The Kingdom of Heaven

My earliest memories are tied to two powerful mythologies that have governed my life. The first of these is Star Wars. I remember being bundled up in the back of a station wagon with a Tupperware bowl of air-popped popcorn in my footie pj’s at the drive-in theater outside of Binghamton, New York where we lived. It was a double feature of the first film (back then we just called it “Star Wars,” none of this complicated “Episode Four” terminology existed yet) and the newly released “Empire Strikes Back.”

To say that my little mind was blown is an understatement. What was on the screen was the most “real,” most powerful expression of adventure and heroism that perhaps the world had ever seen. It became a pop culture phenomenon for that reason, and my toddler brain soaked in as much as it could comprehend until I collapsed in sleep somewhere around the cave of Dagobah. My brother was nearly four years older, and stayed awake through both films. As soon as I opened my eyes he shouted “Darth Vader is Luke’s dad!” in my face. I didn’t want to believe him, but why would my family lie to me? The most terrible thing I could imagine was true, and I had to cope.

The second powerful memory emerges halfway through, and involves (of all things) a gumball. I had taken this candy from my brother’s room while he was at school, and my mom caught me trying to chew my way through an oversized wad of gum that they would never have allowed a three year old to have. She sat me down on my bed (I can’t remember if I was spanked or not, but the odds are very high that I was) and explained to me that what I had done made Jesus cry. Who was Jesus, I asked. Well, Jesus was a man who was also God who died in the most terrible way so that I could be forgiven for stealing that gumball. And I needed to be forgiven because without that forgiveness there was a place full of fire and monsters where I would burn forever and ever and ever for stealing a gumball. Hell was the new most terrible thing I could imagine, and it seemed too incredibly horrific to be true. But why would my family lie to me? Hell and Satan were real, and I would have to beg Jesus forgiveness if I didn’t want to burn forever.

The flipside to these terrible realizations was the eternal reward of Heaven. This was described as a place with as many gumballs as I could ever want. Full of joy and happiness and no terrible thing could exist there. There were puppies and fluffy clouds and angels and amazing music and anything else wonderful and good would be in abundance in Heaven. Of course I had to ask why we couldn’t go there right now.

“You go to Heaven when you die,” my mom told me.

“But I want to go now,” I said.

“Wanting to go now is a sin, and sins keep you out of Heaven,” she explained patiently.

“I’m sorry, Jesus!” I was crying again because I made him sad. I was also scared of burning, and I didn’t want to go to a place where that was my eternal reality instead of candy and puppies and fluffy clouds.

“You will just have to wait and be good,” she leaned in close, cradling her Bible like a baby doll in her arms, “but for now you could dedicate your life to Jesus.”

At three years of age I was led in the sinner’s prayer, and promised Jesus to always be good, to try not to sin, to not steal gumballs ever again.

To my mind, both Star Wars, with its planets of Tatooine and Hoth; and Jesus, with his eternal rewards of Heaven and Hell were equally real. There was no differentiation other than the stakes were so much higher with Jesus. The worst thing that happened in Star Wars was that some things blew up, or someone had an arm cut off bloodlessly. Jesus was beaten, tortured, stripped naked and had the flesh torn off his body. He was insulted and mocked, he was rejected and ignored, all because of me. Not being a devoted fan of Jesus would result in something far worse than the destruction of the Death Star, it would send me to a place far away from my family where I was tortured and beaten. I would be mocked and insulted while the flesh burnt from my body if I didn’t revolve my life around the Bible and its stories. This is how I was taught to differentiate what was “fiction” from what was “real,” because “real life” had those qualities. Angels and demons, heaven and hell – that was what reality looked like. Men spending three days in a whale, a woman being made from a rib bone – this was more critical to my future than lightsabers and Jedi.

I understood the very reasonable differentiations, and dedicated myself to the reality that required my attention. But I always kept Star Wars in my heart, because even if it was just made up (unlike the Bible) something in those stories made me feel hopeful and happy. The Bible made me feel anxiety and dread.

My conversion to Christianity was celebrated at home and at Church. Adults gathered around to congratulate me on my decision to dedicate my life to the narrative that really mattered. It was a see of strange faces, adults I had never seen that closely before; people who had never taken notice of me. I saw beard stubble and ingrown hairs, I smelled cheap cologne and halitosis and coffee breath. Some of them had glasses so thick their eyes were distorted like my brother’s goldfish. Men had uneven sideburns, women had cheap shoes with tassels. They were slapping me on the back or kneeling down to hug me. I was jostled and crushed and pummeled with their elation. I was buffeted by a wave of sudden acceptance and approval, dashed against the rocks in waves of adult endorsement. I was lifted up to where I could view their humanity while they spoke with the voice of the Almighty. But a few of them used a new word that I hadn’t heard before: prophesy.

I was fulfilling the prophesy, and that was the best and scariest thing I had ever heard.