i was talking to a friend recently about pranks, and it reminded me of an afternoon several of my classmates and i spent looking up senior pranks. Now, my school made it very clear that if you were caught in any kind of senior prank you would not be graduating. So we didn't get to actually do any of these.... but it's given me some great ideas for future sleepovers, camp, and... well, never mind. Forget i said anything.....
1 Alarm Clock Mayhem
Set alarm clocks to go off about 2 minutes from each other...hide them all around the school...in lockers, bathrooms, ceiling tiles, vents, ...
2 Sleepover
The entire senior class camps out in the front yard of the school....and sleeps in.
3 Letter Men
Everyone needs to get a t-shirt with a letter (or number) on it - you can make them with iron on decals. Just one big letter. Different colors, different styles, on the front or back. Throughout the day, stand near people making words in the hall...snap photos. So letters D, O, R, and K can run next to principal and quickly snap photo. They can't exactly make the whole class change, but they can however ask you put your shirt on inside out...so as a precaution, put another letter on the otherside...
4 State Flowers
In most states (check yours) it is illegal to dig up the state flower (or sometimes tree). So if you plant the state flower in the shape of your class year, then they cannot legally dig them up.
5 Tiny Bookmarks
Create thousands of tiny bookmarks saying something like Class of '0? - Senior Prank; or Class of '0? was Here. Put them in thousands of books in the library ... 10 years later people will still be finding them.
6 Parking Problems 1
Seniors, park your cars in a circle around the school...so close together that a person would have to climb over a car to get to the building.
7 Parking Problems 2
Seniors, park your cars in a maze shape nice and early making the faculty navigate through.
8 Swap for Diploma
Have everyone slip something into the principal's hand when you shake hands at graduation. Examples: a marble, a bouncy ball, a cigarette (if he smokes), a penny, a fortune cookie fortune, ..
9 For Sale By owner
Put real estate ad in newspaper offering the school for sale.
10 Cement Year
Dig a hole in the grass the shape of your year...then fill with cement.
11 Dixie Cups
Purchase 700-1000 paper dixie cups. Fill them up halfway with water. Flip them over and put them throughout all of the hallways. They will be hard to get off and once they're removed the water will come out!
12 Doorknobs
Rub Vaseline over the doorknobs so that when the bell rings everyone's hands will be slimy for the rest of the day. If your hand rails are yellow; get some mustard from the cafeteria and use that.
13 Tire Flagpole
Drop a bunch of used tires over the top of the flagpole.
14 Photoshop
Edit some photos of the principal to be funny - include your class year...distribute in bulk.
15 Saran Wrap
Get a bunch of rolls of saran wrap and wrap your principals car in a thin layer during school. When he/she gets out, they will not know what to do.
16 Used Car Lot
Turn the faculty parking lot into a used car lot, complete with balloons, salesmen in suits, window stickers, and soap drawn prices - if possible, get giant blow up animal.
17 Post-it Note Mayhem
Come in early enough so this will work- If there is a certain hall in your school, get a whole bunch of post-it notes and cover that hall with them entirely. Write a message on a few so people will stop and look at them, even spell out something on the floor. Then, around school, have various post-it notes labeling: Class of 0?- Post-it Bandits
18 Class Relocated
On a nice day, move all chairs outside in class size groups. Post a room number on each group. Inside, on the door of each classroom post note like "Class relocated to the flagpole". Report to class..outside.
19 Rubber Duckie
Put hundreds of Rubber Duckies in the school pool or a fountain, or on a pond.
20 Zip Tie/Cable Tie fun
Get a ton of zip ties(pretty cheap in bulk.) Get every desk, chair, or other mobile object and zip tie them to something that is solid and can't be lifted(i.e. a post, hand rail.) In my school the little rail on the second floor has a chain link type fence. Make sure to pull the zip tie as tight as possible to make for harder cutting off. If your really into it move on and get everyone's locker too.
21 Delivery
Order items from take out several take-out restaurants to be delivered to you at school - prepaid with credit card.
22 Anyone Got a Snow Machine?
If not...rent one. Snowballs on the front lawn!
23 Letters to the Staff
Send letters to the faculty and staff (at home addresses - look them up). Have the return address label be something funny...that may have a spouse or kid scratching their head. Add letter inside stating that your class shall not be forgotten. Return Address Possibilities: National Association of Overprotective Parents, Parents Wanting No Drama (PWND), The New Kakistocracy (kakistocracy means government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens)....
