A Ramble About Ahsoka Tano

     I watched the trailer for the new "Ahsoka" show announced the other day. It looks like it will be fun, and a good addition to the growing "Mandoverse" which Disney+ and Lucasfilm has been building. For those who haven't seen anything more of Star Wars than the movies, Ahsoka Tano was introduced as Anakin Skywalker's padawan learner in the "Clone Wars" animated series. She was a major character throughout the series, and eventually was included in the "Rebels" animated series as well. After this she appeared in live action in "The Mandolorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett."
     Ahsoka grew up in the Jedi Temple, having been brought there when she was just a toddler. She was very much a part of the old Jedi Order, and believed in it and its goodness for a large part of her early life. This extended and continued through her apprenticeship with Anakin Skywalker until an incident which happened when she was about seventeen or eighteen. At that time, she was framed for a crime which she didn't commit. Instead of believing her, and supporting her, the Jedi Council, including her master, Anakin, turned on her. After a lengthy and successful quest to prove her innocence and find the real perpetrator, the Council had apologetically not only offered to welcome her back, but had decided that the ordeal would count as her Jedi Trial, and they would grant her the rank of Knight.
     Ahsoka declined both. The experienced had disillusioned her against the Jedi Order so badly, that she didn't want to be a part of it any more. She had been a faithful believer in the Jedi Code, the Light side of the Force, and the rightness of the Jedi way. But when everything went sideways, the Order abandoned her out of hand. The Order did, but not the Force.
     Ahsoka went through a very difficult period of trying to figure out who she was without the Jedi, and what path she would follow now that she was on her own for the first time in her life. Circumstances brought her back into the orbit of the Jedi and her old master, and just as it appeared she might be reconciled with them, Order 66 happened, and her master didn't just walk away from the Jedi, he actively went to war against them. And once more, Ahsoka found herself on her own, her adopted family completely gone.
     Ahsoka is a fascinating character, because through her trials and struggles, and even because of her disillusionment and letting go of the Jedi order, she took the opposite path of her master, Anakin. While he became virtually the embodiment of the Dark Side of the Force as Darth Vader, she became virtually the embodiment of the Light Side. She came to be the ideal for what a Jedi should have been, even as she proclaimed in no uncertain terms, "I am no Jedi," still wanting nothing to do with the organization and religious order that, from her point of view, had betrayed and abandoned her. In rejecting the Jedi, but pursuing and understanding the Force apart from its rigid ideology, structures, and the politics which had infested it, she became more a Jedi than virtually any other before her.
     And this is what makes her a fascinating subject because of the example she might pose for Christians who find themselves feeling abandoned or betrayed by their churches, church leaders, and denominations. As Luke Skywalker declared in "The Last Jedi," "The Force doesn't belong to either the Jedi or the Sith." This was a truth which the Jedi Order had forgotten, believing that they were the sole legitimate arbiters or gatekeepers to what the Force was all about. In the same way, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and even God the Father don't belong to any one denomination or church, or even to any of them at all. God remains God whether one is a part of a church congregation or not. The Holy Spirit remains who He is whether you are in a church or Sundays or not. Jesus Christ remains Jesus Christ, and it is still true that He died and rose again for the whole world whether you are a church member or not. The churches only have the earthly power to excommunicate you from their services and sacraments. They don't have the power to deny you the Holy Spirit if you so seek Him, any more than rejecting the Jedi Order cut Ahsoka off from the Force. As it is written, "He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."
      The only person who can and will deny the Holy Spirit to you, is you. The only person who can keep you from following Jesus Christ, and submitting to the control of the Spirit of Christ, is you. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to keep you under the control of the church systems in place. And frequently, those church systems are terrified of what someone actually fully submitted to the Spirit of Christ can and will do, and will say and do what they need to in order to suppress them. The greatest opponents of the Saints of old were frequently the religious leadership itself. St. Patrick was a great example of this.
      If, for whatever reason, you have found yourself on the outside of the church's doors and walls, if you have found yourself ostracized from the church for whatever reason, remember Ahsoka Tano, Saint Patrick, and many of the others who found themselves on the receiving end of their religious order's hostility, and remember that religious order doesn't own God. God owns them, you, me, and every created thing which exists. He is not at their beck and call. He doesn't have to do what they say. And He loves you beyond all reason, thought, and senses.