The Quotidian Kit: Happy Birthday Harry Potter!

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Happy Birthday Harry Potter!

Harry's Birthday Cake from Hagrid " . . . the day that he had turned eleven,
the most wonderful birthday of his life . . . "
(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 529 - 30)
Just over ten years ago, I received the following Harry Potter - themed Christmas letter from my wise wonderful friend The Reverend Nancy C. Tiederman. It has to be my all - time favorite Christmas letter ever. Over the last decade, I have read it silently to myself and aloud to my family numerous times, as well as sending photocopies to several very appreciative friends. Now, with Nancy's blessing I am posting it on my blog in honor of Harry's birthday.

Here we are that Christmas Eve:
Sam as a little shepherd boy . . . and Ben as Harry Potter!
Even though you may not know Nancy's friends and relatives, I think you'll find that her letter is so beautifully, so magically written that it all makes perfect sense. No matter what time of year I read it, it never fails to inspire me, especially when I read her closing words: "Even if you haven't read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone you surely know Harry's life was saved by love."

December 20, 2000
Dear Friends and Relations,

A long time ago,when I was very young, my desire [see erised, Chapter 12, 207 - 14] was to live to the unimaginable age of sixty (a round and meaningful number) in order to witness the change to the next century. 2000 seemed impossibly far away.

2000! I made it! I had not known it would be titled "The Millennium," but I intuitively knew the change from 1900's to 2000's would be a Big Event. Something magical would surely happen.

It turned out it wasn't really The Year of Millennium: it was the Year of Harry Potter. Our (adult) children gave me the complete set of books -- hardbound -- for my birthday, and reading rapidly for plot, I began to understand the year 2000.

Bill and I were rescued from becoming compete Muggles -- soft, overweight people who have no vision of the good, the beautiful, the delightful -- by dear friends who persisted until we found a date to join them for late spring hiking in the Smokey Mountains. In my slightly Muggle state, I begged for a heart / lung transplant in order to get back "up" the rocky trail we hiked down. With the help of loving friends, we struggled back into a better view of life.

The Harry Potter stories teach us "There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve - foot mountain troll is one of them" (179). My own mountain troll was several years of health problems and a mind resigned to grow old, inactive and sad. Bill and I are very grateful to have friends who persisted until we joined them in slaying personal trolls and having fun with children our own age.

Hogwarts, where Harry goes to boarding school, looks like a "vast castle with many turrets and towers . . . windows sparkling in the starry sky" (111). Bill and our children rented a house on the Atlantic coast of Florida that had those same qualities -- though on a slightly smaller scale -- for a three - day celebration for the Birthday Girl. Family and friends came from Gainesville, St. Louis, Indiana and California (others wanted to come from Washington and Maine) just to celebrate Life! More giant trolls were slain -- the ones that say: "be embarrassed to tell your age and be ashamed to grow old." It is a lot more fun to sprinkle on some fairy dust, eat four different kinds of birthday cake, fresh Florida fruits and berries, and enough shrimp to sink a shrimp boat. After naps, we bobbed in the warm salty surf off Ponte Verde Beach. Like Harry, it was time for me to realize "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things -- friendship and bravery" (287).

Bravery. That was the quality Bill drew upon when the anxiety producing ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) interviewers / examiners came to U of F: M.E. As Harry said, anticipating facing the evil wizard, there is a "prickle of fear every time 'you-know-who' is mentioned. I suppose it's all part of entering the [magical] world." The wizard examiners came, looked around, talked with faculty, staff and students and left with no alternative but to admit UF's Mechanical Engineering program is "okay!"

One day Harry Potter received the gift of the latest model flying broomstick: a number 2000, "Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle" (166). We drove our old sporty midlife crisis Eclipse into broom straw and so one June day we gave ourselves a new traveling machine: A Honda Accord with leather seats, cruise control and power everything. No longer do we receive invitations for highway racing; now we ride safe, cruising down the road to our adventures.

