Image copyright Disney Studios.
ROGUE ONE SPOILER ALERT!!!
Three-quarters of the way through Rogue One, a sick truth kicked me in the stomach, nearly making me drop my industrial-sized popcorn tub: all of these good people are going to die before the credits role. This is going to end very badly for them. My heart sank a bit as I realized our time together was short.
The sense of grief on-screen and in the theater grew heavy and thick, as one by one each of the valiant rebels fell. Yet, by the time Jyn and Cassian embraced one another on the doomed shore of a rapidly imploding Scarif, I remembered something:
I remembered that this is not the end of the story.
I remembered that Hope will have its day even if some of its caretakers won’t ever get to see it fully.
I remembered that Jyn and Cassian will live again through Leia and Luke and Han and Rey; that they simply pass the Hope along to those who would protect it and make sure that it survived.
When asked by her overwrought allies what resources they had to overcome the might of the Imperial Army, she would reply, “We have hope. Rebellions are built on hope.”
It turns out that Hope is all the ammunition good people need to multiply their goodness and to keep going. That Hope allows Jyn and her fellow rebels to see the Empire seemingly gain the upper hand and to fight on. The Dark Side appears to be winning on so many fronts and Hope pushes them right into the fray.
This is what rebels do and have always done throughout history: they steward Hope with their very lives so that others following after them can inherit it.
And this is what it means for us to be The Resistance in Donald Trump’s America. It is what the good people will do every single day for the next four years, despite the chaos that surrounds and threatens to overwhelm. We will come against it and we will not relent.
And like a tiny treasure of data passed through the sliver of a closing door amid the greatest chaos—Hope will be preserved now too.
No, friends, we will not allow the dire nature of the circumstances nor the appearance of impending disaster to dissuade us. We will merge our shared strength and together we will craft the kind of defiant, persistent rebellion that confounds those with only fear and power at their disposal.
We will not let Hope die on our watch.
As I left the theater that evening, I realized that although I went in believing I needed an escape from reality, what I really needed was a fresh reminder of what is most real and true and undeniable: that a small army of rebellious souls fully sold out on Hope, is the most dangerous weapon Humanity has ever had.
So Donald Trump can compile his darkest, most joyless, most threatening Imperial Army, he can call forth from the shadows every Sidious, Krennic, Tarkin, and Vader to fill his cabinet, and he can marshal every massive resource at his disposal to try and squash those of us who believe in greater things than contempt for others—and he will fail. In fact, he has already failed because of our very presence.
Four years is a long time, and many good people in the fight may pass without seeing the fruit of their sacrifice, but rest assured it will come just the same, and there will be other good people waiting there to receive it.
America’s greatness has always been in the hands of those who don’t give a damn about the numbers, the odds, or the circumstances; those with a belief that small people armed with great love can alter planets. This greatness will persevere now, not because of Donald Trump but despite him. We together are the ragged, diverse, motley assembly charged with carrying and defending it.
So friends, let us steady our knees, fix our eyes, and let the furious hearts within our chests be what propels us forward together; noise and doom and chaos be damned.
We are Jyn Orso.
We are rebellion.
We are the Resistance.
Be encouraged. Hope is still in really good hands.
