August is a month of birthdays. Both of our sisters named Mary celebrate one, as well as my daughter Mary. My sons Dan and Paul also have birthdays along with a niece, Win Allen, Juneâs nephew, Bryan MacDonald, my grandniece Denise Bugey and Juneâs grandson, Paul Berger. But to top that off, if it is at all possible, is the celebration of our marriage, which has reached 24 years on August 15th. They certainly all make August an august month. In March Jottings of 2003 I wrote the following: â American armed forces are attacking Iraq. The protests are loud and many. The pros and cons of the action fill pages of newsprint and email forwards. The attempt to unravel the reasons for the action leads only to frustration. The most difficult thing for me is to accept is the lack of open provocation– such as the invasion by Iraq of Kuwait in 1991. We have been asked to trust our President’s belief that we are in danger but we are not shown clearly where that exist. It has the ring of Vietnam and its domino theory of preventing the spread of communism. It would be so much easier if we had had a provoking action to show our need to defend. Without it we must fall back on the belief that our President really is acting in our behalf and not some hidden motive. We have noted before that our confidence in our leaders so acting has been misplaced in the past, so it makes doing so now even tougher. So we pray that we are not so disillusioned this time and until proven otherwise we will support our President. Faith in someone is often an unreasonable act but it is also sometimes necessary for sane living.â
Now two years and a few months later I find that it appears we have no proof that we are or were ever in âdangerâ from Saddam Hussein or Iraq. No âweapons of mass destructionâ have been found, and no connection between Iraq and the terrorist organization that destroyed the World Trade Center have been demonstrated. As we said, âuntil proven otherwise we will support our Presidentâ, that proof has come. He has never shown how we had a right to the preemptive striking of the country. He appears more now to employ the concept of âPax Americanaâ as the Romans did with their âPax Romanaâ, i.e., attack and subdue those who fail to follow the direction we believe they should take. The President often reminds us that he is a Christian, or his image makers do so, but he has never made any attempt to show how his preemptive attack qualifies under Christian practice and belief of a âjust warâ. Once again âour confidence in our leaderâ has apparently been misplaced. We only pray that somehow soon we will withdraw and stop the killing of so many American boys.
I read the new Harry Potter book, âHalf-Blood Princeâ. I think I have read them all but wouldnât swear to it. Iâll not soon forget however my mentioning reading the first one among some reunion brethren. All good Christians and retreat goers who as part of the VDC experience meet to encourage each other in our Faith walk. One of the members was quite surprised by my statement since he had been advised by his Pastor not to read it. Later in the same week I had a similar comment from the woman cleaning my teeth, i.e., that her church too had forbidden the reading of it. It was quite a revelation to me that such prohibitions were being promulgated in some Protestant denominations. It reminded me of âIndex of Forbidden Booksâ created by Pope Pius the Ninth. He was the same Pope who decided his pronouncements should be considered infallible. Vatican I, that he controlled, was organized to create such a dogma. It finally did agree to the infallibility concept but limited it to matters of âfaith or moralsâ. It was a shocker to me a former Catholic to see the doctrine being espoused by some Protestants who had separated partially due to the mandating authority of the magisterium (Teaching part of the church) rather than Scripture. I asked both the objectors if they had disobeyed and read the book. Neither had. I asked if any reason was given for the prohibition and it was vaguely stated to be because of the Evil actions in the book not being met by Christian beliefs to overcome it. My reading would confirm the opposite; it does carry the Christian belief into the winnerâs circle. It is that love conquers evil. ââŚGod whether I get anything else done to day, I want to make sure that I spend time loving you and other people because thatâs what life is all about.â This is a prayer from the âPurpose Driven Lifeâ by Warren and succinctly set forth what the Christianâs should be seeking. Harryâs journey is to build up his ability to love so he can conquer evil.
The book, and the series referred to as âcliffhanger chroniclesâ, received a full-page review in the NY Times Book Review. In the same magazine there is a section devoted to âChildrenâs Booksâ, so Harryâs stories are beyond being just Childrenâs stories according to these editors. In the review the writer asks, âIs there a book loving child on this planet who isnât obsessed with Harry Potter?â The first five volumes have sold 207 million copies! The reviewer observes that JK Rowlingâs gift is not so much language as for her âcharacterization and plottingâ. She makes it easy to believe that the âgoodâ wizard will vanquish the great evildoers.
