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S01E09: Clean with Eric Clayton and the Spirituality of Star Wars!
58 Plays11 months ago
Grab your droids and brooms and join us as we chat with Eric Clayton, author of "My Life With the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars." And as a bonus, hear Bob's take on the first two episodes of The Acolyte.
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Transcript
Introduction to Star Wars and Spirituality
00:00:00
Speaker
We're talking about the spirituality of Star Wars with author Eric Clayton. Grab your droids and prunes. It's a Star Wars cleaning crew.
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome back to The Cleaning Crew. You know, before we dive in with our guest, the day this is being released is the day that the first two episodes of the Acolyte, the new Star Wars show, premiere on Disney Plus. Well, I went to see them last night at the El Capitan Theater, and I'm going to save a few moments at the end of today's episode to talk about my reactions to that.
00:00:32
Speaker
That's a teaser to make you stay on till the end, but I don't think it's going to be any problem. Our guest today is fascinating. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking through my Amazon recommendations and it pointed me to a book called My Life with the Jedi, The Spirituality of Star Wars.
00:00:49
Speaker
And I read it. I really enjoyed it. And so I reached out to the author, Eric Clayton, to see if he would join us in the kitchen. So here's the first part of our conversation with Eric. We'll probably go on for a couple more weeks after that because we had a great discussion. So here is me and Eric.
Eric Clayton's Journey with Star Wars and Spirituality
00:01:06
Speaker
All right, so Eric, I could give you the long introduction, like right out of the back of the book, but I have a feeling if you told the story, it probably would be more interesting. So maybe tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, how you got engaged in Star Wars, you know, what do we need to know about Eric Clayton?
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, well, geez, let me see. How quickly can I do it? I mean, I'm a child of the prequel series, right? So my dad popped the old VHS tapes in the machine right before the special editions came out. So that was kind of where I entered Star Wars, was right before special editions. So special editions came out. I love them because I'm like, oh, more Star Wars.
00:01:47
Speaker
And then we hit we hit Phantom Menace and we went from there. So I grew up with the prequels. I love the Clone Wars. I'm I'm an I'm easy. I'm an easy Star Wars fan. Like I love it. Let's give it to me. Like, you know, I like somewhere like I just love like adding texture to the stories and
00:02:06
Speaker
I'm a spiritual writer. I work for a religious order of the Jesuits, and their whole spiritual tradition is Ignatian spirituality, which is literally all about discerning between forces of light and dark.
00:02:20
Speaker
you know, the book that I've written and a lot of kind of what I think about is how do we, you know, how do we discern between these forces of light and dark in our own real lives? But that's what Star Wars is all about, right? So I entered Star Wars as a child, as a young person at a formative age. I loved it. And then as I kind of grew and encountered different spiritual traditions and kind of embraced this one as my own, I was like, oh, man, this is what's happening in
Family and Fandom: Raising Star Wars Fans
00:02:44
Speaker
real life.
00:02:44
Speaker
And also in this story, I love so much. And it just makes sense to kind of mind both mind both of these traditions to to see what it means in my own my own actual life right from my own relationships and my own purpose and meaning. And and so that's that's kind of probably the shortest elevator ride.
00:03:03
Speaker
That's great. Where do you live? You have wife and kids, I believe, right? I do. I am a little north of Baltimore, Maryland, Charm City, and I have a wife. I have two daughters who are six and four.
00:03:20
Speaker
Um, and who I am raising to be Star Wars fans. And I particularly started through the lens of Lego. I know it's all about cleanliness here, but I, I love like having the Legos all over the place and, and building, um, you know, building these, these like universes out of little plastic blocks. So that's, that's my game. Yeah. My Lego shelf is over that window. So at some point I'll rotate the camera and let you see the camera.
00:03:42
Speaker
Um, I think you can see, I think you can see my bubble fed from here. Yeah, that's great. Famously an audio medium, but, uh, exactly. You know, we're, we're seeing great stuff for all of you who can only hear and good luck raising your girls to be Star Wars fans. I tried that with my boys. It backfired spectacularly, but they, they finally come around. Well, you know what? Let me tell you how I found your book. Cause I think you're going to, you're going to get a kick out of this is my background is I've kind of grown up.
00:04:09
Speaker
all over the spectrum of Protestant Christianity. So started off in the Evangelical Free Church, went to a very, very large non-denominational Christian church outside of Chicago. I bet you can guess what that is. Moved from there to a Baptist church.
