Monthly Archives: July 2011

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Friday Link Love

Just a few this week:

Shakespeare in Celebrity Voices (youtube)

This has been making the rounds—impressionist Jim Meskimen does Clarence’s speech from Richard III with a few dozen voices. It’s just fun.

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Tinkering in the Studio

Neat picture of Buckminster Fuller, and some fun thoughts from the Improvised Life folks on tinkering, which has been a Sabbath activity for our family this year.

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Ten Mindful Ways to Use Social Media

Good list. One example:

5. Experience now, share later.
It’s common to snap a picture with your phone and upload it to Facebook or email it to a friend. This overlaps the experience of being in a moment and sharing it. It also minimizes intimacy, since your entire audience joins your date or gathering in real time. Just as we aim to reduce our internal monologues to be present, we can do the same with our digital narration.

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America Avoids Vacation

Some 25 percent of Americans and 31 percent of low-wage earners get no vacation at all anymore, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

and yet:

Performance increases after a vacation, with reaction times going up 40 percent. Vacations cure burnout, the last stage of chronic stress and something very difficult to shake. Burned-out employees are a major liability to effective performance.

She also argues that many people avoid a truly restorative vacation (as opposed to a go-go-go one) because of the emotional upheaval and examination that can occur when we stop and spend time with our crazy selves. She gets dinged in the comments for this, with people saying “I don’t take vacation because I don’t have the option to do so, it’s not some bogus woo-woo spiritual thing!” I think both can be true—many people don’t receive vacation benefits, and others receive them but don’t feel like they can take them. But I also think there’s a lot of numbing going on.

What’s your experience? Do you receive vacation benefits? Do you use them all? If not, why not?

Have a good weekend everyone!

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Things I Learned While My Kid Was at Camp

As I mentioned on Monday, Caroline is at Girl Scout camp this week. The weirdest thing for me is not even being able to talk to her. Camp is one of the last experiences in which parents and children are in complete radio silence from one another. Robert and I went overseas several years ago, and were on an island inhabited by 200 people, and still we talked regularly to the girls. (James was in utero.) Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great and necessary, just weird.

Some other random thoughts I’ve had this week as I think about her often, miss her very much, but feel confident that it will be the experience she needs to have.

Notice I didn’t say I was confident she would have a good time. I’m not confident of that. This is her first camp experience, so we’re in uncharted territory. The odds are in her favor, though. And that’s the calculation we made when we (and she) decided she was ready for a week of camp: she loves Girl Scout activities, she has been camping a few times and likes it, she’s been away from us overnight many times, and it’s a water- and swimming-themed camp, which is her thing.

Not to mention that the Girl Scouts have been at this for almost a hundred years.

But it’s true. She may have a not-great time… and it will still have been an important experience for her. She will have learned that you can have a not-great time and it will not kill you. That bad times come to an end and she can survive them. And as long as the week might have seemed, she will know that her parents will be there at 8:15 on Saturday morning to fetch her and to hear all about it.

I am certainly not rooting for a not-great time, but aren’t those fantastic lessons to learn? That you can survive a nasty girl in your cabin, or chigger bites, or food that’s not your favorite, or homesickness, or the bad thunderstorm we had on Monday?

I say this because not everyone I’ve talked to this week has been supportive. “A WHOLE WEEK!?!?” one mother shrieked when I told her. Geez, you’d think we were sending her to Glass-Chewing and Chainsaw-Juggling Camp. Another was relieved to hear that the camp was so close by should something go wrong. Then there was the mom who told me about the friend-of-a-friend whose kid had to be picked up because she wouldn’t eat. Or the kid whose parents had to pick her up because she cried constantly with homesickness. And look, it does have to be an individual decision with your own kids’ personality in mind. But really? Those aren’t horror stories. Those are stories of taking a risk and realizing it wasn’t the right time or the right fit. Those are learning experiences. You can make all the right calculations and things still go wrong. I say it’s better to take a chance.

Remember this Atlantic article about parents who smooth over their kids’ childhoods to the point that they don’t know how to deal with setback and failure as adults? (I talk about it here.) I don’t want to do that. “Will they be homesick, or could something go wrong” seems to be some people’s lines in the sand. Well… yes they will be homesick. And yes, something is likely to go wrong. And unless you think the homesickness or the something-wrong is going to be severe and debilitating, those aren’t reasons not to do it.

But here’s the other thing I realized about moms who shriek and tell horror stories:

There is such pressure around here to be the perfect parent. Keeping up with the Joneses in my leafy suburb of NoVA has nothing to do with cars and TVs; it’s all about giving your kids every opportunity to succeed, excel, be enriched, etc. So at first I heard these comments and thought, “They think I’m irresponsible, making her grow up too fast. They’re judging me.”