Like Harry's friend Hermione Granger, "I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration you know, turning something into something else" (125). With my friend Mary and my daughter Ruth, I went on pilgrimage in October to Belfast, No. Ireland, to learn about transforming "the troubles" or violence into reconciliation through contemplative prayer. His Holiness the Dali Lama and Benedictine monk Fr. Lawrence Freeman led us. The Dali Lama said, "stop studying meditation: do it." He also challenged the Protestants and Catholics to become Christians. Returning home I felt as if I had climbed "staircases . . . that led somewhere different on a Friday" (131). Unlike working with wands, when working with prayer, one is never quite sure what will happen. As is so often the case with people who enter wholeheartedly into a pilgrimage experience, the three of us were the ones transformed.

A year or so ago, Bill and I thought we might try to move back "home" to the Western States (NOT Western Florida this time) but our ideas, assumptions and day dreams turned out to be "solid walls just pretending" to be doors" (132). We are still not well - rooted in this land of below - sea - level - sand. We cannot explain the chess came called Election of a President played on a chess board shaped like Florida using Live Human chess pieces: Bishop Electors, Queen Secretary of State, Knights of the Election Board and Voter-Pawns. You have to play the game: winner becomes King President. It's a test to get to the next challenge in the battle against evil.

The great Wizard Dumbledore said truth "is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution" (298). The Truth of Ultimate Reality is what all our Christmas activity is about. When we do it properly we are sharing our faith that

"Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas; stars and angels give the sign.

Worship we the Godhead, love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus, but wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token, love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign."

~~ Christian Rossetti ~~
Even if you haven't read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone you surely know Harry's life was saved by love. "To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved is gone, will give us some protection forever" (299).

When you enter the "forbidden forest" where wild beasts and unknowns lurk, may you draw bravery, strength and life to battle goblins and all that is evil from your friends and family who love you and from the True Source of all Love.

God bless you and grant you a very Merry Christmas,
Nancy and Bill
[page numbers refer to
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
by J. K. Rowling

****************************************
Thanks to my guest blogger:
~~ The Rev. Nancy C. Tiederman ~~
Merry Christmas in July!
Happy Birthday Nancy!
Happy Birthday Harry Potter!

Harry's Golden Snitch Birthday Cake "'Out of the way, out of the way!' sang Mrs. Weasley,
coming through the gate with what appeared to be a giant,
beach-ball-sized Snitch floating in front of her.
Seconds later Harry realized that it was his birthday cake . . .
'That looks amazing, Mrs. Weasley.'"
(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 119)

Gerry, Kitti, Nancy, Bill

No comments:

A Course in Miracles

Can't say that I'm entirely sure what all of these mean, but since this title -- A Course in Miracles -- has appeared several times in my recent reading, I decided to take a look. Here are a few thoughts gleaned from the Preface and Chapter 1.

"Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."

"Knowledge is truth. . . .
Truth is unalterable, eternal,
and unambiguous."

Perception is illusion . . .
interpretive, selective,
unstable and inaccurate.

We mistakenly believe in loss,
separation, death, scarcity.

"Sin is defined as lack of love."

"Love is incapable of
asking for anything."

"The scarcity principle governs
the whole world of illusion."

"The body appears to be largely
self-motivated and independent,
yet it actually responds only
to the intentions of the mind."

"Forgiveness . . . reflects the
law of Heaven that giving and
receiving are the same."

"Forgiveness is the means by
which we will remember" [our
forgotten reality of oneness
with Heaven].

"Miracles are natural.
When they do not occur
something has gone wrong."

"Miracles . . . supply a lack;
they are performed by those who
temporarily have more for those
who temporarily have less."

"Each day should be devoted to
miracles. The purpose of time
is to enable you to learn how
to use time constructively.
It is thus a teaching device
and a means to an end. Time
will cease when it is no longer
useful in facilitating learning."

"Miracles . . . reflect the laws
of eternity, not of time."

"The miracle is the only device
at your immediate disposal
for controlling time."