24 Marching Band
Get the marching band to do a special number...at an event or just during class...perhaps some rock music...hip hop
25 Bouncing Halls
Buy thousands of bouncy balls-of all sizes- and distribute them to many seniors. During a planned time period-Like between the first two periods so they will be there all day-dump them all over the halls and stairwells.
26 SNOW
Buy 40 pounds like 400 gallons of sodium polyartulate (fake snow) add water and it poofs up. put it all over the school. it is not wet but feels like snow.
Apr 16, 2011
I'm Engaged!
Mom & Dad
Mom & Dad-
Do you remember that day two weeks ago when we were at Grandma's and we all got in an argument about dating vs. courtship? Yea. You want to do the whole courtship thing, i understand. You want to find a good guy, have him over for dinner a few million times over 4 years and be there when he proposes. Sounds like a plan. But you're gonna have to count me out. No way in hell am i letting you or mom have anything to do with who i hang out with, date or marry.
Your marriage is falling apart, you don't truly love, respect, trust or honor each other. Why should i let you have any control over such a huge part of my life? Neither of you knows me at all, not just the unimportant stuff like my fave colors or artist i like, you don't know what matters to me. What i want to do with my life, even things like what i believe about God, church and family.
Why should i let people who know so little about me have control over who i marry? Oh and by the way, those guys that you do approve of? You know the nice, responsible, boring ones that don't have opinions on anything except Sovereign Grace doctrine? You know, the ones that smile and nod and act like i'm being cute whenever i express an opinion. What the hell is with that?
Yea. "Not my type" doesn't even begin to cover it. You want to know why i don't tell you about the guys i date? Why i never bring guys home? Because you don't approve of the guys i like. Guys that are great, strong Christians, but maybe have a different view of life than you. Guess what? Just because they may have different goals in life, or a different plans, doesn't mean they aren't even more amazing than they guys you like.
Screw you. i'm gonna do what i want cause i know me, and whats best for me, way better than either of you do. It's a fact. Ask anyone else and they can tell you all about me, but you wouldn't recognize the person they're talking about because i can't be myself around you. You don't let me. When i try you make fun of me, belittle whats important to me, and make me feel like everything i've done for the past two years is worthless. It isn't, but you don't see that.
What the hell. i don't give a damn. Do what you want, but if you try to force me to date a guy you picked out, it's not gonna happen. i'll be gone long before it comes to that.
You both did this, this is your fault. If you have ever even once tried to get to know me, really know me, it wouldn't have to be this way. But you didn't. Now it's too late, you can't fix this.
Signed,
Your Daughter
Do you remember that day two weeks ago when we were at Grandma's and we all got in an argument about dating vs. courtship? Yea. You want to do the whole courtship thing, i understand. You want to find a good guy, have him over for dinner a few million times over 4 years and be there when he proposes. Sounds like a plan. But you're gonna have to count me out. No way in hell am i letting you or mom have anything to do with who i hang out with, date or marry.
Your marriage is falling apart, you don't truly love, respect, trust or honor each other. Why should i let you have any control over such a huge part of my life? Neither of you knows me at all, not just the unimportant stuff like my fave colors or artist i like, you don't know what matters to me. What i want to do with my life, even things like what i believe about God, church and family.
Why should i let people who know so little about me have control over who i marry? Oh and by the way, those guys that you do approve of? You know the nice, responsible, boring ones that don't have opinions on anything except Sovereign Grace doctrine? You know, the ones that smile and nod and act like i'm being cute whenever i express an opinion. What the hell is with that?
Yea. "Not my type" doesn't even begin to cover it. You want to know why i don't tell you about the guys i date? Why i never bring guys home? Because you don't approve of the guys i like. Guys that are great, strong Christians, but maybe have a different view of life than you. Guess what? Just because they may have different goals in life, or a different plans, doesn't mean they aren't even more amazing than they guys you like.
Screw you. i'm gonna do what i want cause i know me, and whats best for me, way better than either of you do. It's a fact. Ask anyone else and they can tell you all about me, but you wouldn't recognize the person they're talking about because i can't be myself around you. You don't let me. When i try you make fun of me, belittle whats important to me, and make me feel like everything i've done for the past two years is worthless. It isn't, but you don't see that.
What the hell. i don't give a damn. Do what you want, but if you try to force me to date a guy you picked out, it's not gonna happen. i'll be gone long before it comes to that.