00:04:29
Speaker
you know, now, if anything, I identify as a Piscopalian, but I'm also kind of in this Ahsoka, I am no Jedi, but still acting like a Jedi phase, right? So I'm kind of in a mental battle with the church as an institution. And one of the things that I've been thinking about was, you know, I've been going
Ignatian Spirituality Meets Star Wars Themes
00:04:50
Speaker
to services and not getting a ton out of going to like, you know, the traditional worship services,
00:04:58
Speaker
But when I watch the Star Wars movies, I feel that connection. I'm getting what I need out of the Star Wars story. So I kind of started exploring, well, like, what maybe are some other aspects of that that I can explore? Then I saw your book referred to me on Amazon, you know, My Life with the Jedi. And I pick it up and I look at it. And, you know, I think in the first chapter or so, you said,
00:05:20
Speaker
This is mapping to the Ignatian principles. My wife had just spent like a year and a half going through an in-depth study of the Ignatian journey. So, you know, I kind of felt like, okay, so I kind of felt like, okay, universe is trying to tell me something to take a look at this, right? But I also was like,
00:05:42
Speaker
Oh man, is this another guy who is trying to, you know, trying to evangelize people and convert people to Christianity or Catholicism? In your case, I know that's your background. Convert people by drawing it to Star Wars because I've read a few of those books.
00:05:58
Speaker
But what I found in reading the books was I didn't feel like that was the approach. I really enjoyed it and I got a lot out of it. Thank you. That's really gratifying to hear because I very intentionally, it's not supposed to be an evangelical tool for evangelism. It's not like a tract that you're...
00:06:15
Speaker
It's really not and I know I've gotten some feedback people sometimes feel the way in that which which bums me out because it was meant as an invitation, right? It's it's like Star Wars for me Star Wars and it's written as there's some quotes or like Lucas right intentionally makes it vague and and pulls from these different traditions.
00:06:32
Speaker
as an invitation to bring your own spiritual tradition into dialogue with the story. And so that was what I was responding to with this book was like, Hey, this is my tradition, I'm going to kind of like bring it to bear. But then I don't want you to necessarily leave with my tradition, or my way of doing spirituality, I want you to like
00:06:49
Speaker
let it rattle around your head and then do your way of doing it. Be affirmed in your own path.
Spiritual Reflections Inspired by Star Wars Scenes
00:06:54
Speaker
One of the things too about the Ignatian tradition is the foundational line is God in all things. Everything is holy and grace-filled. These stories that resonate with us, like you said, Star Wars speaks to you, Star Wars speaks to me certainly, but whatever the story is, if it's bouncing around your head,
00:07:11
Speaker
that probably is significant to you at a spiritual level. Why is that true? Why are the characters, why are the themes still there? And so we just use these stories in our culture as leaping off points to just figure out who you are and what makes you tick. So anyway, I'm really... Thank you. I'm glad you didn't feel like I was trying to hit you over the head with anything and more, hopefully, invitational for your own journey.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, that was my reaction to it. It was really great. And I loved how you were going through kind of principle by principle and drawing the examples from the Star Wars story and then drawing the examples from the Ignatius story. I'm curious if you kind of started with the because I'm not an expert in the, you know, the Ignatian disciplines.
00:07:56
Speaker
Did you start with that and then kind of try to draw the Star Wars parallels with each of those, or did you do it the other way around, or kind of what was your process for how you thought through the organizing this book? You know, honestly, I would sit and, you know, when I knew I was working on this book, like once I kind of had the green light, I just really like allowed myself to sink into Star Wars. It was like, what moves me? What are the scenes that move me? And so like, I love that line about sand.
00:08:23
Speaker
Um, you know, like it's course and gets everywhere, right? And it just drives you nuts. And, um, and I was like, and so the more I sat with that, I was like, Oh, you know, this actually is speaking to something spiritual, right? It gets like, you're uncomfortable. You have to move out into something else. And so I really did start with a lot of the Star Wars text and then, and then sunk. And I was like, well, why, why is this spiritually significant?
00:08:41
Speaker
And then once I asked that question, then it began to open up different parts of the Ignatian story. There were some things in Ignatius' story, and we're talking about Ignatius of Loyola, who was a Catholic Saint Mystic, that always resonate with me. The cave scene, the chapter on two, the two standards, the rule of two.
00:09:00
Speaker
Those things have always resonated with me very powerfully. And so I was like, this has to come into the book because I think it speaks to Star Wars. And then there were some things as you kind of go through the book, there are particular articles I've read and just other people's ideas that I really wanted to wrestle with on the page. So those are kind of the three pillars of
Light, Dark, and Spiritual Choices
00:09:20
Speaker
going into it. What speaks to me from Star Wars? What are things that are already important to me from the Ignatian tradition? And what have other people been saying that has really challenged or moved me
00:09:29
Speaker
way that I want to I want to bring to the page here you mentioned the two standards and maybe that's a good example because I was hoping you could kind of give our listeners a taste of what your book is like could you talk about that a little bit and you know the connection with Star Wars and you know kind of view this as a sample chapter of what you find in the book
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, the two standards. So the Ignatian exercises, the spiritual exercises, it's four kind of spiritual movements for quote unquote weeks. And it kind of goes brings you deeper and deeper into your own spiritual journey, kind of your own vocation. So the two standards are one of the key meditations about halfway through the whole experience. And Ignatius sets it up. You're looking almost at like a war scene, right? Like you're imagining like, you know, Middle Earth being overrun by orcs. And so the word standard is referring to the flag, right? The actual banner.