Little Book of Forgiveness

When you are trying to decide whether someone deserves your forgiveness, you are asking the wrong question. Ask instead whether you deserve to be someone who consistently forgives. (17)

The most efficient forgiveness answers attack just as it happens, neither by condoning nor opposing it, but by staunchly offering correction of its senselessness. (26)

When did you decide that you had the power to ruin your whole life? How do you know how much healing is possible? Are you in charge of all creation? Are you calling all the shots? (40)

Never forget that to forgive yourself is to release trapped energy that could be doing good work in the world. Thus, to judge and condemn yourself is a form of selfishness. Self - prosecution is never noble; it does no one a service. (41)

If your first attempts at self - forgiveness seem to change nothing in the way you feel, you are impatient for magic. Like an incantation, the steps of forgiving yourself may need many solemn repetitions before a door in your mind opens to real change. The change happens within you but comes from beyond you; you are only the Magician's helper. (44)

Don't be fooled by the subtlety of some self - punishments, and do not mistake what is habitual for what is natural. Brooding, resenting, feeling bored, and frequently reviewing your laundry list of grumbles may seem like innocent reactions to a cruel world. In fact these are all ways in which your attention wanders from the purpose of healing, the only worthwhile work in the world. (45)

Ultimately, forgiveness means letting go of this world, a darkened, fractured glass through which we see love only dimly. As our frightened grip on all that is temporary relaxes, we will increasingly find our authentic strength in that which is timeless, boundless, inexhaustible, and omnipresent. (76)

from D. Patrick Miller's
A Little Book of Forgiveness:
Challenges and Meditations for
Anyone with Something to Forgive (1994)

Forgiveness

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
~ Gandhi

"Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night" (359).
~ Khaled Hosseini

“In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die”
~ Anne Lamott

"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having had a better past."
~ Anne Lamott

And similarly: "Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."
~ Lily Tomlin

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat."
~ William P. Young

Juice Box Tips For the Perfectly Good Mother

Parenting is not a contest.

There are no perfect mothers.

Taking care of me means
more to give my kids.

I can live with this.

So what?

Many factors affect my child--
I don't have to blame myself.

My day is not ruined . . .

Children are resilient . . .

Children are capable . . . .

Children are adaptable . . .

What are the odds?

Control what you can;
let go of the rest.

Less is more.

Enough for now.

I need no approval but my own.
I know what is best for me
and my family.

Love the kid . . .

Being myself is perfectly good.

I can think for myself.

No more illogical thinking
about parenting.

It's okay to be honest
about who I am.

Even perfectly good moms
need help sometimes.

I deserve to spend time
with women who respect
and support me.

There is nothing the matter
with me.

from Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box
by Ann Dunnewold, Ph. D.
(p 280)

" . . . he could spin the web between what he had read and what had happened in the supermarket, or what he had heard on the radio."

~from The Guest Book

by Sarah Blake (b. 1960)

"You may concentrate on the rare, also late, old - fashioned, new, and peculiar. But avoid not the quotidian, for every word in action becomes beautiful in the light of its own meaning."

~ from the movie
The Professor and the Madman
about the making of
The Oxford English Dictionary
ca 1879

"It is out of the dailiness of life that one is driven into the deepest recesses of the self."

~ Stanley Kunitz

Elizabeth Bishop was "aware of the small-

ness and dignity of human observation."

~David Kalstone

"Why shouldn't we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music [. . .] some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?
~Elizabeth Bishop

"Ordinary Things: It's hardest to love the ordinary things, she said, but you get lots of opportunities to practice."

~Brian Andreas, StoryPeople

" 'Oh, it's all so delicious! [Olga] said. 'I never knew before how terribly interesting little things were.' "
~E. F. Benson, British novelist (1867 - 1940)
from Queen Lucia, 237

"Look closely.
The beautiful may be small."
~Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (1724 - 1804)

"Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small."

and

"Down, down into the midst of ordinary things."
~Virginia Woolf, British novelist
(1882 - 1941)

" . . . the skills of the ordinary, dutiful choring that made up most of every life, and was so much the worth and the pride of that life, by local reckoning."
~Marilynne Robinson,

American novelist
(b. 1943)
from her novel Home, 61

"The big ideas huddle
in the jar together.
You spread them over
the black bread of day after day
and swallow them."
~Quinton Duval, American Poet
(1948 - 2010)

"I made a list of things I have
to remember and a list
of things I want to forget,
but I see they are the same list."
~Linda Pastan, American Poet
(b 1932)