And they might be.

But it’s just as likely that they’re judging themselves—that they feel inadequate as a parent because their kid’s not ready and “should” be, or because the parents can’t bear the thought of their child being away from them, or they can’t afford to send their kid to camp and they feel he or she will miss out. Realizing this allows me to hear their feedback, consider what part of it is useful, and not take on what’s not.

Yes, lots of learning and growth for the mama… but I’m still running to the mailbox every day wondering if there’ll be a letter from her.

Image: Caroline’s home this week. It’s cool how close the shelters are to one another. I remember when I went to GS camp, I was in a tent that was back in the woods such that you couldn’t even see the other tents! Which was a little creepy, though I still liked camp. And get off my lawn.

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The Upper Room: “Before” Pictures

Read my previous post about our plan to create a kid-friendly “upper room” at Tiny Church. A reader requested “before” pictures—here they are with a bit of commentary:

Here’s the view from the very back of the balcony, near the door. I love the archway and think one could do something creative with paint, to hearken it to the Upper Room commemorative site in Jerusalem. Or just something fun and warm.

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Here’s the view from the railing of the balcony. There are about eight rows of pews, so as you can see, the balcony sticks out into the worship space quite well. This means the folks in the upper room are still a part of things, but it also makes foot noise a problem. Thankfully, the building is solid as a rock, and it’s carpeted, so there’s no major creaking happening when people walk around. I was jumping up and down, trying to make noise, and it was minimal.

The fact that the balcony protrudes so much means we can do fun things up there, like on Pentecost when I had the kids drop red, yellow and orange balloons on the people below as a “tongues of fire” throwback.

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The balcony has become home to all kinds of random things, including this fantastically retro couch. Unfortunately it’s gone totally flat. Any cushiony feel comes from the sheer amount of dust residing in it. We are thinking Craig’s List. That’s rolled-up carpet behind the couch. The globe is awesome, but perhaps needs to live somewhere other than our church.

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Nobody I’ve talked to knows where the rocking recliner came from, but it’s got a lot of life left in it. I could see a little reading nook in the corner of the upper room. I could also see that being a bone of contention.

Figuring out what to do with the books is a major puzzle. I firmly believe that in the Internet age, most church libraries are going the way of the dodo. However, there is some decent stuff up there—check out the Interpretations series lining that top shelf, and owl-eyed readers can also spot an old set of Calvin’s Institutes.

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A long view of the balcony. These are the white shelves you just saw.

Our current plan for the church library (such as it is) is to give it a second life by allowing people to take the books they want. They are the church’s books, so it makes sense that members of the church should be able to have them. Books that aren’t claimed will be boxed up and given to… whom? I bet my readers have some ideas!

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More stuff to be dealt with.

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Views from either side of the front railing. One of our challenges will be to figure out what to do with all these chairs. Also, notice the two large raised parts of the floor. Those need to go—they are a tripping hazard, but I think that means new carpet. Interestingly, there’s some more of this carpet rolled up behind that filing cabinet on the back wall of the last picture. !!

But as you can see, the space has two windows! How wonderful!

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So there’s your guided tour. I’ll be posting updates about our progress as we go.

I’m also considering applying for a worship renewal grant from Calvin College to do some kind of programmatic work, perhaps about children in worship, to go along with these physical changes to our building.

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Ten on Tuesday

1. In spite of pacing myself last week, working on the book was hard work, and I’m tired. Trying to go easy on myself. Unfortunately, well, there’s just a lot going on.

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2. I do feel good about what I accomplished last week. I did a ton of editing on my first (very rough) draft, and now I need to enter those changes into Evernote. (Still need a word count feature, guys!) Then I need feedback, then lots more drafts.

The Collegeville Institute has a nicely stocked kitchen, including Nutella, which I never buy because it’s, well, deliciously sinister, but it’s great on a sandwich with peanut butter. I call the PB&N sandwich the “Collegeville Special.”

One fun thing, there’s started to be some buzz about the book. The group last week was very encouraging. And I actually got a call the other day from a freelance reporter working on an article on Sabbath-keeping for an Episcopal Church publication, wanting to interview me.

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3. Caroline is at camp this week. That’s been unexpectedly hard. I suspect she will have some homesick moments but will mostly have a blast. It’s a Girl Scout camp with a swimming/water focus, which will bring some familiarity to a brand-new experience. I can’t wait to hear all about it on Saturday morning.