In another issue of the New York Times in the âWeek in Reviewâ session there was a half page essay written by a young lady a college sophomore who tells how she became enamored and eventually overwhelmed with the series. It was entitled âGrowing Up With a Dose of Magicâ By her name, Kaavya Viswanathan, she appears to be of Indian descent but it is immaterial and never really an issue. She is an American girl going through school who finds Harry Potterâs stories, ââŚas my favorite through adolescence and into adulthood in a world that doesnât feel so safe anymoreâŚâ She found Harryâs development followed her own. She learned that âlife isnât always fairâ, that parents, friends and mentors couldnât always be a shield, some things you had to experience yourselfâ In simple words she learned that not everything was perfect and the stories reflected that reality to her. She saw that good did triumph over evil by the acts of an ordinary boy acting in an extraordinary manner. Most of all she learned âthe importance of love, friendship, and loyaltyâ The writer of this opinion essay, by the way, is now a sophomore at Harvard University and will have her own novel published next spring!
The Harry Potter series is often compared to the âChronicles of Narniaâ written by C.S. Lewis. They are considered Christian stories. Why? More to the point is that important to the quality of the stories? Walter Hooper, Lewisâ literary executor and author of a commentary on all of Lewisâ works (âC.S. Lewis: Companion & Guideâ) asks these questions. Further he notes, âHow have the Bible and Christian theology âinfluencedâ the Narnian books?â He warns, as does Lewis âto talk about âinfluenceââ is dangerous for readers who are under the mistaken notion that if you have found a biblical or literary âinfluenceâ behind a work there is no more to be said about itâ. Likewise if you donât find such âinfluenceâ you dismiss it as not âworthyâ, as some apparently have done. Hooper goes on to point out that Lewis objects to regarding âinfluencesâ in a literary work and in particular of fiction. [He was a teacher of Literature at Oxford and Cambridge.] By definition fiction is âan imaginative creation or pretense that does not represent actuality, but what has been inventedâ (The American Heritage Dictionary). So reading it to ascertain its âinfluencesâ is turning it into ânon-fictionâ where an analysis of where this writer is coming from or such, his influences, is a reasonable approach. Now unfortunately some fiction writers, such as Brown in the âDa Vinciâ code advertise their fiction as fact, history, and other non-fiction attributes. The facts asserted in that book are not as they occurred and it is truly fiction throughout.
So looking at the Potter series and deciding to read it or not based on its âinfluencesâ is really treating it as non-fiction. The written work of fiction is a work of art, a new creation. C. S. Lewis quotes a Wordsworth poem âThe Table Turnedâ to show how our intellect can destroy a work of art. It reads, âOur meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous form of things:Â We murder to dissectâ (Italic added)
The bottom line is read fiction to enjoy the imagination and âcharacterizationâ the writer creates, not as something else.
The columnist George F. Will is not one of my favorites. We might say this is due to the conservative âinfluencesâ in his essays. However recently he had me agreeing with him and smiling at his illustrations. He was writing from the National Constitution Center located in Philadelphia at the other end of the mall from Independence Hall where the Constitution was drafted. He writes, âThroughout, the center illustrates what (then) Professor Felix Frankfurter was tying to express more than 70 years ago when he said, âIf the Thames is âliquid historyâ the Constitution of United States is most significantly not a document but a stream of historyâ But it is first and always a document that is to be understood, as John Marshall said⌠âchiefly from its wordsââ Will then creates history as he believes would be written by contemporary liberals with respect to the confirmation of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court. âThe Articles of Confederation, ratified near the end of the Revolutionary War to Defend Abortion Rights, proved unsatisfactory, so in the summer of 1787, 55 framers gathered here to draft a Constitution. Even though this city was sweltering, the framers kept the windows of Independence Hall closed. Some say that was to keep out the horseflies. Actually, it was to preserve secrecy conducive to calm deliberation about how to craft a more perfect abortion rightâŚ.â He likewise reminds conservatives of the fact that the Constitution was written to correct the defects of the Articles of Confederation, namely to strengthen the federal government. As Wordsworth noted âour meddling intellectâ can even read things into a document! Pax Tecum!