Category: reviews

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the obligatory Harry Potter post

In case you were wondering, yes I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

And yes, I am suffering from a lack of sleep today, but not so much that I don’t want to share my experience with you. I think this is especially relevant because many of my readers come from friendships I’ve made through Catholic media. I often don’t think of myself as a “real” producer of Catholic media although I am both a practicing Catholic and a blogger and podcaster (perhaps more accurately a commentator on a couple of podcasts).

In spite of my discomfort with the label, I cannot deny that I am both Catholic and a producer of new media, so today I find myself capitalizing on both experiences to delve into the world of apologetics. It’s not what you’re accustomed to hearing about when you see the word apologetics, though. You see, I am about to launch into a defense of Harry Potter.

Yes, I am a Harry Potter Apologist. Let’s put that out there right now so you can either call me a heretic or a hero. In either case, pray for me and my on-going conversion. I can’t have enough people praying for me. That’s a good thing.

But back to Harry and his wizarding world. I love the stories. They are well-written and full of all kinds of interesting and wonderful studies of the human condition, mythological constructs, and yes, supernatural events. It’s not unlike many of the other stories that have become a part of our cultural literacy in the last couple of hundred years.

While I am sometimes hesitant to speak directly on Catholic themes because I feel ill-prepared and poorly trained in that area, I can speak from my training as a professor of literature (in fact, you can here me expound on a lot of this stuff in SQPN’s Secrets of Harry Potter, a podcast that explores the literary, mythological, historical, and religious themes of the series) and join a conversation that resurfaces in Catholic blogs and social media every time a book or movie in the series is released.

I do not believe Harry Potter is intrinsically evil, nor do I think it directly, or even indirectly, makes our children into little pagans. I do believe, however, that it is a parental right to determine what one’s children read, so I would no more label the series evil than I would call it essential reading. That is up to the individual to decide.

However, I have increasingly found myself in the position of having to defend my admiration for the series in relation to my obedience to the teachings of the Catholic Church. I’m not talking about the folks who don’t “get” the stories or who don’t like them for the simple reason that these kinds of fantasy stories are not appealing. That’s a matter of taste. I don’t like detective stories. There are enough genres to satisfy everyone’s tastes.

I’m talking about the people who label me a bad Catholic or even a heretic for enjoying the stories. Turnabout is fair play, as they say, so I automatically label them small-minded and a bunch of unoriginal tunnel-visioned lemmings. See? I can be passionate, too. 🙂

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. Anton Chekov, a 19th century Russian writer, suggests that we should read a variety of literature. In those cases where the stories challenge our value systems we have the unique opportunity to decide for ourselves what to make of it. In a brief letter to critics titled “On Morality in Fiction,” Chekov explains that it is his job as a writer to create stories and it is “entirely upon the reader to add for himself the subjective elements that are lacking in the story.” I am mature enough in my faith to recognize the elements that are compatible and contribute to thoughtful analysis, and those elements which are conflictive.

Thomas Jefferson, the American statesman best known for his part in writing the Declaration of Independence, is often paired with Chekov for holding the opposing view. Jefferson, in “On the Dangers of Reading Fiction,”  believes that reading fiction that challenges our values leads to “a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life.” He’s probably right, too. Certainly, reading anything without any critical thinking turns us into unoriginal thinkers, and has the potential to pick away at our sensibilities until we are desensitized, or worse, apathetic to the values we once held strongly.

I see the merits in both arguments, yet I more comfortably fit in with Chekov’s viewpoint. In defense of the series, I’d like to offer a couple of blog posts about two very important themes: love and redemption. I hope you come back tomorrow to read about the saving power of love, and later this week to read about healing and redemption. In the meantime, I’d like to know where you stand — with Chekov? or Jefferson?