I did something in worship on Sunday that may have been a little self-indulgent, but heck, being the pastor has to have some privileges. And when you’re in a small church with a small group of kids, you can do stuff like this. During the children’s time, I talked about today being Caroline’s first camp experience, and I asked one of the older boys, who’d just come back from Boy Scout camp, to give some advice to Caroline. Then I asked the whole congregation to add words of advice or encouragement. Then I told all of the kids to look out at the people in the congregation and remember that wherever they go, this church family cares about them and prays for them. It was a nice “Tiny Church” moment.

That day C was wearing her T-shirt from the divisional swim meet. We’d forgotten to have her teammates sign the back of the shirt at the swim team party the day before, so she had her family do it instead. She also brought a Sharpie to church and had people there sign it. It made me feel smile to think that as she went into this new experience, that her family and friends “had her back.”

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4. Speaking of the swim team party, Caroline had a pretty good season. She got stronger in all four strokes, with her times improving by up to 26% (depending on the stroke) over the season. Caroline had really wanted the coach’s award, and was striving for it all summer. It went to her friend K instead. Afterwards I gave her a hug and she said sincerely, “I’m not upset. I’m happy for K. She’s my best friend.”

That was my proudest moment as a swim-team mom.

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5. In the car with Margaret the other day… we were talking about the age difference between the kids and which years they’d be at school together:

Me: So when you’re in second and third grade, all three of you will be in the same school. And then in high school, you and Caroline will be there together one year, until she goes to college. And you and James will be in the same school for two years, until you go to college.

Margaret: And then James will go to college. And then you will cry.

Me: Yes, probably.

Margaret: But it will be from joy too.

Me: Yes, definitely.

Margaret: Besides, Grammy and Pops will be there where we go to college!

…OK, what’s great about this conversation is the assumption on her part, that of course she will go to Rice University in Houston… hah! YES!!

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6. I’m in complete denial about the mess that is happening in Washington over the debt ceiling. Seriously. What a train wreck. La-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you.

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7. I know it’s not time for Friday Link Love yet, but I love this article in Newsweek by Andrew Sullivan called “Why Gay Marriage is Good for Straight America.” I’ve thought for a long time that marriage equality was fundamentally a conservative notion.

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8. My BFF is coming into town on Saturday night for several days! Woo!

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9. I started out thinking that Google+ would be my Facebook replacement, and it might be that, but it’s actually been a Twitter replacement. More on that some other time, perhaps.

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10. And finally, someone posted this to their Facebook. I remember when he first said this and my jaw dropped. Love the prophet Stephen:

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Friday Link Love and a Book

Just a few today—I’m not exactly doing a lot of outside reading this week…

We Are Just Not Digging the Whole Anymore

We just don’t do whole things anymore. We don’t read complete books — just excerpts. We don’t listen to whole CDs — just samplings. We don’t sit through whole baseball games — just a few innings. Don’t even write whole sentences. Or read whole stories like this one.

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We care more about the parts and less about the entire. We are into snippets and smidgens and clips and tweets. We are not only a fragmented society, but a fragment society.

Do you agree?

I quibble with a thing or two. For example, the author cites the example of BusinessSummaries.com, which gives quick and precise summaries of business books. I don’t know. I’ve read a lot of books about business, leadership and administration, and many of them contain a few good ideas with 300 pages of padding. I just can’t see summaries of those books as a bad thing.

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The Medium Chill

This really resonates with me… and has been good discussion fodder for Robert and me this week:

“Medium chill” has become something of a slogan for my wife and me…

We now have a smallish house in a nondescript working class Seattle neighborhood with no sidewalks. We have one car, a battered old minivan with a large dent on one side where you have to bang it with your hip to make the door shut. Our boys go to public schools. Our jobs pay enough to support our lifestyle, mostly anyway. If we wanted, we could both do the “next thing” on our respective career paths. She could move to a bigger company. I could freelance more, angle to write for a bigger publications, write a book, hire a publicist, whatever. We could try to make more money. Then we could fix the water pressure in our shower, redo the back patio, get a second car, or hell, buy a bigger house closer in to town. Maybe get the kids in private schools. All that stuff people with more money than us do.

But … meh. It’s not that we don’t think about those things. The water pressure thing drives me batty. Fact is, we just don’t want to work that hard! We already work harder than we feel like working. We enjoy having time to lay around in the living room with the kids, reading. We like to watch a little TV after the kids are in bed. We like going to the park and visits with friends and low-key vacations and generally relaxing. Going further down our respective career paths would likely mean more work, greater responsibilities, higher stress, and less time to lay around the living room with the kids.

So why do it? There will always be a More and Better just beyond our reach, no matter how high we climb. We could always have a little more money and a few more choices. But as we see it, we don’t need to work harder to get more money to have more choices because we already made our choice. We chose our family and our friends and our place. Like any life ours comes with trade-offs, but on balance it’s a good life, we’ve already got it, and we’re damn well going to enjoy it.

