Potterian Profundities

Someone once said, "Let us be grown-up and nuanced in our critiques", and I can think of no better place to begin … well, actually, there are lots of better places. But I'm going to begin by talking about Harry Potter. Lynn-nore just finished the latest one, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, last night. There's a lot of fuss around these (ultimately) seven books, most of it kind of silly. Those that have read them, don't see what the fuss is about; and those that haven't read them can't believe that any religious person would do anything of the sort. Lucky for us, there are people out there who are actually asking good questions about these books, and I would like to recommend two articles which I have found most interesting.

The first of these, "Harry Potter and the Secular City: The Dialectical Religious Vision of J.K. Rowling" is by Ken Jacobsen at Animus. Jacobsen feels that there is an underlying religious element to these works which informs their popularity. He feels they are "a re-articulation of the question for religious truth and meaning in contemporary terms," and suggests that they could also be read as "a sustained allegory of the conflict between religion (i.e. Harry) and secularism (i.e. Voldemort)." Either way, this is a fascinating article.

The second article is entitled "Harry Potter and the Disenchantment of the World." (Journal of Contemporary Religion. Vol. 18 No. 1 (Jan 2003), 3-24.) Its author, Michael Ostling, argues that "magic" in the Potter universe has been thoroughly de-sacralized. Its wonder has been commodified, disenchanted, so that even Chuck Colson can say, "the magic in these books is purely mechanical," and Mike Hertenstein, "if it makes a moral difference to you whether the carpet is powered by pixie dust or dilithium crystals, I would suggest you're missing the point." Ostling argues that the disenchantment of the Potter books parallels the disenchantment of our own day toward religion, and better resembles the gadget & novelty culture that drives Western consumer capitalism. Of special interest, though, is the way that Ostling contrasts Harry's magic and Voldemort's dark magic. Harry's is skill-based and technological, but Voldemort's seems cultish & incalculable. Yet, he continues, investigation proves that even this is really not the case. "The deeper magic, which characterizes the climatic scenes, is less instrumental or predictable, but almost as easily explicable, as the more common magic: it reduces to psychology rather than technology."

And, finally, I get a good laugh from an article entitled "Harry Loves Draco?" included in the August 30 edition of The Advocate. In it, Angie J. Han discusses the slash-fiction that simmers and pops in the tension between Harry and one Draco Malfoy. As she says, "It is not surprising that a boy with special powers, rejected by his family and stuck in a closet for 10 years, holds a particular appeal for gay and lesbian readers…Slash writers simply heighten the tension until Harry and Draco inevitably fall into each others arms."

Hmmmm...maybe all those critics sniffing-Wicca at Hogwarts magic missed the real message?

Can we hold our opinions lightly?

Remember when you comfortably sorted people out into the rough categories: optimist/pessimist or introvert/extrovert? And then, one day, you discovered that those categories arise from the work of the early 20th century psychiatrist, Carl Jung. You understood then and there that this cannot be law. You weren't relying on something written in the sky, or carved into a stone. No, someone came up with it a number of years before you were born. Now you still say, "You are such an introvert," and flash your knowing smile, but I can tell you're thinking all the time, "Is that right?"

Surprise! We're not moving to New Orleans!

It was a hard decision but, surprise surprise, Lynn-nore and I have decided not to move to New Orleans any time soon. It is "No" to New Orleans. As much as I love dixieland jazz and she loves Southern Atlantic seafood, we just feel like now is not the right time, if there ever will be a time to consider New Orleans. This is not to dissuade anyone. I mean, I'm sure there are lots of people who really like living there. But, for one reason or another, we feel it isn't for us. Some people would probably really like it. I mean, the humidity doesn't bother everyone. It has Mardi Gras and summertime Cajun culture and all of that. Not to forget its literary and cultural history. What do they call it: the big easy. Yep, it probably would be pretty easy to live there, but, again, relocating in New Orleans just doesn't feel like what we need right now.