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John Wayne…meh

Thanks to Dulcinea’s whining about McClintock, I pulled good ole “GW” out of the John Wayne stack of DVDs and watched it. Again. There is a lot to like about the movie although I’ve noticed the trend in his movies is to be rough with his leading ladies. He “takes” his women, and I’m not a fan of that. At. All. I never objected to a spontaneous or “stolen” kiss, but I don’t like the forceful grabs and the spanking. Really? Spanking a grown woman? Pointing out that Maureen O’Hara took a pretty good swing at him doesn’t make it right.

Still, there is much to enjoy about the movie. For starters, I love Maureen O’Hara almost as much as I love Yvonne de Carlo, and both of these great actors are in the movie. But here’s what I really like about McClintock: it defends the sacred bonds of marriage. It really does defend the intimate relationship between a man and a woman in marriage, and I’m not talking about the obvious, you sillies, I’m talking about the intimacy that happens from experiencing life together…what happens when people make a commitment and keep it.

McClintock (Wayne) and his wife Kate (O’Hara) are living apart. When their daughter asks him about their separation, and then makes a disparaging remark about her mother, his wife, he tells his daughter that it is none of her business. He explains to her that she has no idea about the things they experienced in their marriage and how those events, so far in the past, serve not just as a foundation, but the grounding of their relationship through sacrifice and commitment. Whatever has driven them apart, temporarily, cannot surpass the depth of the experiences that bind them together. Then he shares his wish that some day his daughter should need to face the hardships of life, as well as the joys, with a husband by her side so that she may understand.

There is a riotous reconciliation at the end (and another ridiculous spanking) but on the way to the finale we see the steps leading to forgiveness, and the tenderness of an intimacy that comes from years together.

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Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire: The Power of Prayer

Most of the time when I get a new book I read it immediately. I sit down and zoom through it with great passion and zeal, and then just as suddenly it’s over, and I’m left yearning for the next literary fix.

That crash and burn technique serves me well; I am in the business of reading and writing. There’s always a deadline, always a new book that I must read. Of course, getting to review books for The Catholic Company is a bonus for me!

Last month when my review copy of Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire: The Encounter that Changed Her Life, and How it Can Transform Your Own  by Joseph Langford arrived, I was going to treat it like any other book — something that was going to give me some fleeting pleasure. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t have a cavalier attitude about books. I love books. My ravenous consumption of books is probably rooted in my fundamental desire to read everything, or at least, everything that I can get my hands on.

When I sat down to read Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire something unexpectedly different happened to me. I slowed down.I savored the book. I turned to it, not in a frenzy to see what Langford says next, but to absorb and understand the message.

Joseph Langford examines Mother Teresa’s encounter with Christ through prayer, and it vicariously becomes ours. The lessons are profoundly deep and yet so simple that they can be distilled from the advice she so freely gives:

If you want to pray better, you need to pray more.

That simple command to pray more encouraged me to seek a new level of understanding within my own prayer life. The book captivated me with its life-transforming messages thanks largely to Langford’s expert handling of so esoteric a subject as prayer. After all, those of us who see prayer as a mysterious activity for the super holy have failed miserably to understand its nature. I attribute my own past failure to a fundamental inability to lay bare my soul in a vulnerable position.

Can you imagine anyone more vulnerable than Mother Teresa? And yet, she dedicated herself to seeking and helping those who were indeed more vulnerable. Her secret is exposed here for our benefit, so that we, too, can be transformed, and be transformational for others.

Langford deftly breaks down the essential attributes of prayer as expressed by Mother Teresa — to “pray from the heart” and  to hold “inner silence.” That last one, especially, competes with every distraction continuously pulling at us. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

This beautiful labor of love, not just Mother Teresa’s magnificent legacy but also Joseph Langford’s insight into her secret fire, is a must-read for all of us at any stage of our faith journey.

[Her] message is something infinitely rich, yet infinitely simple. She has shown us that, as the burning desert yearns for water, God yearns for us. And the God who thirsts for us is not hard to find, since he dwells in our soul as his temple, and comes in the palpable disguise of our suffering neighbor, making it easy for us to find the unsearchable God, and to come face-to-face with Christ.

Get it. Read it. Embrace the transformational power of her secret fire.

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