That’s the best thing about the medium chill: unlike the big chill, you already have it. It’s available today, at affordable prices!

Related to this: I started reading a book called The Great Disruption about our current economic and environmental crisis. The author argues that both are related and stem from a myth of infinite growth, more, better, faster. That’s going to collapse soon, and we will be moved to adjust our ways in a manner that fosters simplicity and community. I hope he’s right—and it’s the first book I’ve read that’s fundamentally hopeful about our ability to respond to climate change and the disruption that will come with it.

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And a video that’s related to the ‘medium chill’ article…

Dan Gilbert asks, “Why Are We Happy?” (TED)

Shorter Dan Gilbert: we suck at being able to assess what makes us happy.

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L. Gregory Jones: Executing with Urgency (Faith and Leadership)

“We are looking for Christians who understand and practice leadership as an entrepreneur would,” the philanthropist told me. We had already talked about some key aspects of such leadership, such as developing vision, taking risks, being willing to fail and learn from failure, and tolerating ambiguity. But then he said that the heart of the issue was what another friend described as lacking among Christian leaders: people who could “execute with urgency.”

I heard those three simple words as a judgment, recalling too many Christian meetings I had sat through, and even convened, where we had confused having a meeting with taking action. We had acted as if we had all the time in the world, as if nothing really was very urgent. Indeed, we had often met as if we were a group gathered primarily for social purposes.

SO spot on about the way church committees often work. My current ministry obsession is thinking about agile software development as it relates to church work. One of the many great things about small churches is the ability to get to execution relatively quickly.

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And finally, a book:

I’ve had Kathleen Norris’s Dakota: A Spiritual Geography on my shelves for many years but had never finished it. Norris is one of those folks I’m proud to claim as Presbyterian, along with Anne Lamott and the Rev. Mister Rogers. Her meditation on life in the Dakotas is gorgeous, funny and wise. She really captures the feel of the place and its people.

The book got me thinking, too, about the terrain in which I’ve been placed—what I ruefully call “suburban sheol.” Yet every place has its beauty. And every place is its own wilderness. One of the women who’s here this week wrote a book about life in the South Bronx as a bit of a response to Norris’s book and others like it, that lift up rural locations as particularly spiritually rich. What an interesting challenge it would be to think about the suburbs of the nation’s capital in a similar way.

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Were You Hurried as a Kid?

I put this query on Google+ but thought I’d put it here too.

As most of you know, I’m writing a book about our family’s weekly Sabbath practice and how that works in the midst of a very busy life involving two careers, three kids and their various activities, etc. Part of our interest in Sabbath is to help our kids not have a completely go-go-go childhood. Yet even with this practice and intention, I feel like I’m regularly shooing my kids out the door to get somewhere.

In contrast, I’ve been thinking about my own childhood — there were four of us kids, and we were involved in all kinds of activities, but looking back, I never remember feeling rushed. But nor was I late to stuff. So I wonder, am I just not remembering the hurry and the scheduling? Or did my mother cultivate a more relaxed attitude than I feel like I do? :-)

And here’s what I want to know from others: did you feel rushed, or busy, as a kid? Do you have memories of being hurried and/or overprogrammed? If so, what was that like? And if you can’t recall those experiences, do you think that’s a function of memory, or were things really different back then? Or both?

Feel free to e-mail me directly if you’d rather not comment here: maryannmcdana (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Pottermania Part III: Prayer and Other Defenses Against the Dark Arts

Back in 2007 I preached a series on “the gospel and Harry Potter.” This series coincided with a huge cultural moment among HP fans: the release of the seventh book and the fifth film. Before I left for Collegeville, and in honor of the final chapter of the saga hitting theaters, I threw them up here on the blog.

This last sermon was preached just a few days before the last book was released, and contains speculation about Harry’s fate. I guess I was half right.

Enjoy…

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May God bless you all of your days, Alan Rickman.

“Prayer and Other Defenses against the Dark Arts”
Romans 7:14-25

Last week we talked about the nature of sacrificial love and the idea that there are some things that are worth dying for. “No one has greater love than this,” Jesus said, “than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Whether you’ve read the Harry Potter books or not, you have surely not missed the debate over whether Harry Potter is going to die in his final confrontation with Lord Voldemort. This debate has even filtered into betting pools around the world! Will Harry lay down his life as a sort of martyr against the evils of the Dark Lord?

There is reason to argue that Harry’s death might be required to destroy Voldemort once and for all—the two characters are linked to one another in ways I won’t get into here. However, even though last week was all about love and sacrifice, I am going to go out on a limb and say, Harry is NOT going to die. Harry will live on. You heard it here first!