a few things

Here are a few things I would like to be doing. Marking a particularly good passage of hard-won theology with a green highlighter while sitting anonymous in a Starbucks. Sitting at my laptop, beginning to hammer out one of my overdue book reviews. Talking to my wife without interruption. I would like to be flipping vocabulary cards in Greek or German. I would like to be writing a new post to my blog. I would like to be updating my resume. I would like to be taking the first step toward studying for the GRE. I would like to be working through a problem in the division of fractions with unequal numerators. I would like to be eating in a European restaurant. I would like to be listening to wind blow through comfortable, summer leaves. I would like to be practicing scales on my guitar. I would like to be discussing a good movie with a friend. I would like to be cataloguing my library. I would like to be conquering the paper tiger. I would like to be going through my financial life with zest until every penny is put in place. I would like to be taking a long walk which will cleanse my nose and eyes with nature and consummate in a shower after which I will not comb or dry my hair. I would like to be in town. I would like to be sitting in front of a painting in the MFA, undisturbed until I am ready to leave. I would like to be taking notes on a fascinating lecture at Harvard. I would like to be sitting in the balcony of a golden room, well-dressed and accompanied by my wife, listening in anticipation as a symphony orchestra tunes to a background of murmuring and seat-taking. I would like to be sliding down one of those gigantic water park slides with my daughter. Howabout throwing frisbee on the beach with SWR? I would like to be opening a German Riesling. I would like to be praying in a 19th century church. I would like to be carefully swallowing another chapter of Heidegger. I would like to be listening to someone tell me about themselves. I would like to be giving German beer another go at a Bayern fest. I would like to finally get beyond where I am now. I would like to be holding my infant son. I would like to be swimming with my daughter. I would like to be eating at a favorite restaurant with my wife. I would like to be finally getting to a project. I would like to be eating grilled burgers at the local fair. Yet, I am working. Can someone sue for loss of life? Loss of time? Do we receive what we give up? Is this what Marx means by alienation? I will protest and blog something… (Why not post a list of what you'd like to be doing.)

Hey! Look what I can do! I think I'm heading somewhere now! Shhh. Don't tell anyone I'm only a month old!!  

I think someone is chasing me... 

I think I lost her... 

Uh-oh. There's Mommy! 

Whew! That was exhausting! 

reformata semper reformanda

Ever have that moment of clarity where you're like: "Whoa, I really need to just step back and think it up all over again!"? I'm having one of those today. On a related side note, it is difficult to be tired/irritated with Caleb at some hour of the night when he's looking up at you and sucking the back of his hand.

Caleb and Daddy on Saturday morning getting ready for our day! 

This picture was an attempt at catching the sweetest moments with him. When he has fallen asleep on one of our shoulders. We get the best view and it's so hard to capture those moments. 

Our little man! 

Spielzeit!

Every August the executives of the company I work for decide to throw a big party at a local, scenic beach and they obligingly let we little people join in the fun. It is the best party of the year. The beach is fantastic. The water is blue, the sand is white-hot and there’s plenty of beach volleyball (my favorite). The company cater’s a different theme for lunch each year (during the boom, it was Lobster & shellfish) and provides ice cream cones & sandwiches, as well as water, soda and wine-coolers. I love the whole sensate experience.
I love the drive, which, on a sunny day in late- summer is a single-lane cascade along dappled tree-orchard narrows, which twist and break beside the open green of sea-flats and clapboard cluttered waterfronts. I love the permission to sweat, to be sandy, to park in a yellowgrass field, to smell like sunscreen, to stumble around in open sandals, to eat with your fingers, to waste time. I love the boardwalk down to the beach, dunes as high as a building growing stubbly hair with sea grass and doubtless hordes of ticks and no-see-ums. The water is achingly blue. The slosh-and-pull of the bubbled-surf, soul-therapy. My feat sting and blister. My skin warms under the noonday heat. I am the ghost of Summertime present. My mind allows itself to experience without evaluation; in-bodied now. Sunglasses are as far as the industrial age can ever go. Standing with the surf around one’s ankles, one humbly begins to participate in the borderland between finite and infinite where all things come to find their name. I am a Crusoe - I have no name - I am a primitive thing alive. The world is undone and re-made for new experiences. I am a Son of Adam sent to name all created life and thus begin opening up to the discovery of my own ontology. Time to play!

Caleb loves to be on his belly ~ totally relaxing! 

Raise Your Hands If You're SURE! :-) 

The kids were "playing together" this morning for the first time ~ Caleb reaching for her hair, fixed on her face and beginning to think about smiling! 

A break in combat means downtime blah blah blah

Is it Friday yet? Caleb and Kara have teamed up for the double-whammy on Lynn-nore and I recently. He won't sleep while she plays, and then, when he finally begins to drift off, she rushes in and wakes him back up. It is a perfect scheme, and they both get something out of it. She gets playtime without adult interference and he gets plenty of parental holding coupled with obsessive amounts of attention to his every bodily need. Flatulence becomes the topic of conversation. Debate centers around his schedules for bathing and feeding.

Now I confess that this assault has not been easy on me. I just don't do well with sleep deprivation. My inner jerk (and c'mon guys, we all have one) forges a get-out-of-mouth-free card, and morality is just too tired to care. Lynn-nore has to put up with the whole lot of us!

The life of the mind isn't hurting too much, though. I have been reading one of the books whose review was due weeks ago (the inner jerk doesn't care.) It is a collection of essays clustered about the theological assertion, and practical contextualization, of eschatological hope. Here's an excerpt:

History does not "belong to us," he [Gadamer] explains; "we belong to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in thie family, society, and state in which we live." Traditions constitute our identities and make reason possible. Subjectivity may be a "distorting mirror," Gadamer acknowledges. But "[the] self-awareness of the individual is only a flickering presence in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being. [In other words, our] 'being-in-the-world,' our finitude, sets formidable limits around our knowledge and truth claims but also makes meaning possible for us.