You both did this, this is your fault. If you have ever even once tried to get to know me, really know me, it wouldn't have to be this way. But you didn't. Now it's too late, you can't fix this.
Signed,
Your Daughter
Apr 11, 2011
7X 70
This is for my mom.
7X70
I’ve been living in this house here
Since the day that I was born
These walls have seen me happy
But most of all they’ve seen me torn
They’ve heard the screaming matches
That made a family fall apart
They’ve had a front row seat
To the breaking of my heart
7 times 70 times
I’ll do what it takes to make it right
I thought the pain was here to stay
But forgiveness made a way
7 times 70 times
There’s healing in the air tonight
I’m reaching up to pull it down
Gonna wrap it all around
I remember running down the hallway
Playing hide-and-seek
I didn’t know that I was searching
For someone to notice me
I felt alone and undiscovered
And old enough to understand
Just when I’m s’posed to be learning to love you
Let me doubt again
7 times 70 times
I’ll do what it takes to make it right
I thought the pain was here to stay
But forgiveness made a way
7 times 70 times
There’s healing in the air tonight
I’m reaching up to pull it down
Gonna wrap it all around
I lost count of the ways you let me down
But no matter how many times you weren’t around
I’m all right now
God picked up my heart and helped me through
And shined a light on the one thing left to do
And that’s forgive you
I forgive you
7 times 70 times
If that’s the cost I’ll pay the price
7 times 70 times
I’ll do what it takes to make it right
I thought the pain was here to stay
But forgiveness made a way
7 times 70 times
There’s healing in this house tonight
I’m reaching up to pull it down
Gonna wrap it all around
Yeah
I’m gonna wrap it all around
I’ve been living in this house here
Since the day that I was born
I Don't Care
"I don't care what people think" is an attitude a lot of people i know have, and while it can be a good thing, i don't think it is always. i don't care what people think about me, my personality, who i am. i do care about what people see when they look at me. i want strangers to look at me and see Christ, or at least see a difference in me. i don't want to be mistaken for just a regular 20-something girl.
i do occasionally cuss, and i'm not always careful about what i listen to, but i try to be mindful of what i say around other people. Whether i'm hanging out with my friends, at church, or in public, i try to be careful about what i say, what i joke about, and what i laugh at.
The laughing think is the hardest cause when i don't know how to respond to something, or if something startles me, i usually just laugh till i figure out what to say. So that one is hard for me. i don't like to laugh at perverted things tho, i feel like that's encouraging the people involved, and i really don't want to do that!
i don't care what people think about me, but i care about what they see when they look at my life.
i do occasionally cuss, and i'm not always careful about what i listen to, but i try to be mindful of what i say around other people. Whether i'm hanging out with my friends, at church, or in public, i try to be careful about what i say, what i joke about, and what i laugh at.
The laughing think is the hardest cause when i don't know how to respond to something, or if something startles me, i usually just laugh till i figure out what to say. So that one is hard for me. i don't like to laugh at perverted things tho, i feel like that's encouraging the people involved, and i really don't want to do that!
i don't care what people think about me, but i care about what they see when they look at my life.
30 Random Facts About Me
30 Random Facts About Me
1. i love Archie Andrews comics
2. i put gummie bears in smoothies
3. i listen to Disney music on a regular basis
4. i think the Muppets are incredibly funny
5. i can't whistle
6. i can't snap either
7. i love the smell of a woodshop
8. When i don't know what to do or how to react, i laugh
9. i like cowboys, but i would never date one
10. i'm hopeless at computer games
11. i love soccer
12. Spiders are cool, but
13. i hate grasshoppers
14. i have never been fishing
15. i have never been kissed (on the mouth)
16. i fall asleep during movies
17. i'm always cold
18. My favorite thing in the world to do is walk and talk with a friend
19. i don't really like talking on the phone, but
20. i'd rather talk than text
21. i'd rather be behind a camera than in front of one
22. i eat pizza backwards
23. i like riding horses
24. i hate being alone, but
25. i'd rather be alone all day, than with people who seriously annoy me for 3 hours