I have no doubt, however, that Harry will come to the point of being willing to sacrifice his life. Because Harry knows that this is a cosmic struggle between good and evil, and in the midst of such a battle, the stakes are high. The Dark Arts, as they are called, are powerful, and fighting them has grave consequences. We have already lost beloved characters, and J.K. Rowling has admitted that major characters might lose their lives in the final book; in her words, “We are dealing with pure evil here.” (from the Wikipedia entry for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

The New Testament writers, too—particularly Paul—saw themselves in a similar conflict: they were the war reporters on a cosmic battlefield. Good locked in a struggle against evil. God’s grace vs. the Powers and Principalities. God’s Holy Underdogs vs. the Big Bad Empire. We know who’s going to win the war, but there’s still a lot of battle to be fought. This was the worldview of the first-century Christian.

We in our day tend to be suspicious of good and evil language, mainly because it has been so misused. Good and evil get reduced to a bumper sticker, a rallying cry. Americans are good; those who oppose us are evil. Or is it we “infidels” that are evil and the Islamic fundamentalists are good? I can’t keep track of whether it’s the Palestinians who are good (after all, they just want peace and a decent pocket of land to live on) and the big hulking Israeli Goliaths who are evil, beating up on those terribly oppressed people. Or is it tiny Israel, surrounded by countries that barely acknowledge its right to exist, who is good, and the big bad Arab nations that are evil? Who can say?

This good and evil business gets murky. And I guess I want to say that if it’s going to be murky anyway, then we might as well wade all the way into the murkiness and admit that there aren’t too many two-dimensional characters in the real world—very few perfectly good sheriffs with the white cowboy hat and the spotless silver badge fighting the perfectly bad outlaw with black hat and the stubbly beard.

No, the forces of good and evil do battle in the hearts of each and every one of us. Even Paul, war reporter on the cosmic battlefield, understood this. The good I want so much to do, I cannot do. And the evil I deplore, I still do.

There’s a fascinating device stored at Hogwarts School called the Mirror of Erised. Erised is “Desire” spelled backwards, and when Harry stumbles upon it, he peers in and sees himself standing with his parents, who died when he was an infant. He returns to the mirror again and again, spending longer and longer in front of it, gazing at the family he never knew. Listen to the warning he receives from Dumbledore about the mirror’s power:

[Play clip in which Dumbledore cautions Harry not to “waste away” in front of the mirror as so many others have, driven mad by their desires.]

There’s nothing wrong with Harry wanting to see his parents again. And not every desire of our heart is evil! But Dumbledore’s warning is Paul’s warning as well. When we let our own desires hold us “captive,” until that is all we can see, then sin has gained a foothold in our lives and, to quote another New Testament writer, “we are strangers to the truth” (I John 1:9).

Our goal is to live a life that is congruent—to align our will with God’s will. Like the man who looks in the mirror and sees only himself, we strive as much as we are able to have our reflection match up with the reflection of the person that God has created us to be. And the way we do that is not to lose ourselves by gazing into the mirror of our own desires, but to spend time losing ourselves in God’s Word, gazing into the face of God in prayer, seeking to see Christ reflected in people we would normally ignore or even despise, and then to be Christ’s hands, feet and hearts in return.

We know, of course, that we will never do this perfectly. This journey toward congruence takes a lifetime of work. But we make the journey. And our choices along the way do matter.

Harry realizes this early on when he struggles with his own abilities. There are four houses at Hogwarts. Most of the wizards who turned to the evil ways were members of Slytherin house. Harry was sorted into Gryffindor, a house known for bravery and valor, but he doubts whether he really belongs in Gryffindor. He can feel the conflict between what is noble in him and what is ambitious, greedy, self-serving. Maybe he should have been sorted into Slytherin, he thinks. The good he wants to do, he often cannot; the evil he wants to avoid, he often does. Dumbledore puts his concerns at ease when he tells him that it is not our abilities that make us who we are; it is our choices.

The cliché goes that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I disagree. I think intentions matter a great deal. As Thomas Merton says in his classic prayer, “The fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.” Merton makes a choice to strive to please God and to trust that that is enough for this day.

Paul makes a choice too, right here in Romans. It feels very abrupt: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

In the midst of this conflict raging within himself, Paul makes a choice to turn toward Christ and acknowledge him Lord and the ultimate victor in this battle. Paul shifts the focus for us. Yes, there is an internal struggle, but, “All praise to God in Jesus Christ!” Paul’s faith in Christ is what saves him from despair and paralysis. In some sense it’s the only viable option—away from despair and towards a grace that surpasses our understanding.

