Another Reflection on "Do, or do not. There is no try."

 “No. No try or try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”

- Jedi Master Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

I was reading an article within the past year which took issue with Master Yoda’s famous line from Star Wars Episode V. The author was upset because he felt that it preached an absolutism that discouraged attempting anything new. He also asked the question, not without justification, “How are we to learn anything new if we don’t first try and fail?” He made some very good points in his article.

     The problem is, he failed to understand the lesson which the ancient Jedi Master was trying to convey.

     “There is no try” doesn’t work in every circumstance, but it’s not meant to. There are some things, spiritual practices in particular, which really cannot be learned except by doing them. The reason for this is that until we do them, we have no baseline to measure them against. This is true because these things are entirely internal and experiential to the person practicing them. Spiritual masters for centuries, if not millennia, have attempted to teach these things through parables, stories, koans, and metaphors which only make sense once the thing being taught has actually been done.

     The context within the movie is a good metaphor for this. Yoda was trying to teach Luke how to interact with the Force to retrieve his star fighter from the bog into which it sank, with the bigger lesson that “size matters not,” that is, that it is the Force doing it, and the Force wasn’t bound by the limitations Luke assumed about himself unless Luke himself restrained what the Force did by assuming those limitations. Luke had to let go of his presuppositions about what could and could not be accomplished. He had to experience the Force flowing around him, within him, and through him. The Force was present, surrounding him whether he believed it or not. But in order for him to interact with it, he had to just do it, letting go of his preconceptions which restrained him.

     Meditation practice is one of the real world practices where “there is no try” applies. You either meditate or you don’t, and the deep experience of contemplative prayer which results can’t be learned or even fully explained until it happens. Faith is another thing where, really, “there is no try.” You either trust God or you don’t. You either hand Him the steering wheel, accelerator, and brake, or you yank it back. There is no middle ground, there is no hanging on to the driver’s seat “just in case.” There is no back up, no escape hatch, no safety net “just in case.” He will meet us where we’re at, but if you limit Him with your own assumptions of limitations (“it’s too big!”), and act accordingly, then you’re the one still driving, not Him.

     “There is no try” applies most potently to remaining in Christ or “walking in the Spirit.” One either does it, or does not do it. One either disengages from their own naturally produced responses and behaviors, and commits total control and cooperation to the Spirit of Christ, or they do not. It is an either/or situation. This is not to say it is a once and done situation. Control must be explicitly or implicitly turned over to Him with every moment, every decision, every response, every word, every behavior. There are times we will fail and take the steering wheel back, and when this happens we must recognize it, agree with God about it, and give control back to Him. This is part of the learning process. But until we do explicitly give Him control, we have no baseline to compare the experience with. We will not know or understand what it is like to have Him speak and act through us, and how it is different from our own responses, words, or behaviors. We will not learn how to imitate Christ in His submission to the Father until we do it and realize we’re doing it.

     There is no “Well, I’ll give it a try and see how it works out.” to the path of Jesus Christ. Those who go into it with this mentality will continue in their own malfunctioning devices. It’s an all or nothing upward motion. You either move forward, or you move backwards. It’s either Him doing it through you, the infinite, omnipotent Creator and Author of the multiverse acting and speaking through you and in cooperation with your own resources, or it’s you trying to do it with just your own limited, finite resources. This is why, in the New Testament, those who follow Him are encouraged, exhorted, and nothing short of commanded to strip away everything which would hinder that upward motion towards full “synchronization” with Jesus Christ. As Paul writes using the metaphor of a Greco-Roman runner in the games who literally stripped down naked to remove all possible impediments and anything which would trip him up or in which he might be tangled.

     “Do, or do not. There is no try.” Where the path of Jesus Christ is concerned, there are few words which are truer.