Second, I have also begun studying beginning algebra in preparation for the GRE. Here's a bit that I wrote to John G. about it last week:

It really doesn't take that long to advance in the study of mathematics. Most of our time in secondary school was spent doing pages of problems and review; the actual swallowing of concepts was pretty light. Add a drop of adult study skills and the drive to know this for your own sake and I don't think it will be too difficult to plow in to Algebra a good distance before slowing up. The trick, too, is to always keep in view the "mathematical cosmology" you are working in.

I got this trick from a quip I heard from a mathematician on NPR who was also a bit of a classicist. He said that Greek mathematicians never presented their ideas without representing them both mathematically (xy+ab=P) AND graphically. In other words, Geometry sits behind arithmetic, and the progression of mathematical paedegogy is from the most abstract kind of geometry to the most exact mathematical descriptions of the dimensional world that we actually inhabit (from 2, to 3, and finally to multi-dimensionality in higher mathematics.) You can see that our own abilities at mathematical description never advance beyond 2-dimensions in secondary school.

Now, all of pre-algebra and a good bit of algebra, for example, is simply manipulating one's position upon the number line., whether forward or backward. The figure of the Number Line is straight out of Euclid, where a line is "breadthless length" until it begins to be defined in larger or smaller elements by points.

As soon as possible, a second line is added, so that the student can begin manipulating lines upon a plane (x, y). And from there, one can jump off into the computation of diameter, volume and angle within triangles, circles and other figures to one's heart's content. The addition of a third variable (x,y,z) makes the leap into 3 dimension and such things as volume, and there you go, you've pretty much done everything. What I just did in two paragraphs took several years in school. Why is that....?

Caleb is beginning to focus his eyes a little better and has discovered there are five little vehicles floating above him! 

Kara loves her brother so much and wants to make sure he doesn't miss anything. This picture was taken at bedtime one evening last week. 

Words of Wisdom

Life with a newborn includes wonderful moments of gazing at your little baby and considering the wonderment of how amazing our God is that He creates each person uniquely. Likewise, it includes moments of passing by a mirror in the middle of the night and not actually recognizing the tired shred of humanity that is gazing back! Each day begins with the words "I'm so tired" dragging out of my lips with the actual thought behind them being 'HELP! I can't face it today' But reality kicks in about the time my feet hit the floor and the thought "Here goes!" shows up. I change a diaper or kiss a Big Girl face and somehow begin what is now the new routine of my morning.

This morning I was dragging. Things were moving pretty slow with no sign of picking up speed. And then the phone rang. Funny how that can change a day, a week, a life... Anyway, the phone rang and the dear woman from church who is bringing us a meal for this evening was explaining to me how she was planning on being on my doorstep in an hour! She was giving me times and temps for how to warm it up this evening and all I could think was 'I'm still in my JAMMIES and she's gonna be here WHEN?!' I thanked her and told her it was fine (lying! - I'll have to work on that!) and that I'd see her in about an hour. We hung up.

The phone rang a moment later and it was my Mom. Lovely, of course I'd want to talk with her, but the clock is ticking on my day and talking to Mom does not get the kitchen cleaned up, the beds made or me clean. BUT, it out ranks the others and so we chat, with some voice in the back of my mind going - 'Here's my good excuse. When our friend arrives I'll simply explain away my house and lack of personal hygiene with the words, 'My Mom called.' as if the entire morning and every possible opportunity to be clean and have a clean home were somehow directly related to a 15 minute long distance call. Crazy as it was, I still knew the excuse would work. So, I sat down to chat with Mom, and then a really crazy thing happened - multi-tasking kicked in. I thought, 'Hey, I'll just move a few of Kara's toys... and the car seat and why not wipe off the counters and wash a few dishes, while we chat.'

And so, I began to clean up and things began to take shape. Little by little the downstairs was starting to look like civilized people live here. And here come the words of wisdom... as I was cleaning up I commented to my mom, in jest, that it was "her fault" that I was doing all of this! Had she not established such a clean standard of living in my childhood, I'd have been happy opening my door and welcoming someone into my disaster area! She answered, and here's where the wisdom came in...

She told me that no, in fact, it was not her fault, but that I was simply showing who I was. 'Huh? What does that mean?', I thought. She said my desire to have a clean place and to show this church friend that my home is clean at 11am, was my way of showing her something of who I am, what is a priority to me, how I like to live and present myself. It was not untrue to be cleaning in preparation for her dropping by, it was exactly as I am - a person who likes my home to be clean when people come over. This is not false or a misrepresentation of my otherwise slovenly living - this is me. This is not simply an extension of her (my Mom) or her house, this is my choice and my desire for my life and for me. What a wild thought! My home and presentation as an extension of myself, not some external pressure or expectation, but rather my own self presenting itself through my stewardship of my things.