This is the move that we make, by the way, whether we are confronting the evil within or the evil that lurks in the world at large. Because no matter how uncomfortable we might be with good and evil as categories, we cannot ignore that evil exists. We can tiptoe around it like the wizards do, who call Voldemort “You-Know-Who” or “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” but such euphemisms do not serve us. Refusing to acknowledge the darkness only increases its power.

But when we face the darkness, we know we are not alone.

Throughout the Harry Potter story, the characters learn tools to defend themselves against the so-called Dark Arts. Two of the most powerful tools are explored in the third book, which also happens to be my favorite of the series (I think it is the most theological!).

One tool is used to defeat the dementors, which are dark ghost-like beings that feed on a person’s joy and happy memories. The dementors’ power lies in their ability to suck all life and happiness out of a person, forcing them to relive their worst memory again and again. (I have friends who have struggled with depression who have resonated very deeply with the image of the dementor.) There is only one defense against a dementor, and that is to conjure a patronus. Watch as Harry does this:

[Clip in which Harry conjures the patronus and the dementors flee]

As you can see, a patronus is a powerful figure made of light, a protector and shield. And though the dementors are absolutely menacing to their human victims, they are no match for the patronus. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it” (John 1).

I think it’s no accident that J.K. Rowling, who is herself a Christian, named these protective beings using the word patronus, whose root in Latin means “Father”… and that she made the incantation “Expecto patronum.”

When we’re faced with the darkness—when we are confronted with evil—do we expect that God (the Father) will be there with us, lighting the way? Isn’t that the nature of faith? To see the darkness swirling about and to still be expectant of the glimpses of grace that will come?

Now notice what Harry does—the patronus goes before him, but he can’t turn his back; he must stand, and stand firm. God gives us the strength to confront the evil, but make no mistake—confront it we must. We must stand firm in the truth of God’s grace and mercy and say to the darkness, “You have no power here.”

The other tool of defense against the dark arts I want to share is a personal favorite. It is a defensive tool against a sort of bogeyman character called a boggart. A boggart is a shape-shifter—it takes the form of whatever the person fears most, which means that the boggart looks different to every person.

The incantation against a boggart is the word “Ridikulus!” But while one is saying Ridikulus, one must imagine something funny, something that makes the person laugh. Watch as a professor teaches a student how to do this and what happens to the boy’s boggart as a result.

[Play clip in which Neville confronts his boggart—the feared Professor Snape advances, but with the word “Ridikulus!” is shown to be wearing Neville’s grandmother’s clothes and carrying her handbag]

What could possibly make someone laugh in the midst of the fear? How can we stare into the face of what terrifies us and see it as something absurd rather than frightening?

We can do this if we know that, while the fear is very real to us, it is not ultimately true. What is true is what Paul will write to the church at Rome just one chapter later: that there is nothing, not death, nor evil, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor dementors, nor boggarts, that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, who has already and will again declare victory over all the darkness and evil we might experience or concoct.

Just last week I heard a story about the city of Atlanta during the civil rights movement—how the Ku Klux Klan would often march down Auburn Avenue, which was the African-American center of town. Each time the people would see the Klan coming they would draw their shades, lock their doors, and cower in their homes until that parade of evil was over.

Until civil rights started to take hold.

Just when the tide was starting to turn, when people could finally see justice on the horizon, the Klan marched once again down Auburn Avenue. But this time the people lifted their window shades, threw open their doors, stood on the sidewalk and laughed, and laughed, and laughed… and the Klan never marched down Auburn Avenue again. (from a sermon preached by Tom Long at the 2007 Festival of Homiletics)

They looked evil in the face and said, Ridiculous. Because they know what is ultimately true. Evil may be real, and we dare not pretend otherwise.

But only God’s grace is truly… True.

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Photoblogging Collegeville: Art

Our time is unstructured here—write in the morning, write in the afternoon, break for meals—but each evening we’ve gathered as a group in a different location here at Saint John’s University. This piece was on the wall in the room where we met last night. I love it because it’s crucifix and empty tomb at the same time.

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Pottermania Part II: Love Leaves Its Own Mark

Back in 2007 I preached a series on “the gospel and Harry Potter.” This series coincided with a huge cultural moment among HP fans: the release of the seventh book and the fifth film. Before I left for Collegeville, and in honor of the final chapter of the saga hitting theaters, I threw them up here on the blog. Enjoy…

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“Love Leaves Its Own Mark”
John 15:12-17

One of the things I am not addressing much in this series is the discomfort that some people have with a series of books that are populated by witches and wizards—stories that are soaked in the language of magic. It bothers some, because aren’t there prohibitions against sorcery and witchcraft in scripture?