26. i sing whenever i hear a song i know
27. i cry when i read Nicolas Sparks books
28. i listen to Jewel when i'm stressed
29. i like Taylor Swift music, even tho i don't think she has talent
30. The most random thing about me is that i like all the random things about me.
1. i love Archie Andrews comics
2. i put gummie bears in smoothies
3. i listen to Disney music on a regular basis
4. i think the Muppets are incredibly funny
5. i can't whistle
6. i can't snap either
7. i love the smell of a woodshop
8. When i don't know what to do or how to react, i laugh
9. i like cowboys, but i would never date one
10. i'm hopeless at computer games
11. i love soccer
12. Spiders are cool, but
13. i hate grasshoppers
14. i have never been fishing
15. i have never been kissed (on the mouth)
16. i fall asleep during movies
17. i'm always cold
18. My favorite thing in the world to do is walk and talk with a friend
19. i don't really like talking on the phone, but
20. i'd rather talk than text
21. i'd rather be behind a camera than in front of one
22. i eat pizza backwards
23. i like riding horses
24. i hate being alone, but
25. i'd rather be alone all day, than with people who seriously annoy me for 3 hours
26. i sing whenever i hear a song i know
27. i cry when i read Nicolas Sparks books
28. i listen to Jewel when i'm stressed
29. i like Taylor Swift music, even tho i don't think she has talent
30. The most random thing about me is that i like all the random things about me.
Apr 10, 2011
What This World Needs...
It's not world peace, better gun laws, or no terrorism. All good things, but what this world needs is Savior who will rescue, a Spirit who will lead, and a Father who will love them. That's what this world needs. Not your interpretation of the Bible, your opinions, or your voice. We need to care about the inside first, don't worry about what someone looks like, or they're mannerisms, or what kind of job they have or where they live. It's not important!
People aren't confused by the gospel, they're confused by us! Christianity has so many 'versions', all claiming to be the one true way to Christ. We spend so much time fighting among ourselves that we hinder the work that God could be doing through us, if we all would just unite and work for Him. Put aside your differences, your translations, your denominations, and your opinions. Focus on God! He's got a plan, and it's one that works!
We fight among ourselves, all claiming to be the best. What did Christ say? The last shall be first? We should be working together to be the 'last', the servant working the hardest to further the master's cause. That's what we should be worrying about, not the music, dress code, number of church members or visitors, or how nice a building we have. We're fighting about the wrong things! America wake up! You're wasting time, and there's so little time left...
People aren't confused by the gospel, they're confused by us! Christianity has so many 'versions', all claiming to be the one true way to Christ. We spend so much time fighting among ourselves that we hinder the work that God could be doing through us, if we all would just unite and work for Him. Put aside your differences, your translations, your denominations, and your opinions. Focus on God! He's got a plan, and it's one that works!
We fight among ourselves, all claiming to be the best. What did Christ say? The last shall be first? We should be working together to be the 'last', the servant working the hardest to further the master's cause. That's what we should be worrying about, not the music, dress code, number of church members or visitors, or how nice a building we have. We're fighting about the wrong things! America wake up! You're wasting time, and there's so little time left...
Apr 1, 2011
Harry Potter and The Lord Of The Rings
Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings
Good Stories or Fantasies that Fail?
Mark Ryan and Carole Hausmann Ryan
This article first appeared in the News Watch department of the Christian Research Journal, volume 24, number 4 (2002). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org/
The blockbuster films about Middle Earth and Harry Potter have given Christians two opportunities to respond to magical fantasy on the big screen. The first installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and of the Harry Potter series were released during the past winter movie season. Christians apparently find it easier to accept the magic and wizardry of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Gandalf than J. K. Rowling’s Harry.
As news correspondents for the Journal and Christian parents, we saw both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and multiple Oscar-winning The Fellowship of the Ring and interviewed other Christian parents about their views regarding these two movies. We loved both movies. We highly recommend both to most people, but not everyone. The Lord of the Rings is a story of a monumental struggle between good and evil, full of war and suffering and death. It is not for small children nor faint-hearted adults. It is also not for people who do not like fantasy — even superb fantasy. As one of our friends commented, The Lord of the Rings has a dark shadow of foreboding over it: Tolkien’s dark lord casts his long shadow over the whole tale, and the movie conveys this foreboding heartbreakingly, breathtakingly well.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a lighter movie (as is the book series, so far), suitable for young children. We took our six-year-old son to see it. He instantly understood the main point of the story: Harry is a brave, loyal boy with good friends, whose mother laid down her life for him and saved his life — twice.