00:10:16
Speaker
It's not like standard of behavior. It's standard like a flag on a battlefield. Yeah, it's a very Ignatian spirituality is very visual. It's very sensory. And so he's like, Ignatian is like, which, which, which, which standard are you? Are you standing under? Where do you find yourself? Where do you place yourself? And so these standards are represented by a desire to, to riches.
00:10:35
Speaker
uh like inordinate riches like just like an overabundance of riches oh like a desire for honors and bloated pride right this is the sense of like always looking inward at yourself versus the other standard right the standard of christ is is the standard that is is is symbolized by uh poverty rejection and humility right so the sense that you're you're kind of um you're giving away some of yourself you're entering into community
00:10:57
Speaker
Anyway, so you can see, I mean, those are pretty stark. But where the rule of two comes in, and I think this is so helpful from Star Wars, is they use that word crave, right? You're like, what's the relationship? The relationship is based on craving power and withholding power until the apprentice gets so much power and so much hatred and anger that he kills the master, right? And that craving leads to death. It leads, but also leads to isolation. It leads to depression and loneliness. Like, look at your Sith Lords. Look at Dooku. Look at Maul. Look at Vader.
00:11:27
Speaker
Are those happy people? They're not, right? Cause they're craving power. And so then you layer that onto this, the two standards and you're like, Oh, like I could see why craving that inordinate, that kind of like manipulation, uh, to, to, to obsession, to addiction, almost addicted to riches, addicted to honor, addicted to pride. That's going to lead me in a dark place. It's going to leave me, you know, a mall or Dooku or, or Vader versus the opposite of that is going to, is going to, um, bring me towards the light.
00:11:54
Speaker
So that's kinda how I intermingle these two things. I don't know, but how did this strike you? Does that sound right? Was that a fair summation? It does. And what I liked about that was, at least the way it hit me, was the idea that you've got the light side and you've got the dark side and it's a spectrum.
00:12:12
Speaker
in between. And, you know, I think I grew up feeling like you had to be all the way over on the light side and anything, you know, on the darker side needed to be completely excised from you. And it helped me just kind of give a little more perspective in terms of what I would call like the the Grey Jedi or like the Klygon. You know, it's not like he's swinging from the light side to the dark side, but he's definitely kind of doing things his own way.
00:12:40
Speaker
Right. So he's still aligned towards that, the lighter standard, but it's just a different way of looking at it and embracing it.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I think something important to think about with the two standards is even though the image is like you're standing beneath a standard, they're spiritually actually roadmaps. They're constant check-ins. Oh, if I make this decision, am I only looking inward or am I also looking outward to those in need, my neighbor, my community? And I think that idea of every step being an opportunity to make a decision, to discern between the light and the dark,
00:13:12
Speaker
The more Star Wars we get, the more we game out the spectrum, as you said, right between light and dark.
The Acolyte Premiere Experience
00:13:18
Speaker
When Vader shows up in the original one, you're like, oh, that's the bad guy. Like, he's bad. But as we've kind of like told the story on both ends of that moment, you're like, oh, I see how this character kind of goes back and forth, makes decisions, falls to the dark, comes back, is saved by community, and so on.
00:13:35
Speaker
So we will hit pause there on our conversation with Eric Clayton We'll come back to Eric next week and wrap it up But I promised you a recap of my experience seeing the acolyte which premieres today on Disney Plus Let me set the stage for you a little bit I got tickets with my friend Paul at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood now El Capitan is one of these classic movie houses It's located right across the street from the Chinese theater
00:14:02
Speaker
Uh, it's also owned by Disney, so they really just showed Disney features there. So you kind of have this, you know, hometown Disney set up for it. The theater was absolutely packed, filled with Star Wars fans. I counted at least 10 lightsabers. It's a classical movie house. And so they had organist out there for half an hour beforehand and he played Star Wars music and everybody hyped up.
00:14:25
Speaker
So the audience was primed. So that was great. And that was probably the best part of it was watching Star Wars with people who are big fans. As far as the show itself goes, I really enjoyed it. Go watch it. I've seen some reviews saying that this is like Andor, but with the Force and with Jedi. I don't think that that's fair. I don't think that's a really good assessment because it doesn't have the same feel as Andor.
00:14:48
Speaker
I think Andor feels like a classic spy thriller movie like Bourne Identity or something like that that just happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. The Acolyte feels more like a Star Wars movie, but it is pretty mature. It's sophisticated. And I heard Leslie Headland, the creator of it,
00:15:06
Speaker
compare it to Kill Bill crossed with Frozen set in the Star Wars universe. And I think that that is very apt. So definitely watch it. I think you'll enjoy the Acolyte and would love to hear your thoughts. So in the meantime, let me know what you think. Hit like, hit subscribe, tell your friends, write a review. We'll be back next week with more from Eric. And until then, may the force be with you.
00:15:37
Speaker
Oh yeah!