Yes, there are. And while it is important for parents to know what their children are reading, and I do hope that parents are circumspect in how they share these stories, especially with young children, there are at least two reasons why I find no major cause for concern.

The first is that the magic employed in these books is totally disconnected with any sense of religion or deity. There are no rituals of magic, no calling forth of satanic spirits or agents of the occult, indeed no mention whatsoever of spirits in the traditional sense. Magic serves a utilitarian purpose; it is not a means of worship or devotion. Magic is simply an aspect of the natural laws governing their universe. Just as we get around by car and bicycle; they get around by Portkeys and Floo Powder. Just as young people in our world might play a prank on a friend by TPing his house, young wizards might, say, turn his pet owl purple. (Not that I am condoning either activity, of course!)

The second reason I see no real concern, however, is much more important. Even with all the clever tricks, charms and potions we find in the Harry Potter books, there is a much deeper and universal force at work in the Potter universe. This idea is expressed well by an inhabitant of a different magical world, Aslan of Narnia, who says of the Witch in that story, “Though she knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.” (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

Just as there is in Narnia, there is a deeper magic in Harry’s world. It is a magic that hums underneath all the comings and goings of the wizarding universe. And as fantastical as certain elements of Harry’s world are to us, this deep magic is instantly recognizable to us as well.

There is a scene toward the end of book 1 in which Harry fights Voldemort by way of one of his followers, who has insinuated his way into Hogwarts in the guise of a teacher. During the battle, every time the man tries to grab Harry, he recoils in terrible pain, and Harry prevails—much to his surprise, I might add.

Dumbledore, the headmaster, later explains to Harry why the evil one was unable to touch him:

Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign. …To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Voldemort’s servant, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good. (Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 299)

“If there is one thing evil cannot understand, it is love…”

—Love that cares nothing for self-preservation;

love that would sacrifice itself for another.

This love trumps everything else in the wizarding world, and that’s a basic theme of the books. So not only is the series not hostile to our faith, it underscores one of the basic principles of it.

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” And we know the long line of people throughout history, including Jesus, though of course not starting with Jesus: people who gave their lives for the life of another… in witness to the kingdom… in sacrificial love. The band U2’s classic song about the death of Martin Luther King sings “In the name of love, what more in the name of love?” It’s about King, but not just King. The lyrics suggest what we know, that it’s an old, old story indeed. One person dies that others might be free.

Just last week at the youth choir concert, the youth sang an anthem that was written in the wake of a plane crash that claimed the lives of several from a college choir who returning from a tour. One of the individuals who died was a young man who survived the crash, but was overcome by smoke inhalation as he led others to safety.

It’s a story that reverberates in our deepest heart of hearts—it appeals to our best hopes for ourselves. If last week’s sermon addressed the question, “Who are you and to whom do you belong?” perhaps today’s central question is, “What story are you in?” Are you in a story where it’s every man for himself, every woman for herself? Or is it a story in which we are powerfully and inevitably marked by the grace and love of God? …a grace and love that calls us to great sacrifice?

This is the story that weaves throughout the wizarding universe as well. Just listen to this exchange between two characters who were both close to Harry’s parents, one of whom betrayed them to Lord Voldemort:

Sirius: You sold Harry’s parents to Voldemort. Do you deny it?

Peter: What could I have done? The Dark Lord… you have no idea… he has weapons you can’t imagine… I was scared, I was never brave like you and the others. I never meant it to happen… He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me.

Sirius: Don’t lie! You’d been passing information to him for a year before Lily and James Potter died! You were his spy!

Peter: He—he was taking over everywhere! Wh-what was there to be gained by refusing him?

Sirius: What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives!

Peter: You don’t understand. He would have killed me!

Sirius: THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED! DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU! (Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 374-5)

I myself pray that when faced with a life or death decision, to offer my life to save others, that I would make the faithful choice.

Yet I also know that if my past experience is any indication, the opportunities to truly sacrifice one’s life for someone else… well, they don’t come along very often.

What does it mean to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, each and every day? What about the day-in, day-out care for a spouse who has a chronic illness? Or the children with special needs and abundant energy?

“This is my commandment; that you love one another…” Love that isn’t wrapped in gauzy sentimentality, filmed through a soft-filtered lens. Love that is real and transformative, both for the giver and the receiver. I can think of at least three ways that we are called to love sacrificially even in the midst of everyday life.

I.

First: love takes the long view, keeping the big picture in mind. Love values long-term wholeness over present gratification.

