Awake

Mysteries in Mystery

Just finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, my favorite of the series. And oh the sweet sadness! The last few pages explain many mysteries of the Harry Potter myth and create even more. Here are a couple of passages that have lingered in my mind even since the last time I read this book (Over a year ago, I think, maybe two.)

From Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Lost Prophecy, page 835-856, hardcover edition:

[Headmaster Albus Dumbledore speaking to Harry] "But I knew too where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated — to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."

...and... (later in the chapter, on pages 843-844, Dubledore continues...)

"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries," interupted Dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects of study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you."

I really do enjoy these books—for the characters mostly—but I do find these themes of sacrificial love as death-defying protection and queries into the powerful content and nature of the heart resonate with me in my own journey of faith. These mythical stories help me (my mind, my heart, my soul) explore the mysteries of the Gospel. The mystery of Christ dying on the cross, a willing sacrifice, and in the small but eternally significant matter of an uttered confession and decision of the heart...this sacrifice somehow applies an eternal protection over our soul enabling fellowship with God regardless of bodily life or death, new Earth or old Earth, Kingdom Now or Kingdom to Come—there's a lot of mystery there! I like to read fiction and fantasy because somehow I think it trains my imagination and I strongly suspect that the strength and character of my imagination has everything to do with how I process the mysteries of faith and come to believe in them wholeheartedly. So while some sharing my same faith confession might choose to burn and scorn Harry Potter books, I will continue to borrow them from my Grandpa and read them, alongside Tolkien and Lewis, and L'Engle, and oh yes, David, Paul, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, Peter, and John and I will continue to look for revelation in the most unsuspecting of places.

So thank you for writing these stories, Ms. Rowling. My sincerest thanks, indeed.