Most Hollywood movies, especially those based on best-selling novels, engender little notice from evangelicals, who generally write off any redeeming value coming from Hollywood. These two movies, and the books from which they spring, have caused some concern among evangelicals because they appear to deal with spiritual issues and are full of references to wizards, spells, and other magical themes. Harry Potter seems to be the most problematic since it has no clear theistic, much less biblical, worldview and seems to be advocating a magical approach to reality. Fellowship comes from an author who was a devout Christian, an accomplished British literary don, and one of the people most influential in C. S. Lewis’s conversion to Christ. Fellowship nevertheless also has no overtly theistic or biblical worldview. All of the works (the multivolume book series and the two movies) display a clear conflict between good and evil, with good ultimately triumphing, and focus on the powers of love, loyalty, goodness, and truth in opposition to selfishness, greed, and exploitation.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter series are works of fantasy. In both, the authors create multidimensional worlds peopled with various creatures, many of whom use magical powers to affect physical changes in their world. Some of these creatures are bad and use their powers for evil, and some of these creatures are good and use their powers to battle evil. The "magical" powers are "natural" attributes of the respective fantasy worlds in which they operate. In this sense the magic is more akin to the ability of animals to speak and wear clothes in children’s literature such as The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh. Within the context of the world of the story, clothed talking animals are not supernatural, occult aberrations but the normal state of affairs. In other words, the magic is mechanistic, not occult: the make-believe laws that govern their use in these make-believe worlds are physical laws, not spiritual or moral laws. These practices are not the same as the occult-based wizardry and sorcery practiced in the real world by real people and condemned in the Bible (which illumines the real world).
This important distinction between our real world and these fantasy worlds becomes muddled if we confuse the world of fantasy with the real world. Witness the prominent displays of books on charms, potions, and casting spells located next to the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings displays in many bookstores. In our real world, the Bible condemns such practices because they are rooted in our sinful, human desire for control and they make us vulnerable to the demonic influence that ultimately controls the sinful world.
In a culture saturated, as ours is, with New Age beliefs and practices (many of which are demonstrably occult in origin), lost people easily lose the biblical distinctions between good and evil and the psychological distinctions between reality and fantasy. If a danger exists in good children’s literature such as the Harry Potter books, or in great adult literature such as The Lord of the Rings books, it exists for those for whom these distinctions are blurred rather than because of any inherent danger in the works themselves.
Working professionally with at-risk children and young adults, we see this danger frequently. Every week we encounter lost young people who are hungry for love, acceptance, security, and significance. Young people from extremely abusive homes, driven by felt needs, flirt with all of the New Age practices. Such young people should be offered the better way; indeed, the only way that is true and best is our Lord Jesus. Christians can use movies such as those in the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings series as vehicles to show these youths what they really want and need — a place of love, courage, friendship, belonging, and a chance to lay down their lives in a cause greater than themselves.
The first Harry Potter movie, like the books, is not so much about wizardry as it is about friendship and courage to do the right thing. As Harry prepares to face his last and most dangerous test, he and Hermione argue over who is the better wizard. Harry insists his friend is, to which Hermione replies, "Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things — friendship and bravery and — oh Harry — be careful!"
What distinguishes good fantasy writing from fantasy that fails is its moral and philosophical underpinnings. The essay "The Fantastic Imagination" by devout Christian George MacDonald, the premiere nineteenth-century writer of fantasy for adults and children, states that when an author invents "a little world of his own, with its own laws," he or she must hold to those laws in order for that world to have consistency and believability.
More importantly, the author must obey the moral law of the real world, or his or her fantasy will fail. "It were no offence to suppose a world in which everything repelled instead of attracted the things around it; it would be wicked to write a tale representing a man it called good as always doing bad things, or a man it called bad as always doing good things: the notion itself is absolutely lawless. In physical things a man may invent; in moral things he must obey — and take their laws with him into his invented world as well."
When we examine works of fantasy, therefore, we look for clues concerning the author’s moral values, such as his or her view of good and evil. In The Lord of the Rings, we see good and evil as diametrically opposed. We also see biblical themes interwoven in Tolkien’s stories, such as the triumph of good over evil by ordinary, seemingly insignificant, "little people," who struggle with their own failures, but who are courageous, loyal, and, ultimately, obedient. We always have a sense that behind the mounting battle a benevolent Providence is subtly at work. Good, for Tolkien, is always much bigger and more real than evil, no matter how the evil swaggers and blusters.