"Don't sweat the small stuff, and its all small stuff. That's absurd. Lots of small stuff is really big. . . . The essence of the season lies in figuring out what small stuff is passing minutiae and what is enduring memory. Come to think of it, that may well be the essence of everything."
~Anna Quindlen, American writer
(b 1953)

Simple Words At Parting

but worlds are made
of hello and goodbye:
glad sorry or both
(big little and all)

from 73 POEMS
by e.e. cummings

The few simple words
at parting, that mean
so much to him who
stays, to him who goes

from the novel Watt
by Samuel Beckett

in this beauty
the car stops . . .
and one of you looks back . . .
you may touch one another's lips,
or not
it hardly makes any difference,
so beautiful is desire

from the poem "Desire"
by Lee Perron

Mary sighed, for the feeling again came over her that it was very flat to be left alone.

Mournful is't to say farewell,
though for few brief hours we part;
in that absence who can tell
what may come to wring the heart.
~Anon. quoted in Mary Barton, chap 17

from the novel Mary Barton
by Elizabeth Gaskell

. . . so much depends,
she thought, upon distance:
whether people are near us
or far from us.

from To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf

Why Write?

“We write to taste life
twice, in the moment
and in retrospection.”
~ Anais Nin

"In fact, I didn't expect that
anybody would be interested
in my kind of writing.
I was interested, and
this was for me enough.
~I. B. Singer

"Possibly the book may not sell,
but that is nothing --
it was written for love."
~Mark Twain

"I am just going to write
because I cannot help it."
~Charlotte Bronte

"It is not often that
someone comes along
who is a true friend
and a good writer.
Charlotte was both."

from Charlotte's Web
~ E. B. White

"A writer -- and, I believe, generally all persons --
must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."
~Jorge Luis Borges
Argentine writer (1899-1986)

"When you are very honest with yourself,
and brave enough,
you can express yourself fully.
Whatever people may think,
it is all right. Just be yourself.
That is actual practice, your actual life."
~Suzuki Roshi

"How do I know what I think
till I see what I say."
~E. M. Forster

"If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors, or mounted policemen."
~Dashiell Hammett

THE PRICE OF EXPERIENCE

You have learned something.
That always feels at first
as if you have lost something."

by George Bernard Shaw

In much wisdom is much grief:
and those who increase knowledge
increase sorrow.

from Ecclesiastes 1: 18

What is the price of experience?
Do you buy if for a song --
Or wisdom for a dance
in the street?
No. It is bought with the price
of all that you have:
your heart,
your home,
your children.

by William Blake

The naive ecstasies of her girlhood had long
since departed -- the price paid for experience
and self-possession and a true vision of things.

by Arnold Bennett
from The Old Wives' Tale

I want them to know that I cannot ever feel
about the world the way I might have felt
had they never come near me.

by Mary Gordon
from the story "Violation"
in Temporary Shelter

Really wanting to work up to 3 dimensions,
but not sure it'll be as fun as everyone says.
It's hard to trust anyone who's already doing it, he said.
They never remember what they lost to get there.

From StoryPeople:
by Brian Andreas

BUILT-IN SHIT DETECTOR

"The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere."

by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
from Gift from the Sea

"Martha was a touchstone. She had an unfailing shit detector. She did not pick up every truth, but she picked up every lie. . . . One could trust Martha to challenge one's lies and yet not to deny one's reality. That made Martha very rare. . . . Martha laughed the braying laugh she used whenever her shit detector was working."

from The Woman's Room
by Marilyn French

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."

from "The Owl Who Was God"
by James Thurber

"There is no lie that contains no part of truth."

from "The Summer Belvedere"
by Tennessee Williams

"It makes me boil, it really does!"

from A Christmas Memory

by Truman Capote

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."

--Laurence J. Peter

"The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right."

--Mark Twain

Gems from "Experience"

"So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect . . . It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life."

"The years teach much
which the days never know."

"From the mountain
you see the mountain."

"To fill the hour, --
that is happiness."

"To live the greatest number
of good hours, is wisdom."

"Five minutes of today are worth
as much to me, as five minutes
in the next millennium."

Let us treat the men and women
well: treat them as if they were
real: perhaps they are."

