at the local grocery stores each week. “How could I do anything but pick it up and hand it out to anyone who needed it?” he asked. Then he told me how they bring the truck to this location Thursday afternoons between 3 and 4.

Wait a moment, I thought. What are the chances?  I just happened to drive up here on a Thursday, delayed by my going to see Star Wars, to stop by the old church I have not been to nearly 30 years for a second look.  Coincidence? No chance. 

I can only believe God again rescued me from disillusionment and doubt. The Lord reminded me that although the years pass, the people come and go, the surroundings change, and life moves on, goodness perseveres through the light people bring into the world. Light pushes back on the darkness. 

Then I thought of Star Wars.  For so many of us who were born in the 1970s, the latest incarnations don’t live up to the originals, but we are drawn to see the movies nonetheless.  There are new characters, new special effects, new planets. But at its heart, the same story plays over and over – Heroic individuals fighting for the good, choosing the light over the dark side.  And, as in life, all we can do is have faith that the light will win out.

I don’t imagine I’ll ever meet Tom again, but he was as real a Jedi Knight as I’ll come across.  And he certainly helped me turn away from the dark side on that day.