"This episode was badly written!"

Galaxy Quest is a movie full of genius--and affectionate and smart insights into storytelling.
(I always quote David Mamet saying this is a perfect movie).

This is one of my favorite scenes.
These two real-life actors (Sigourney Weaver & Tim Allen) find themselves inside the Star Trek–like TV show they starred in, but for real.

Here, they have to pass through some "crunchy choppy things" that MAKE NO SENSE.
"We shouldn't have to do this," says Weaver's character.
"This episode was badly written!"

I was texting with MsChocolate this morning about Holy Week, grief, unfairness, and acceptance...
The feelings are entirely authentic:
THIS MAKES NO SENSE...
And you scream and suffer... and then you accept (or not) that you have to do it anyway.

Kinda like Jesus on the cross:
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!?!
And then, Okay, then. So be it.
And in grief, the heavens are torn apart...

But it all looks better in morning...
"Oh, there you are! I thought you were gone forever!"

Here's another of my favorite creations:
Mary Magdalene sees Jesus in the garden, returned from the dead like a kindergartener's lima bean that has sprouted between wet paper towels.



Both comical and tender: she thinks he's the gardener. (That's why Squash the Squirrel holds a digging implement (like in Rembrandt's version of this story.)
She recognizes him only when he calls her by her name. 
"Mary."

So powerful, to be called by name.

Everything with humans does go on and on though, and we keep repeating this...
We have to go through the chomper field AGAIN?!?!

Anyway, talking about karma, I was saying, as I always do,
it's not like I literally believe these religious stories--(that's not even necessary)--but the truths they contain, the insights are often so helpful to me.

And I thought, Oh! Karma is like fan fiction.

If a fan doesn't like the way a particular story goes--say, something unbearably painful and UNFAIR happens (as it does in life)---
she can write "fix it" fiction, changing some crucial point.
"They didn't really die, it was their clone!"

(I'm thinking here of the unbearably bleak end of Blakes Seven. Noooo!)


(Or, in a humorous version, like in Life of Brian--spaceships swoop in and save Brian--temporarily.)

And karma is like a fandom fix-it story:
It feels unbearable that life is so random and cruel--
say, your child dies hideously;
your country is taken over by stupid, bad men--
and this suffering is the be all and end-all???

Clearly, this was badly written!
Let's come up with some fix-it...

I know!
Death isn't the end!
We get a do-over, but this time, we have the key code for the chomper sequence, from a previous experience (or from heavenly helpers--in the movie, that is true-hearted fans who know the show, inside-out).

And if that doesn't work, that's okay:
we, all of us, get another--endless--lives to get it right.

That is a very satisfying addition to this awful wonderful life, and I love it, and I like to employ it, even if I don't literally believe it.

And, who knows? If it's true, then great.
No punishment in this story, just feedback:
Try, try again.
Try harder.
Or not.

Whatever gets you through this episode!