Dec 03 2008
Here goes….are you ready?
I hope that you are ready..but not quite sure if i am…
This blog (and all future ones) is the brainchild, not of myself, but of a long time friend of mine, Sandy Walker (who also blogs here, and blogs quite well, i might add). With her STRONG encouragement, i have decided to join the band wagon of bloggers..so here goes my first blog..i hope that you enjoy it…
The first thing that you probably need to know about me is that i am a born-again Christian..please do not stop reading at this point. I only mention this because it is a huge part of who i am today, and who i am becoming for the future. Please DO NOT take this as an entitlement that i have that you do not if you are not a believer…i am not a “bible beating over your head” or a “shoving scripture down your throat” kind of Christian. I am extremely non-judgmental, because it is not my place to judge anyone. That job belongs to someone else..which leads to the story i am about to put out here for the whole world to read…
When i first moved to Montana from Nebraska, i found a woman who i graduated with, and it just so happened that she lived about 15 miles from me. I was excited to get back in contact with her as i had not seen her since high school. I am not going to reveal who this was, even though my classmates will be curious to know who she is, but i do not feel that it is important to know who she is; rather it is more important what happened with us…
Like i said, i got back in contact with her, and at first it was wonderful. Just seeing a familiar face and seeing who she was now, meeting her children, catching up on lost years..everything was going fine: UNTIL….
She had probably been visiting me at my apartment 4 or 5 times. After the last time she was in my house, she called me up extremely agitated and upset at me. I was dumbfounded and yet extremely curious what it was that had her in such a state…was it something i had said or done to her? This was the question i kept asking myself, while reflecting on the recent conversations we had been having..
It soon became very apparent why she was upset. The reason was, while she was very much a Christian and had been from the time that i had known her in jr. high, and still is walking the walk and talking the talk, she was extremely upset because i had the Harry Potter series of books on my bookshelf. They were located underneath the shelf that held my bibles and all Christian related books; and right beside the Stephen King books, of which i am collecting in hard back.
As the conversation continued, she became more and more upset, to the point of tears. She was trying to relate the fact that i had these books in my house that my salvation was in serious question. I tried to tell her that these books were FICTIONAL. She retorted with the statement that if my son kept reading them, he would end up practicing witchcraft; of which i responded “Do you think i should get him enrolled at Hogwart’s now or wait?” Not appreciating my sarcasm, she then went off on this idea that if she cheated on her husband and told me, and i told her that would be wrong, she would say to me that it wouldn’t be wrong because it wasn’t hurting anyone…i know, the connection between the two subjects made no sense to me either..still not sure what point she was trying to get across.
She continued to get more and more judgmental and angry and when i had had enough criticism from her, i pointed out that first of all, it wasn’t her job to judge anything i do, and if it was, when did she change her name to JESUS..Secondly, i pointed out, again, these books are works of FICTION, and i seriously doubted my son would take up witchcraft anytime soon. Thirdly, i told her that J.K. Rowling had accomplished, all by herself, something that our entire school system couldn’t, and still can’t..that is that she encouraged tens of thousands of kids to learn to read, just so they could read Harry Potter books…
Lastly, i told her that i respected her opinion, although i innately disagreed with it. So i told her that if she didn’t want anything to do with Harry Potter, that was fine; BUT you can’t just not buy the books and condemn those that do.
You better do a whole lot of research on who all the companies and their parent companies are because they are the ones who fund the machine that is Harry Potter. After you find that out, although i cannot say it for a fact, but i would almost bet that ABC is involved somehow; and if they are, their parent company is Disney; so you need to get rid of all things Disney out of your house and do not purchase anything made by Disney or go to any park of thiers. Also you need to research all of the companies that have ads on ABC and boycott those products from your house.
In other words, for me, it isn’t just enough to rag on Harry Potter and as a Christian, tell other Christians to ban him from your house; because as long as you are buying products from Disney or ABC, you are not only funding, but you are condoning the very thing that you are so adamant in condemning…
For me, the very core of Harry Potter is all about good vs. evil, and good wins every single time..how bad of an idea is that to be instilling into our children again?
I have not gotten rid of the books and plan on having the whole series, in hard back and DVD. And i am not going to apologize to her or anyone. Like i had mentioned earlier, the reason she was concerned about my salvation being in question..
I come from the belief of “once saved, always saved”…and this is why;
Romans 8:38-39
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I do believe that statement includes Harry Potter.
But after all, it is just my opinion…
God Bless all of you and your families, friends, loved ones and enemies, wherever they may be…