Rowling has made no specific claims of evangelical Christianity, but she has left us hints about her philosophical framework. In Harry Potter books, good wizards and bad wizards fight each other, and one who has given himself completely over to Voldemort, the very worst wizard, has this to say to Harry: "A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it...."
In Rowling’s books, too (at least so far), good and evil are implacable enemies, and love ultimately defeats evil. Her characters, like Tolkien’s, capture our hearts because they struggle, like we do, with weakness, failure, and insecurity. They also learn courage, loyalty, and love through battles and hardships. In her books, a young boy leaves a terribly abusive world behind and finds a true home with real family and friends in a new, magical world. No discernable underpinning of Providence is in Rowling as there is in Tolkien, but such a worldview is not necessarily contradicted by the stories and can be coupled with the stories if Christian parents discuss it within a Christian context.
The well-intentioned but perhaps misguided attempts by some evangelical Christians to repudiate Harry Potter and/or The Lord of the Rings instead confuse the general public. What next? Will Christians sponsor a book-burning party for the Wizard of Oz books because of their inclusion of good witches? Christians can appear at best silly and at worst ignorantly prejudiced, more like totalitarian Orwellianism than biblical Christianity.
Christians should make a clear distinction between the internally consistent and "natural" world of the story and the occult reality of this world, where evil lures but is ultimately overcome by the Lord of Glory. The evangelist Luke wrote of a group of new converts who formerly practiced sorcery and then publicly burned their sorcery scrolls after coming to faith in Jesus (Acts 19:17-20). This should not be confused with dismissing good fantasy literature simply because of the trappings of its fictional world.
As Tolkien led Lewis to the truth of the gospel through classical mythology, and as the apostle Paul led his pagan hearers to faith in the one true God through their own inscriptions and literature (Acts 17:16–34), so we may use the truths in the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings series to draw people to their true home in Jesus.
Good Stories or Fantasies that Fail?
Mark Ryan and Carole Hausmann Ryan
This article first appeared in the News Watch department of the Christian Research Journal, volume 24, number 4 (2002). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org/
The blockbuster films about Middle Earth and Harry Potter have given Christians two opportunities to respond to magical fantasy on the big screen. The first installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and of the Harry Potter series were released during the past winter movie season. Christians apparently find it easier to accept the magic and wizardry of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Gandalf than J. K. Rowling’s Harry.
As news correspondents for the Journal and Christian parents, we saw both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and multiple Oscar-winning The Fellowship of the Ring and interviewed other Christian parents about their views regarding these two movies. We loved both movies. We highly recommend both to most people, but not everyone. The Lord of the Rings is a story of a monumental struggle between good and evil, full of war and suffering and death. It is not for small children nor faint-hearted adults. It is also not for people who do not like fantasy — even superb fantasy. As one of our friends commented, The Lord of the Rings has a dark shadow of foreboding over it: Tolkien’s dark lord casts his long shadow over the whole tale, and the movie conveys this foreboding heartbreakingly, breathtakingly well.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a lighter movie (as is the book series, so far), suitable for young children. We took our six-year-old son to see it. He instantly understood the main point of the story: Harry is a brave, loyal boy with good friends, whose mother laid down her life for him and saved his life — twice.
Most Hollywood movies, especially those based on best-selling novels, engender little notice from evangelicals, who generally write off any redeeming value coming from Hollywood. These two movies, and the books from which they spring, have caused some concern among evangelicals because they appear to deal with spiritual issues and are full of references to wizards, spells, and other magical themes. Harry Potter seems to be the most problematic since it has no clear theistic, much less biblical, worldview and seems to be advocating a magical approach to reality. Fellowship comes from an author who was a devout Christian, an accomplished British literary don, and one of the people most influential in C. S. Lewis’s conversion to Christ. Fellowship nevertheless also has no overtly theistic or biblical worldview. All of the works (the multivolume book series and the two movies) display a clear conflict between good and evil, with good ultimately triumphing, and focus on the powers of love, loyalty, goodness, and truth in opposition to selfishness, greed, and exploitation.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter series are works of fantasy. In both, the authors create multidimensional worlds peopled with various creatures, many of whom use magical powers to affect physical changes in their world. Some of these creatures are bad and use their powers for evil, and some of these creatures are good and use their powers to battle evil. The "magical" powers are "natural" attributes of the respective fantasy worlds in which they operate. In this sense the magic is more akin to the ability of animals to speak and wear clothes in children’s literature such as The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh. Within the context of the world of the story, clothed talking animals are not supernatural, occult aberrations but the normal state of affairs. In other words, the magic is mechanistic, not occult: the make-believe laws that govern their use in these make-believe worlds are physical laws, not spiritual or moral laws. These practices are not the same as the occult-based wizardry and sorcery practiced in the real world by real people and condemned in the Bible (which illumines the real world).
