Two Institutions: Weekend Update: Harry Potter Party Mania

One thing I like about blogging is that by nature it is very organic. It is not static like a newspaper or a magazine and it can be updated almost instantaneously. With that in mind, I felt inclined to do a weekend update. Chalk it up to having a lot on my mind or having too much free time. I'll let you be the judge...

Last night I happened to stop by my local bookstore. It was about 8:45pm and the place was packed. As I struggled to find a parking space I realized what was going on. They were having a Harry Potter book release party. At midnight dozens of parents and sleepy kids would be lined up to purchase the latest missive in the Potter saga.

I have no desire to launch into a tirade about Harry Potter. To be quite honest, I have seen all of the films except for this latest one, which I will probably wait for it to come out on video. There is some entertainment and even some positive values that they posses. I think that there are also some troubling elements in the Potter books especially as it relates to children. My concern over this spectacle, however, goes a bit deeper.

While I was at this potter party last night, I observed the many parents and children who were roaming around the store talking, playing games, and parading costumes. Suddenly, it struck me that as a people; we are bereft of a Biblical sense of the magical. In other words we have lost the proper mystical reverence of God and have traded it for a man created, celluloid, hardback bestseller version. Those people last night from young to old were all created by God for His pleasure, but instead of seeing the wonderful, and even magical mystery that exists in the goodness of the trinity they have sought it elsewhere. What is even more telling is that many times, I find myself right there with them. I guess it reminds me so poignantly of what C.S. Lewis said about desire in his book, The Weight of Glory

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

If I were not so easily pleased, and if I could reflect the glory and mystery of the creator of the universe and if many of my brothers and sisters in Christ could do the same thing, then I suspect that we could have parents and kids running around church like they were that bookstore.