From the entries for Episode IV: A New Hope Perhaps the most indelible scene in all of cinematic history is seeing Luke Skywalker climb onto the dirt mound to watch the setting of Tatooine’s twin suns. We hear the longing melody of the French horn. Luke is frustrated that his uncle is not allowing him to submit an application to the academy. Before he goes back to cleaning the droids his uncle just purchased from the Jawas (C-3PO and R2-D2), Luke puts one foot up on the berm of their sunken home and looks out at the desert horizon and the double sunset. From this context, we know Luke is dreaming of a better life. Is this scene only about teenage angst? Not even remotely! Whenever it was that we first saw this scene, not knowing what was to come, we grieve that Luke is held back from his dreams. Seeing the end of the movie, however, then experiencing the remaining films of the original trilogy causes us to understand that this one quiet moment has taken on much more significance. The work of Joseph Campbell, the pre-eminent scholar of mythology of our time, heavily influenced George Lucas, especially during the making of Star Wars. He said, “ … mythology is the penultimate truth—penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words … It is important to live life with the experience—and therefore the knowledge—of its mystery and of your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor.”1 (The Power of Myth, pg. 206) Luke is sensing the mystery of his future, wanting there to be something more. This scene contains that feeling that C.S. Lewis refers to as the German word Sehnsucht, which Lewis identifies as part of Joy. “… our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honor beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.”2 (The Weight of Glory, pg. 15) Then, “Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.”3 (Surprised by Joy, pg.78) Luke Skywalker aches for more. He feels a tug towards something about which he knows nothing. At the same time, there is an attachment to the nature of his home planet as seen in his gazing at the double sunset of Tatooine. He did not know what to make of all the feelings, all the longing. Is this a sub-conscious hunger to know the Force, which is similar to our desire to know a personal God? Perhaps it even represents to us a quiet need for worship—a yearning for our home with God. Our soul, as with Luke’s, is responding to our Creator’s call to us.
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Sample 1 Entry [1] Luke on the Mound – Sehnsucht.
 
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