This important distinction between our real world and these fantasy worlds becomes muddled if we confuse the world of fantasy with the real world. Witness the prominent displays of books on charms, potions, and casting spells located next to the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings displays in many bookstores. In our real world, the Bible condemns such practices because they are rooted in our sinful, human desire for control and they make us vulnerable to the demonic influence that ultimately controls the sinful world.
In a culture saturated, as ours is, with New Age beliefs and practices (many of which are demonstrably occult in origin), lost people easily lose the biblical distinctions between good and evil and the psychological distinctions between reality and fantasy. If a danger exists in good children’s literature such as the Harry Potter books, or in great adult literature such as The Lord of the Rings books, it exists for those for whom these distinctions are blurred rather than because of any inherent danger in the works themselves.
Working professionally with at-risk children and young adults, we see this danger frequently. Every week we encounter lost young people who are hungry for love, acceptance, security, and significance. Young people from extremely abusive homes, driven by felt needs, flirt with all of the New Age practices. Such young people should be offered the better way; indeed, the only way that is true and best is our Lord Jesus. Christians can use movies such as those in the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings series as vehicles to show these youths what they really want and need — a place of love, courage, friendship, belonging, and a chance to lay down their lives in a cause greater than themselves.
The first Harry Potter movie, like the books, is not so much about wizardry as it is about friendship and courage to do the right thing. As Harry prepares to face his last and most dangerous test, he and Hermione argue over who is the better wizard. Harry insists his friend is, to which Hermione replies, "Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things — friendship and bravery and — oh Harry — be careful!"
What distinguishes good fantasy writing from fantasy that fails is its moral and philosophical underpinnings. The essay "The Fantastic Imagination" by devout Christian George MacDonald, the premiere nineteenth-century writer of fantasy for adults and children, states that when an author invents "a little world of his own, with its own laws," he or she must hold to those laws in order for that world to have consistency and believability.
More importantly, the author must obey the moral law of the real world, or his or her fantasy will fail. "It were no offence to suppose a world in which everything repelled instead of attracted the things around it; it would be wicked to write a tale representing a man it called good as always doing bad things, or a man it called bad as always doing good things: the notion itself is absolutely lawless. In physical things a man may invent; in moral things he must obey — and take their laws with him into his invented world as well."
When we examine works of fantasy, therefore, we look for clues concerning the author’s moral values, such as his or her view of good and evil. In The Lord of the Rings, we see good and evil as diametrically opposed. We also see biblical themes interwoven in Tolkien’s stories, such as the triumph of good over evil by ordinary, seemingly insignificant, "little people," who struggle with their own failures, but who are courageous, loyal, and, ultimately, obedient. We always have a sense that behind the mounting battle a benevolent Providence is subtly at work. Good, for Tolkien, is always much bigger and more real than evil, no matter how the evil swaggers and blusters.
Rowling has made no specific claims of evangelical Christianity, but she has left us hints about her philosophical framework. In Harry Potter books, good wizards and bad wizards fight each other, and one who has given himself completely over to Voldemort, the very worst wizard, has this to say to Harry: "A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it...."
In Rowling’s books, too (at least so far), good and evil are implacable enemies, and love ultimately defeats evil. Her characters, like Tolkien’s, capture our hearts because they struggle, like we do, with weakness, failure, and insecurity. They also learn courage, loyalty, and love through battles and hardships. In her books, a young boy leaves a terribly abusive world behind and finds a true home with real family and friends in a new, magical world. No discernable underpinning of Providence is in Rowling as there is in Tolkien, but such a worldview is not necessarily contradicted by the stories and can be coupled with the stories if Christian parents discuss it within a Christian context.
The well-intentioned but perhaps misguided attempts by some evangelical Christians to repudiate Harry Potter and/or The Lord of the Rings instead confuse the general public. What next? Will Christians sponsor a book-burning party for the Wizard of Oz books because of their inclusion of good witches? Christians can appear at best silly and at worst ignorantly prejudiced, more like totalitarian Orwellianism than biblical Christianity.
