My Husband the Jedi

Recently, Göran joined the Temple of the Jedi Order.

Before trying to explain what this is, I need to explain what it isn't. It isn't a Star Wars fan club. It isn't a role-playing game. It isn't a joke.

It is an effort to build a spiritual community, using the heroic image of the Jedi Knights developed in George Lucas' Star Wars series as a model for personal spiritual development. In developing the Star Wars stories, George Lucas himself drew on the thinking and writing of Joseph Campbell, an American mythology professor who has studied all of the major religious traditions and reflected deeply on the relationship between myth and psyche. So it is no coincidence that powerful spiritual themes were developed in the Star Wars saga, and not entirely unlikely that fans of the films might feel moved to use them as a springboard for personal spiritual growth.

You don't have to leave whatever religion you belong to in order to join the Temple of the Jedi Order. In fact, they encourage you to be faithful to whatever religious tradition you belong to. Nor do they exclude people based on religious affiliation. They even let Mormons join! Nor is affiliation with any religion required. It is apparently also possible to be an "Orthodox Jedi," though so far only one person has volunteered for that since, Göran tells me, it requires a vow of total poverty.

Some of the principles of the Temple of the Jedi Order emphasize the sanctity of every human being, regardless of outward characteristics such as gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, ability, etc.; renunciation of torture and all forms of cruelty; democracy, freedom and self-determination as basic governing principles for all human order; tolerance in relation to others who believe differently from yourself; embracing the spiritual values taught in all of the major religions of the world; and striving within whichever religious tradition you belong to, to correct error and promote the highest good.

To be a Jedi, you must "Believe in the Force and its power. A Jedi is devoted to the Force."

Now I know some of you are rolling your eyes and saying, "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." But I knew this thing was for real when, a couple of Sundays ago, our pastor at Lyndale United Church of Christ preached a sermon on spiritual discipline (incorporating daily prayer, scripture study, meditation and fasting into our personal lives), and Göran sat up and actually got excited about the sermon. After the service, he approached Pastor Don and actually wanted to discuss it more with him, something I've never seen him do. But the day I really knew something was up was when he told me, "I guess it's OK that you are a Mormon. The Force teaches respect for the many different ways back to the One." Wow. That almost brought a tear to my eye.

Göran has been taking karate lessons for years. He's serious about it, not just as a discipline for the body, but as a discipline for the soul. Now the Jedi are giving him a structure for spiritual discipline. Yesterday he was excited because he had been contacted by a Jedi master living in Germany. He had taken note of some of the generosity and conciliatory spirit in Göran's on-line interactions with members of the community. Would Göran consider, he asked, becoming a padawan?

Göran felt that before saying yes, he needed to come clean about the fact that he was gay. The master who contacted him is a Christian, and Göran wanted to make sure he was OK with the fact that Göran and I have been in a relationship for fifteen years. There was a bit of suspense waiting for the response. This was as much a test of the Jedi Order as it was of Göran. Soon, however, the answer came back. "No problem," was the response, "It does not matter who you love, just that you love."

Now, to paraphrase Obi Wan, my honey pie is taking his first steps into a larger world.

There Are No Answers, There Is Only the Way

Over Labor Day weekend, Göran and I went camping with our friend Jonathan in western Minnesota at Lac Qui Parle. This lake, formed by a damming of the Minnesota River, is situated on the eastern edge of what used to be a great sea of millions of acres of prairie, stretching out over most of the great plains from Minnesota in the north, to Oklahoma in the south, from Missouri in the east, to Colorado in the west. Like the Lakota Indians who used to live here, the prairie itself has been pushed onto minuscule reservations. Now the only prairie left in Minnesota consists of a handful of acres of small patches of prairie "preserve" managed by the state Department of Natural Resources.

Some theorize that the lake was named "Lac Qui Parle" ("Lake That Speaks") by the French because the bird life was so varied and abundant there, it seemed that the lake was constantly speaking to its visitors in the cawing, honking, and singing of its birds. But the lake speaks in other ways too. The veil feels particularly thin to me there. I have had many vivid dreams there that tell me more about where I am and where I need to be in my life's journey. There I have felt the presence of the Spirit with particular clarity. The time I spend there is a time when rising with the sun for scripture study and prayer seems particularly profitable, a time for meditating and writing and enjoying the wind and the sun, the water, the woods and the fields.

I often come to this place with questions, uncertainty, and sometimes anguish that I bring with me from the rough-and-tumble of day-to-day life. This past weekend, many of you were with me there in mind and heart, because of the questions and uncertainty I've read in your blogs, and because they are my questions and my uncertainty too. As gay men, why don't we have more understanding of our role in the plan of salvation? Why do our leaders tell us that they just don't know, when these are answers that some of us literally cannot live without, that too many of us literally die without? But the first night I was there, I had a powerful dream, and woke up early in the morning, before sunrise. The Spirit was there very powerfully, reassuring me. I got up and went for a walk down across the prairie, through a patch of nearby woods enjoying the sense of peace and gratitude that comes with such revelations.

I once thought answers were so easy. Just pull out -- or demolish -- a few scripture texts. But interpreting scripture won't save us. And the most anguished questions aren't amenable to answering through prooftexting. I've come to accept that for some questions there simply are no "answers." I've prayed and pleaded for them, and the only answer I've ever received was that the "whys" are not for me to know yet. Instead of answers, we have a relationship with God, our Heavenly Father, and with the Savior, our elder brother. Our Father and our Savior call us to a way of being and a way of walking through the world that must teach us patience, kindness, and happiness. If we truly listen to our conscience and to the Spirit, and if we learn to simply trust, I know that we will all come through safely.