For those unfamiliar with Mrs. L’Engle’s books, she wrote everything from children’s books–of which Wrinkle was only the first of a four part series–as well as reflections on a life of faith. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series that included Wrinkle, as well as several of the books about the Austin family, most notably The Arm of the Starfish.

I read two of her works on faith: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art and The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth. I enjoyed both even if I did not wholly agree with all of her thoughts and musings. However, she helped me see the possibility of expressing my faith and beliefs through means other than intellectual study. If you have never read any of her works, please take the time to do so. You will not regret it.

If you are interested in spoilers or have read the book, I recommend reading two articles. The two articles are about as far from agreement as it is possible to go, but they inspire a great amount of thought about what relays the message of Christ through media. Bob Smietana posted his article “The Gospel According to J.K. Rowling” on Christianity Today last Monday (7/23/2007). Lev Grossman posed a different view in his Time article “Who Dies in Harry Potter? God.” How can two people reading the same book have come to such a drastic disagreement?

Spoiler Warning!

I think some see the witchcraft aspect of the Potter series as a definite reason to disassociate the series from Christianity from the outset. Indeed, Grossman certainly seems to think that the emergence of a “sacrificial lamb” story in the midst of a book filled with magic, witches and wizards kills God. That seems quite a drastic oversimplification. However, anyone that has read much on Wicca and focused on the story elements of Harry Potter will likely see that the two are not really all that similar. From what I’ve read, and I could be wrong, Wicca sees nature as working with humans not against them. I don’t think Harry would agree with this worldview, nor does he really agree with a positive outlook either.

Star Wars, The Wheel of Time, and others have much more akin to witchcraft and Wicca than Harry Potter could ever dream. In the end, I heartily agree with Smietana’s article. I think Christ has whispered Himself into the Harry Potter stories, and the Spirit will use this to His advantage. C.S. Lewis once wrote an essay, I believe titled On Myth, in which he stated he thought that all myth points to the true myth of Christianity. Madeleine L’Engle commented in one of her books that all great art whispers of the creator. I think, in Harry Potter, Christ is indeed to be found, if not now, then when the Spirit calls to those who have read the books.

The concept presented in this book is quite fascinating: businesses are likely to gain significantly by becoming more transparent and sharing their once prized possession–their intellectual property–and implementing the technologies commonly referred to as web2.0–blogs, wikis, RSS, and other collaborative technologies. In fact, you can help complete the authors’ effort to finish their book! Just go to www.wikinomics.com and volunteer your time to research and help write the The Wikinomics Playbook. For those who don’t know, collaborative technologies are here defined as “open source” projects or technologies that allow multiple users to add and use information to the betterment of the collaborators.

How accurate the authors are in assessing the impact of web2.0 technologies remains to be seen. However, early signs indicate that they are at least partially right. Many companies have and are moving to more collaborative online environments. I don’t see a majority of companies ever moving to such a collaborative environment, even if such environments are proven to be the absolute best way to do business. Some will always hold on to more traditional business models, whether it be for lack of understanding or fear of change. Nevertheless, I am interested to see how everything shakes out. I keep thinking that someday, we’ll all start screaming about how globalization kills unique identities and radically shift the other way. Only time will tell.

Brother Lawrence insisted that, to be constantly aware of God’s presence, it is necessary to form the habit of continually talking with Him throughout each day. To think that we must abandon conversation with Him in order to deal with the world is erroneous. Instead, as we nourish our souls by seeing God in His exaltation, we will derive a great joy at being his.Another thing he mentioned was that our faith was too weak. Instead of letting faith rule our lives, we are guided by our petty, everyday, mechanical prayers, which are always changing. The Church’s only road to the perfection of Christ is faith.The dear brother remarked that we must give ourselves totally to God in both temporal and spiritual affairs. Our only happiness should come from doing God’s will, whether it brings us some pain or great pleasure. After all, if we are truly devoted to doing God’s will, pain and pleasure won’t make any difference to us.

~ “First Conversation”, The Practice of the Presence of God

My boss recently recommended this book to me. I read it in one weekend and absolutely loved it. I was taught in the past of the importance of keeping a running dialogue with God throughout the day, but I never really knew what that would look like. This little book concisely and thoroughly addresses the issue. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially at the price of six dollars.

Goals!

I’m a big fan of goal planning, and yet I have had a really hard time setting goals and not achieving them. This was often due to a change in priorities or realization that I had set the goal so as having something to accomplish. I finally decided that I would do better to not set such precise goals and instead set general goals. This worked well at first, probably because I was still setting action plans and timelines in the back of my head but not formally. I have always been okay with that, but to miss details in some plan–I have never been able to easily accept that.

Well, now I end up where I am today, constantly setting “goals” for myself that are completely immeasurable and overloading myself with too many projects. This book has already helped me zero in on what I really enjoy and knock off a lot of the intriguing-and-interesting-but-not-quite-right hobbies I’ve set for myself. For instance, I’ve been all about building my own website software for about four years. However, this started because I wanted a way to write and I wasn’t satisfied with the software that had been out at the time. I thought programming was cool and interesting, so I set the goal of writing my own application. However, I’m not passionate enough about that to ever accomplish so great a feat. I’d rather be writing. I finally realized my mistake when I thought back to when I switched my major from computer engineering to accouting/managment information systems. I found calculus and programming languages fascinating, but I realized I never really wanted to do that much with them for a living. I think I forgot about that.

That’s about as far as I am right now. I still need to work out goals for progressing my interests, etc. and action plans on how to get there. I’m interested to see what the book has to say. And I’m working on not getting too caught in the details to become frustrated when my goals are not accomplished exactly as I planned them. I think that years of maturing and growing in patience and contentment should help, but I know I have a tendency to become easily frustrated with my lack of performance. This should be an interesting pursuit.

We are such a selfish people. We think so much about life, and about our own lives in particular. I am still guilty of this, and more importantly, I don’t like it about myself. Sydney Cotten took the high road when he did not need to so that he might preserve the life of another. Jean Valjean, though he predicted accurately the outcome of his choice gave up his darling Cosette and wasted away that she might be happy and have a beautiful life. We think of ourselves as being the happy people that find our princes and princesses and live happily ever after. Some Christian writers would even have us believe that such is true for us in this life. But the fairy tale is for our real life, not the one we watch and agonize over in this lifetime.

In this lifetime, however, we are more like Fantine, who gave up her hair and teeth so that her little girl could have medicine and eat, though in reality Fantine was being cheated out of her income. We are a burnt offering, a willing sacrifice. We are in fact the ones who shall suffer. And rightly so! Was it not my sin that drove that powered the arm that drove the nail into Christ’s right hand? Was it not yours that did likewise for his left? How then should we think we are entitled to something more? Pain and misery are what we deserve; yet God is merciful and gracious. “He does not treat us as our sins deserve nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103).

John wrote of love as the most important theme of the story of our lives. We obey God by loving one another. We know Him by loving one another. We are to endure with one another and stand in the place of one another when the other cannot stand on his or her own. We are not our own. We have been bought at a price, and a high price indeed. Do not grow comfortable in your desk chair or in your recliner. Do not grow accustomed to gonig out each night or venturing down to the movie theater because you have nothing better to do. We waste our lives away so easily. With whom have you recently expressed your love for and joy in Christ? To how many unbelievers have you bared your soul and allowed them to see your need that they might see their own? How often have you made yourself happy instead of seeking to nurse the hurts in others? Oh friends don’t think that I am speaking just to you! I am writing to and for myself as well. May the Lord push us together as the body to see his will done and made manifest in all the earth! Amen!