It's Star Wars Day

May the 4th Be With You

I ended last week with a brief stopover at Batuu aka Galaxy’s Edge aka the Star Wars part of Disney World. We were celebrating my brother’s 30th birthday. I accompanied him as he built a lightsaber.

It was a surprisingly poignant experience: all somber faces and shadowy halls and sudden, bright bursts of colorful light. It was maybe fifteen minutes soup to nuts, but the story we were part of, the “legacy” we claimed as our own, felt much longer—and larger. We were travelers ushered into a clandestine community, given the chance to stake our claim on something bigger and build our own destiny.

My brother built a purple lightsaber. He held it high with the rest of the travelers, an act of triumph, of hope dispelling darkness. We were handed gift bags on the way out. We were still giggling when the Florida—err, Batuu sun hit our faces once more.

This week, to mark May the 4th, I’m taking part in a pop culture conference hosted by DePaul University to celebrate all things Star Wars. I’ll give a paper on the Sith Rule of Two and the Ignatian Two Standards. I’ll be with others who think about Star Wars, who reflect on its themes and lessons and how such things might apply beyond a galaxy far, far away.

And ultimately, on this Star Wars Day, that’s what I’m most intrigued by: the people we meet along the way who have also been struck by something poignant, something special, something unique in the story. I’ve had many a conversation since “My Life with the Jedi” released with folks about why Star Wars matters, what it means to me.

But it’s the folks who also have their own story, their own take, their own “Yes, and!” that strike me. Because that’s where we meet, us travelers: We meet in the “Yes, and!” We meet on common ground and shared story. And then we look with new eyes upon our own unique vocations.

That story means so much to me and so much to you and now we set out to continue our own stories no longer strangers but fellow travelers part of something bigger.

To mark the holiday, I have a lot of Star Wars stuff to share this week, so I’m keeping this short(er).

• Check out the Loyola Press webinar where I got to reflect on “My Life with the Jedi”—what it means to me and what I hope it means to you. Check it out.

• I write about what Star Wars Day means to me over at IgnatianSpirituality.com. Give it a read.

• I shared some Jedi/Jesuit wisdom for this week’s “Now Discern This.” (Spoiler: It features Qui-Gon Jinn.) Check it out.

• And hey! If you’ve been waiting to buy my book, today’s the day to do it! Grab it.