Coffee Clicks: Star Wars Day

Howdy readers, happy weekend eve!  First, I’m so excited by the flood of NFP stories that have been hitting my inbox. Seems like the series is going to be a huge success. If you’ve already sent me something, thank you! If you haven’t and you’d like to, go right ahead, but know that I have a pretty hefty stack to share in the coming weeks so I can’t guarantee that they’ll all be included in their entirety. I have been so humbled and inspired by the courage and the sacrifice and the goodness of so many of the couples who have reached out to share their testimony. There are seemingly ordinary people living extraordinary lives all around you.

Also, for my Instagram followers, a heartfelt thanks for your prayers for my dad. His surgery yesterday was a success, so now we wait and pray for a clean pathology report. We are asking Julia Greeley to intercede that he be cancer free and have a miraculously easy and complete recovery.

Our editor did a sobering interview about the grim implications of little Alfie Evans’ death. Eternal rest unto him, the little martyr, O Lord.

I grew up Catholic and straggled away for a while during college, but I was always on board with the Church’s teachings on contraception. (Even as a full-on heathen in college.) But it wasn’t until listening to Dr. Smith’s famed “Contraception, Why Not?” presentation and then reading her impressive volume “Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later” that I really understood that teaching on an intellectual level. She is eminently clear and approachable to read even with her high level of scholarship, and I think every single human person should be forced to listen to Contraception YN at least once in their lifetime. (fun fact, there is a “secular” version of the recording available where she makes the case from a strictly natural law perspective, no religion necessary.

Another gem from that lion of Catholicism, Archbishop Chaput. Fun fact about the good bishop: he has something of a photographic memory for human beings. So if he has met you once or twice and then seen you not at all for years on end, he will probably look you in the eye, call you by your (correct) first name, and ask you how your kids/job/parents are doing. He’s astonishing.

This mom is a superhero for her daughter and put together a really practical and compassionate how-to for talking with little kids (read: big mouthed hams) about classmates who look/act/sound different than the “average” kid. I really appreciate this as a primer for helping my own crew (especially Evie, ahem) navigate those moments in the checkout line in a more constructive and loving way then pointing and yelling WHY IS THAT MAN REALLY REALLY FAT, MOM? WHY? (I don’t know, sweetheart. Maybe his metabolism works about as well as mine does. Now please let me crawl into a hole and disappear.) An interesting aside: my kids have only rarely pointed or stared at someone in a wheelchair or with an obvious disability. They’ve never said anything about our favorite checker, Kami, at King Soopers, who has Down Syndrome. They don’t bat an eye when we drive through downtown Littleton and see a bunch of students with canes crossing the street across from the Colorado College for the Blind. But if you are overweight or happen to be in possession of a pair of  long ponytails as a grown man? Look out. My 4-year-old is about to publicly humiliate her mother again.

Check out this hilarious, interactive, and exhaustive multimedia coverage of the imminent Royal Wedding and any religious or political differences aside, someone is getting married in a princess dress this weekend and I AM HERE FOR IT. (Not responsible for any questionable content you might stumble upon whilst reading the New York Times.)

Any big cinco de mayo plans? We’ll be having margaritas and celebrating a Lord’s Day dinner with a group of neighborhood families and hopefully putting all 30-something collective children into the backyard, weather permitting, because it snowed yesterday. Snow, I tell you. Only briefly and it didn’t stick but I tell ya what, I am well and truly done with laundry and am ready for swimsuits ‘n activewear season where my kids can run wild and free and go through only 1-2 articles of clothing a day. Which is a significant downtick from the 15 items they are currently soiling per day.

Have a wonderful weekend! And, even  more importantly: May the 4th be with you.