Christians should make a clear distinction between the internally consistent and "natural" world of the story and the occult reality of this world, where evil lures but is ultimately overcome by the Lord of Glory. The evangelist Luke wrote of a group of new converts who formerly practiced sorcery and then publicly burned their sorcery scrolls after coming to faith in Jesus (Acts 19:17-20). This should not be confused with dismissing good fantasy literature simply because of the trappings of its fictional world.
As Tolkien led Lewis to the truth of the gospel through classical mythology, and as the apostle Paul led his pagan hearers to faith in the one true God through their own inscriptions and literature (Acts 17:16–34), so we may use the truths in the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings series to draw people to their true home in Jesus.
Mar 12, 2011
Lawyers....
Recently reported in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers
Journal, the following are 22 questions actually asked of
witnesses by attorneys during trials and, in certain cases, the
responses given by insightful witnesses:
"Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep,
he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
"The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?"
"Were you present when your picture was taken?"
"Were you alone or by yourself?"
"Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?"
"Did he kill you?"
"How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"
"You were there until the time you left, is that true?"
"How many times have you committed suicide?"
Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
A: I have been since early childhood.
Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?
Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
Q: You say the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?
Q: Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon,
didn't you?
A: I went to Europe, Sir.
Q: And you took your new wife?
Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
Q: Can you describe the individual?
A: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Q: Was this a male, or a female?
Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a
deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead
people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
Q: All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go
to?
A: Oral.
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m..
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing
an autopsy.
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for
a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you
began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing
law somewhere.
Journal, the following are 22 questions actually asked of
witnesses by attorneys during trials and, in certain cases, the
responses given by insightful witnesses:
"Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep,
he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
"The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?"
"Were you present when your picture was taken?"
"Were you alone or by yourself?"
"Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?"
"Did he kill you?"
"How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"
"You were there until the time you left, is that true?"
"How many times have you committed suicide?"
Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
A: I have been since early childhood.
Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?
Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
Q: You say the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?
Q: Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon,
didn't you?
A: I went to Europe, Sir.
Q: And you took your new wife?
Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
Q: Can you describe the individual?
A: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Q: Was this a male, or a female?
Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a
deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead
people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
Q: All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go
to?
A: Oral.
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m..
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing
an autopsy.
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for
a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you
began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing
law somewhere.
Mar 11, 2011
Spinning
I'm spinning, I'm falling, I'm losing control.
it's all falling apart... or is it falling in place?
i just don't know.
i don't know what to do, i don't know where to turn,
all i know is I'm trusting You to catch me when i fall.
I'm putting it in your hands now, I'm letting go...
Protect me, lead me, show me what to do.
i don't know.
I'm spinning, I'm falling, I'm losing control.
Dear Father, please save me.
I'm losing control.
it's all falling apart... or is it falling in place?
i just don't know.
i don't know what to do, i don't know where to turn,
all i know is I'm trusting You to catch me when i fall.
I'm putting it in your hands now, I'm letting go...
Protect me, lead me, show me what to do.
i don't know.
I'm spinning, I'm falling, I'm losing control.
Dear Father, please save me.
I'm losing control.
Out Of Control
My life is spinning out of control. I'm working two jobs, so 5-6 days a week, plus taking care of stuff at home, church stuff, and trying (read: failing) at keeping up with my friends. i've put 589 miles on my pickup in the past 8 days. That's why i've been MIA the past few weeks, and why I'm not gonna be around for the next few. There's a missions conference coming up at my church, so hopefully I'll have more time after that.... but I'm also planning a short trip to Kansas the next week... So i don't know. i just wanted to let y'all know i haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I'm just hovering at the edge ;) Hopefully I'll be back in a few weeks. See y'all later!
Mar 5, 2011
Teddy
Have we discussed small, white fluffy dogs? We need too. i've liked these kind of dogs for a long time, i was obsessed with westies for a while. Well, my mom has been fostering dogs for the last few months. They're all cute and its nice to have a fun dog for a few days. But today she brought home a small, white, fluffy Maltese. Not good. His name is Teddy... and I'm in love. i absolutely adore him.... and i have talked my dad into letting me keep him! I'm so excited, he's so cute and fun and energetic, but he likes to cuddle too, and he doesn't bark much. i love him already, and that so not normal for me. I'm not an 'animal person'. Anyways, here's some pics of him.
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