don't fear the upside-down world

it's the only place to find a mentor

We’re all called to enter the “upside-down” world.

Where’s that? Fair question.

It’s in Act 2 of any story, Jessica Brody reminds us in her essential novel-writing book, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need. It’s where the protagonist of a story necessarily steps into once they’ve answered the call to adventure and graduated from Act 1. It’s the opposite of the life the so-called hero has been living. It’s the place where the protagonist is challenged, where they’re given the opportunity to grow, to solve their problems, to imagine something new, to meet their needs, to test their skills and insights and to respond to whatever instigated the story in the first place.

The upside-down world represents the opposite of whatever world the protagonist has been living in. The upside-down world, in short, pushes back against the hero’s status-quo world.

Importantly, Brody notes, it’s in the upside-down world where the protagonist meets a mentor or a guide. Your Obi-Wans Kenobi, as it were.

“You’ve taken your first step into a larger world,” old Ben tells a young Luke Skywalker onboard the Millennium Falcon. And how right he is—Luke has left the only life he knew, the sands of Tatooine and the relentless cycle of moisture farming, behind.

He’s left the status quo.

We all want to push back against the status quo, right? A status quo that celebrates violence and makes room for racism and sexism and antisemitism and Islamophobia. A status quo where the gap between the wealthy and the struggling yawns like an increasingly determined chasm. A status quo where we just assume problems like climate change and poverty and loneliness can never be solved.

We don’t want to live in such a status quo world. The status quo kind of sucks, right? And so we are propelled out and into our own stories, our own proverbial heroic journey.

But here’s where I think Jessica Brody’s insight—her claim that the mentor figure must come from the upside-world—is essential. Luke needed a Jedi to pull him from his status quo; he needed someone who could completely alter his understanding of his life and his world. If he’d just had another moisture farmer step in as a mentor, he would have continued on living life as he always had.

He needed his imagination expanded. He needed to grapple with a much bigger realm of possibility.

And so do we. But too often, I think, we look for mentors and guides and spiritual companions from our own status quo world. It’s comfortable there; these folks won’t really challenge us or push us or make us uncomfortable. Then, we’re surprised when we continue upholding the same biases and prejudices and blind spots—the same status quo—that we’ve always been stuck in.

We need to risk allowing ourselves to be guided by someone from our own proverbial Act 2—from our own upside-down world. We need to risk allowing our imaginations to grow and expand and be challenged.

Jesus came from the upside-down world, no? Peter was living his life and then suddenly some guy was like, “You like to fish, but what if you fished for people?” And Peter stepped into Act 2.

True religion pulls us into Act 2. True religious leaders—true prophets—guide us as we struggle to make sense of our own abilities and desires and skills and insights. How can we engage the world in a new way, in a way we haven’t even yet dreamed of?

Let’s spend some time in our own upside-down worlds and see if we can’t find a mentor who will pull from us our very best. And who will demand that we leave the status quo behind forever.

Because remember: There is still an Act 3.

And another thing:

• Excited about my forthcoming book on Ignatian spirituality and Star Wars, My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars? Me too! If you want to get a sneak peek behind why I wrote the book, check out my latest contribution to IgnatianSpirituality.com: “Lessons in Jedi Training and Ignatian Spirituality.”

• I was really honored to be asked to participate in a short interview on parenting and Ignatian spirituality for the “Ignatian Family Handbook.” You can sign up for that awesome resource and check out my interview here.

• It’s not too late to sign up for my Star Wars and spirituality virtual evening retreat! Get all the info here.

• And finally, if you want to learn how SNL can give you perspective on the spiritual life, check out this week’s installment of “Now Discern This.”