"The great gifts are
not got by analysis.
Everything good
is on the highway."

"People forget that it is the eye
which makes the horizon."

The true romance which
the world exists to realize,
will be the transformation
of genius into practical power."

from Ralph Waldo Emerson's
essay, "Experience," 1844

Nothing To Live Against

Helpful insights from
Margaret Atwood's
True Stories

from True Romances #3

friend 1: " . . . what am I going to do, now that he's left me and I have nothing to live for?"

friend 2: "Who told you it has to be for anything? . . . were you living for him when he was there?"

friend 1: " No . . . I was living in spite of him, I was living against him."

friend 2: "Then you should say, I have nothing to live against."

friend 1: "It's the same thing, isn't it?"

friend 2: "No."

from True Romances #2

"A long time ago I was desperately in love. Desperately is what I mean, in fact you could leave out the love and still get a good picture."

Favorites from Sappho

#1
Tell everyone
Now, today, I shall
sing beautifully for
my friends' pleasure

#2
We shall enjoy it
As for him who finds
fault, may silliness
and sorrow take him!

#28
For her sake
We ask you
to come now

O Graces
O rosy-armed
perfection:

God's daughters

#59
I said, Sappho
Enough! Why
try to move
a hard heart?

#60
You may forget but
Let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us

#69
This way, that way
I do not know
what to do: I
am of two minds

#73
Yes, it is pretty
But come, dear, need
you pride yourself
that much on a ring?

#76
Sappho, when some fool
Explodes rage
in your breast
hold back that
yapping tongue!

#79
Really . . .
My disposition
is not at all
spiteful: I have
a childlike heart.

A charm against fear

As heaven and earth are not afraid,
and never suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As day and night are not afraid,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As sun and moon are not afraid,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so my spirit, be not afraid.

As truth and falsehood have no fear,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As what has been and what shall be fear not,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

Hymn XV, from the Atharva Veda

And

from Brian Andreas / StoryPeople:

busy work
At a certain point,
feeling afraid
is a bad habit
from when you thought
being afraid
would somehow
help.
Here’s the thing
you should know:
it doesn’t.
Feel free to stop
any time.

&

outside voice
A lot of stuff changes once you figure out
the voices you hear in your head have
no idea what they’re talking about.
If they knew anything at all about
the world, they’d stop in amazement
because why waste all that time
talking when you could be spinning
around & around laughing &
soaking it all in?

And

from Tennessee Williams:

“The world is a violent and mercurial — it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love — love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”

Antidotes for Fretfulness

All shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of things
shall be well.

--Dame Juliana of Norwich
14th Century Mystic
(1342 - 1416)

"I wish for you
some new love
at lovely things,
some new forgetfulness
at teasing things,
some higher pride
in the praising things,
some sweeter peace
from the hurrying things,
and some closer fence
from the worrying things."

--John Ruskin
English art critic
(1819 - 1900)

"Whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsover things are just,
whatsover things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good
report,
if there be any virtue and
if there be any praise,
think on these things."

Philippians 4: 8

Not Even On My Radar

One day last summer I received a thumbs up from my darling niece Amy when we apparently, at a 4-way stop, annoyed another driver, who expressed an opinion of my driving by honking. Amy, bless her heart, was outraged on my behalf. I assured her, "Oh, not to worry; that's not even on my radar," and we proceeded on our way.

Amy kept laughing and repeating, "That's not even on my radar! I'm going to start saying that. That's great."

Wow! Really? Without even meaning to, I had made a positive impression by dismissing an insult rather than taking it personally. If only I could remember my own advice and do that all the time!

To help myself remember, I sat down and compiled a list of positive thoughts, healthy responses, and other antidotes to fretfulness, starting with:

That's not even on my radar.

Here are some more,
nothing fancy:

Oh well.

That's okay.

That's funny.

Be flexible.

Don't judge.

Deep breath.

It's broken.

Plain & simple.

That happens sometimes.

I may protect myself . . . but

I may not try to change others.

What if this was alright?
[This last profound mantra
I learned from Susan Jeffers, in
The Lttle Book of Peace of Mind]

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Happy Birthday Harry Potter!

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