Toward the end of book 1, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione are working through a series of tests and challenges in order to retrieve the so-called sorcerer’s stone from falling into the wrong hands. These challenges include a game of wizard’s chess—not the tabletop version, but a life-size chessboard in which swords are drawn and pieces are smashed to rubble. Listen to what Ron says to Harry as he prepares to make a decisive move:

[Play clip in which Ron says he must be sacrificed in order that Harry can go on]

Sometimes love means knowing what is most important—being able to see the larger picture. Jesus, for example, could have refused to go to the cross. He could have stayed and fed another crowd of 5,000, healed scores of others, preached more sermons. But he had a deeper mission—to feed the whole world, to heal all of creation; and his death and resurrection said more about the grace of God than a lifetime of sermons ever could.

That’s obviously a rather dramatic example. Maybe for us it’s as simple as forgoing a hurtful word or a nagging comment toward a loved one, in service to the larger goal of a harmonious relationship. Or maybe it’s letting a child make her own mistakes, resisting the urge to rescue every time she threatens a misstep, because that’s how children learn. Maybe it’s knowing that real love keeps the end in mind: a time when she will be an independent adult, able to make her own decisions and dust herself off when she falters.

Love takes the long view.

II.

A second aspect of real self-sacrificing love meets people where they are. This is suggested in the experience of another character from the wizarding world, a werewolf. Now werewolves are perfectly safe to be around, except during the full moon, but they are second-class citizens in the society. Listen to a passage in which one of these individuals describes how his friends respond to his condition:

I became a full-fledged monster once a month. My transformations in those days were—were terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf. I was separated from humans to bite, so I bit and scratched myself. But apart from this, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever, I had friends, three great friends. At first I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was.

But they didn’t desert me at all. Instead, they did something for me that would make my transformations bearable. They became Animagi—[humans who can transform into animals]. They couldn’t keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals. A werewolf is only dangerous to people. Under their influence, I became less dangerous. My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so while I was with them. (Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 352)

This character’s friends walked alongside him each month, keeping him safe, letting him know that he wasn’t alone.

Sometimes laying down one’s life for one’s friends means meeting them where they are, not where we want them to be.

Rather than:

“Why can’t you just snap out of that depression?”

“Shouldn’t you have dealt with your grief by now?”

“You just need to accept the breakup of your marriage as God’s will.”

…we strive instead to pursue what Paul called “a more excellent way,” the way of love (I Cor. 13).

Remember poor Job? His friends had it right at first. When he’d lost everything and was sitting in the ash heap, they sat in silence with him for seven days. For just a little while, they lay down their lives—their need to fix, to seek explanation, to control the situation by picking it apart and finding someone to blame. (Too bad they don’t quit while they were ahead—they can’t resist jumping in with all sorts of well-meaning but tragically unhelpful theories.)

Love meets others where they are.

III.

Third: love persists in loving, even when it seems foolish, weak, or naïve to do so.

At the end of the second book, Harry is fighting Voldemort (do you sense the trend?), who has taken the form of his younger self. Harry is fighting the good fight, but he is the underdog, and he is all alone. Watch what happens next.

[Show clip in which the gifts arrive to help Harry (phoenix bring the sorting hat) and Voldemort responds with scorn]

Love means that the tools at your disposal are going to seem woefully inadequate. Look at the contempt on young Voldemort’s face. This is what Dumbledore sends to help you? he sneers.

It is ridiculous. Love seems a feeble tool indeed in a world drowning in despair. We tear ourselves apart through a seemingly endless war and ever-more-horrific acts of terror, and the answer is to love one another? No wonder we’ve let marketers co-opt the word love to describe everything from carpet cleaner to sport utility vehicles: We know that any power the word love might have seems ridiculous in the face of real threats, real destruction.

The “old hat” doesn’t look like much, but it brings with it a powerful gift. And the “songbird” is a phoenix, and provides its own gift when Harry is mortally wounded:

[Show clip in which Harry is healed by the phoenix’s tears]

Is it any wonder that the phoenix has been a symbol used in Christian art from the first century? Not just because it rises again from its ashes, but because through its tears—an expression of true vulnerability if there ever was one!—it is able to heal.

Isn’t it Paul who reminds us, “God has chosen what is foolish to shame the wise”?

Christ’s power was in his weakness.

Real love persists in loving even when to do so makes us look foolish, weak, or naïve.

There are many more aspects of love we might mention. Like all great mysteries of life, love has depths and dimensions that will never be fully explored. The question is simply this:

What story are we in?

…The story written by the giants of commerce, empire and advertising, that might makes right, money is power, go along to get along?

…Or the story told in the life of a wandering penniless prophet from Nazareth who commanded us to love, who said to the evils of the world, “You think you’re going to have the last word? Watch what I do next.”

The choice is ours.