Over the years, Thom has often asked me, when I express the stress of housekeeping, "who's holding a gun to your head to make you feel like you have to do things a certain way?!" Wow ! I guess the answer is me, it's not a gun, I like it this way and I should stop complaining!

I'm sure glad Mom called this morning!

A Prayer for Caleb

I had a "prayer" presented to me today on behalf of the rector and friends at Ascension Memorial Church. They have been praying for Lynn-nore and Caleb since those early contractions at 17-weeks. It is a beautiful gesture and prayer. It reads:

For the Gift of a Child

Heavenly Father, you sent your own Son into this world.

We thank you for the gift of the life of this child, Caleb,

entrusted to Thom and Lynn-nore's care.

Help us to remember that we are all your children, and so

to love and nuture him, that he may attain to that full

stature intended for him in your eternal kingdom; for the

sake of your dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Basic brain cloud removal, step 1

So last night Lynn-nore and I put Kara to bed, turned off the TV and talked for over an hour! Honestly, I can't remember the last time we did that. I really like talking with Lynn-nore. She always has an interesting take and can follow a conversation wherever it may go. We talk about all kinds of stuff: things in the news, our friends, our families, some episode in the past. Toward the end of our conversation, we pulled out our workbooks from the marriage conference of a few months ago and looked over a few chapters. See, by the last day of the conference, the schedule was so tight there are whole sections we only just glanced at before moving on. It was fun to look and see the "marginal notes", to compare our experiences and even discuss a few real questions. I would call that "paydirt." Caleb enjoyed it, as well, because Lynn-nore held him for the first half-hour.

Caleb loves to be held, and especially by his Mommy. His brain-functions are starting to grow in new ways now - he makes a choice to be social. Not only, but he is responding to visual cues with greater interest. He enjoys looking at the vehicles stitched into the bumper of his crib. He responds to faces. He watches his mobile as it turns lazily above him. Between that, eating and pooping one does wonder whether things get better. He looks the very picture of satisfaction in one's circumstances.

Brain Cloud

Brain Cloud. I can't exactly describe what a brain cloud is, but I think I've been inside a brain cloud for .... how old am I? A sure sign that you are in a brain cloud is not being able to think of anything to say. I have had it happen at parties, or when friends come over. Lynn-nore will be talking and I'll realize, "You know, I don't think I've said anything in the last hour.... I should say something....hmmmm...what to say?" and so it goes. There are some techniques for getting past this. Sir Walter Raleigh, for example, will throw some small object around which usually dissipates cloudiness to the point of releasing a stray thought - like some kind of Civil-War-era blockade runner - pops to the surface. But I digress.

It isn't that Brain Cloud thinking does not exist. There is lightning implicit in every cloud, right? Brain Cloud thinking is thinking, but it always begins with the impression that there's really no use in it anyway. If you do think about something, there is a parental-figure of the mind who usually comes in and spoils the whole thing. "Oh, so you're going to play music in a band? That sounds fun but tiring" or "Oh, you want to write? Well, you should devote a few hours every day to it in order to work up your craft and maybe in a year or so you could submit a few pieces." Brain Cloud thoughts are vaporware of the mind.

The only thing a Brain Cloud enjoys is goofing off and television (which is basically a socially-acceptable form of goofing off.) Like Rowling's Mirror of Erised, a Brain Cloud enjoys a single-wavelength "hanging around" kind of experience, a time sink, which feels great at the time but then comes with a significant bill of guilt sale at the end.

Frankly, I'm not really sure where the brain cloud comes from. Nor do I know what makes it go away. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that I am stuck in one these days, and that is no fun at all.

Kara in her new ballet costume from Grandmommie complete with real ballet slippers! She wore it all afternoon on Friday! 

Another sweet outfit from Grandmommie and Grandmother.  

Our gorgeous little man in an outfit from Grandmommie and Grandmother. What a cutie! 

This picture was taken of Kara a few weeks before Caleb was born. Grandma sent this pretty poka-dot dress and Kara looks adorable in it! 

Here's Caleb sleeping sweetly on Mommy and Daddy's bed while Mommy talked with Grandma on the phone. He's such a good baby! 

This one was from last week, but it's an outfit from Auntie Kara and I wanted her to see him in it! 

He's such a sweetie and so cuddly! 

Honestly, he's really not a redhead 

Aug. 2nd - Here's my little man today! Looking cute in another outfit from Omi and Aunt TT. He enjoyed a lovely walk through Manchester this evening looking adorable in this seaside outfit and seaside town.