{"id":5408,"date":"2026-05-04T08:24:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5408"},"modified":"2026-05-04T08:24:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:24:41","slug":"may-the-fourth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/may-the-fourth\/","title":{"rendered":"May the Fourth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>

It\u2019s a very big deal if you manage to appear in the Star Wars<\/em> cinematic universe.

Even if you’re on the screen for a grand total of two seconds.\u00a0

In The Empire Strikes Back<\/em>, after a dramatic announcement that Imperial storm troopers have taken over the Cloud City of Bespin, people begin to scatter. An unnamed, uncredited extra wearing an orange jumpsuit streaks across the screen.

He appears to be carrying an ice cream maker.

Who is this guy, and what in the world is under his left arm?

Those are the kinds of questions that keep\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0devotees awake at night.\u00a0Not long after\u00a0Empire’s<\/em> 1980 release, “Ice Cream Guy” became something of a cult figure.\u00a0Years later, an especially dedicated fan named Scott Pearson created a fan-fiction backstory that exploded into an internet movement.\u00a0Tens of thousands of people who loved the films petitioned the keepers of the Star Wars<\/em> narrative to bestow an actual identity on the legendary extra.

It finally happened.\u00a0

Ice Cream Guy has officially been named Willrow Hood.\u00a0In alignment with Pearson’s fictional account, Hood is a Tibanna gas miner at Cloud City. He works with a company that does business with the Rebellion. Thus he serves the “good guys” like Luke Skywalker who are committed to the Empire’s downfall.\u00a0

And what is he cradling under his left arm?\u00a0That’s a computer memory core he is transporting for safekeeping.\u00a0\u00a0

Willrow Hood ultimately received his own entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia<\/em>, the essential Who’s Who for fanatics. But he really hit the big time about 20 years ago, when Hasbro released the Willrow Hood action figure.

That’s right.\u00a0You can own your very own plastic figurine of a guy who carried an ice cream maker in the background of a movie for two seconds.\u00a0\u00a0

And you\u2019re wondering if the fires of heroism in our culture have almost gone out.

Do some people take Star Wars<\/em> a little too seriously?

Let\u2019s put it this way: It\u2019s astonishing how many fans of the pop culture phenomenon, when asked on a form if they would be willing to declare a religious affiliation, write \u201cJedi.\u201d\u00a0

May 4 is the unofficial national holiday for devotees of the space opera that director George Lucas launched with the original Star Wars<\/em> movie in 1977.\u00a0\u201cMay the Fourth be with you,\u201d it must be admitted, is undoubtedly the best pun on the calendar every year \u2013 considerably better than tomorrow\u2019s \u201cRevenge of the Fifth.\u201d\u00a0

If those words didn\u2019t immediately make you think of the Sith, the cult of the Dark Side in the Star<\/em>Wars<\/em> mythology, it means you probably have a lot of screen time ahead of you in order to get caught up.

Lucas never concealed the fact that his grand epic was more than just entertainment.

He delved deeply into various global religious traditions in order to help his viewers embrace new ways of envisioning the cosmos. He told an interviewer, \u201cI wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery.\u201d\u00a0

The mystery of life, that is.\u00a0And the mysteries of meaning, purpose, Good, and Evil.\u00a0

Lucas borrowed generously from Buddhism.\u00a0One writer has even described Star Wars<\/em> as \u201cZen with lightsabers.\u201d\u00a0He embraced the notion of the \u201cyin and the yang,\u201d as well as Taoism\u2019s never-ending quest for balance as we seek to follow the Tao, or Way, through this world.\u00a0The nine feature films and numerous back-story movies and TV episodes that comprise the Star Wars<\/em> saga include echoes of Zoroastrianism (Dark vs. Light) as well as Brahman Hinduism.\u00a0

Then there are the Messianic associations with Anakin Skywalker, who is mysteriously born of a virgin and declared to be the Chosen One \u2013 the long-prophesied figure who will bring balance and peace to the galaxy.\u00a0Unlike Jesus, however, Anakin yields to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader \u2013 definitely not a positive development, seeing as he was recently voted the most notorious movie villain of all time.\u00a0

And what of Lucas himself?\u00a0He was once described as a \u201cBuddhist-Methodist.\u201d\u00a0In 1999 he told Time<\/em> magazine, \u201cLet\u2019s say I\u2019m spiritual.\u201d

The central metaphysical component of Star Wars<\/em> is the Force.\u00a0As the Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi puts it, in what amounts to Galactic Theology 101: \u201cThe Force is what gives a Jedi his power.\u00a0It\u2019s an energy field created by all living things.\u00a0It surrounds us and penetrates us.\u00a0It binds the galaxy together.\u201d

The Force is utilized by the Jedi to bring about redemption and hope. But it\u2019s also manipulated by the Sith to generate chaos and destruction.

Which brings us back to those words you may hear a few times today: \u201cMay the Force be with you.\u201d\u00a0As the science fiction columnist Emmet Asher-Perrin inquires, \u201cThe next time you say, \u2018may the Force be with you\u2019 to a friend, you might want to ask \u2013 what exactly are you wishing for them?\u201d

Is proximity to the Force a good thing or a bad thing?\u00a0Is it both?\u00a0Or maybe neither?\u00a0And in what sense can the Force be \u201cwith\u201d us?\u00a0

Star Wars<\/em> declines to provide clear answers.

Expectations are decidedly clearer when it comes to that phrase frequently uttered by followers of Jesus: \u201cThe Lord be with you.\u201d

This is not a way of saying, \u201cWell, you know, sometimes God is with you to do you good, and sometimes he\u2019s not, so I hope this turns out to be one of the good times.\u201d\u00a0The Lord be with you<\/em> is a stirring call for us to remember that we are in fact never alone.\u00a0As far as God\u2019s children are concerned, his presence is always a good thing.

When exactly is God with you?\u00a0

God is with you when you stare at the ceiling in the middle of the night and wonder if your life is turning out the way it should.\u00a0God is with you as you wait to hear from the doctor in the ER.\u00a0God is with you as you try to figure out how you can possibly afford to fill your gas tank this month.\u00a0God is with you as you weep over the addiction you cannot beat.\u00a0God is with you as you wonder if you can ever be reconciled to one of your kids. God is with you as you grieve the painful divisions in our culture.\u00a0God is with you in the meeting you dread because you know your job might be on the line.\u00a0

Bible scholars have long noted that there is a \u201cwith\u201d at both the beginning and the end of the gospel of Matthew.\u00a0

Jesus comes into the world as Immanuel, \u201cGod with Us\u201d (Matthew 1:23).\u00a0And he departs the company of his disciples with the words, \u201cAnd surely I am with<\/em>you<\/em> always, to the very end of the age\u201d (Matthew 28:20).

He is the With-Us God.\u00a0Which makes him a Force like no other.\u00a0

You may never get to run across a movie screen. You might not even like ice cream.

But you can be with Him, just as He is with you \u2013 not a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but right here and right now.\u00a0
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here It\u2019s a very big deal if you manage to appear in the Star Wars cinematic universe. Even if you’re on the screen for a grand total of two seconds.\u00a0 In The Empire Strikes Back, after a dramatic announcement that Imperial storm troopers have taken over the Cloud City of Bespin, people… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1109],"class_list":["post-5408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gods-presence-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5410,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions\/5410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}