Nielsen’s Nook

I was overwhelmed last weekend at the quite sensational(ized) AP news story of J. K. Rowling’s statement that she “always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” As one who has loved reading the Harry Potter books, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. When I read the CNN version of the story the line that seemed to have such a vicious barb was:

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

As far as promoting witchcraft, I would think one would be hard pressed to make such a claim of the Potter series. To do so would seem to require one to dismiss Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia with all of its “deep magic” and “magic deeper still.” And, of course, the real question is not the magic of fantasy and fiction but the politics of adding the sexuality to magic. I was not sure what to make of the CNN article. There were myriad feelings and thoughts. I was glad to find out the discussion was not happening with a thousand twelve year-olds or something like that (something the CNN article seemed happy to let one assume).

A colleague of mine pointed me to a piece by John Granger over at HogwartsProfessor.com. Granger has written at least four books on the Potter series. His article is written thoughtfully, with access to primary source material (i.e., Dr. Amy Sturgis, who was at Carnegie Hall and heard J. K. Rowling speak for herself. The assessment, being from a Christian perspective, is worth the read. The following are some summary points taken from the conclusion of the piece:

(1) The meaning of Ms. Rowling’s words are best understood in the contexts of her “connection” that night with the 19 year old woman who asked the question and of the dynamics of the crowd at this Open Book Tour event;

(2) The media presentation of the event as Ms. Rowling’s endorsement of homosexuality and an anti-faith agenda was straight from Rita Skeeter’s notebook and part of their endless campaign to convince the public that Ms. Rowling is the enemy of their enemy, namely, the Church;

(3) The anguished and disappointed response of many Christian readers to these reports was also according to Culture War formula and in keeping with a hyperextended understanding of the word “gay;”

(4) “Dumbledore is gay” no more makes the books an invitation to homosexuality or contrary to orthodox Christian belief than “Sorcerer’s Stone” made them a “gateway to the occult;” and

(5) If you want to understand the ten qualities of postmodern story telling and how Ms. Rowling weaves her engaging stories using all ten, you need to read the Postmodernism chapters of Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader. (I’d blush about the shameless plug except it’s the only thing I know in print or online that covers this subject.)

Relearning the analytic through the creative

Years ago I came across paper written by a psychologist regarding the relearning of speech to those whose speech had been impaired by a stroke. I want to say I was an undergraduate at the time, and far to short-sighted to think to retain the paper on file. So I do not have any sort of citation to share with you on this, unfortunately. One aspect of the paper that stuck with me is the assertion that those who had suffered damage to or loss of their speaking faculties could sing what they could not speak. As I recall, a patient was given a card to read aloud and could not do it. However, when the speech-pathologist would encourage them to sing the words, there was an ability present that had been absent before. The article suggested that this was because different parts of the brain are used for speaking than singing. Consequently, the hypothesis went, the therapist could use the undamaged part, in this case the locus where singing is processed, to rebuild and reteach the area of the brain controlling speech which had been damaged.

Singing the Apostles’ Creed to a Two Year Old

Aside from being simply fascinating to me, I have found great application in learning strategies for myself and my child. The hypothesis was modified from, on the one hand, using one area of the brain to reteach another area to, on the other hand, using one area of the brain to reinforce and therefore accelerated another area of the brain. In principle this is not really novel at all. What was new for us was the use of singing to teach a variety of things to new brains and old brains alike.

We started singing the Apostles’ Creed to our daughter in the evenings before bed when she had just turned two (I think). A few months later we would be singing a line and would just stop and wait for her to complete it, like so:

I believe in God the Father __________

In variably Ashley would “fill in the blank” correctly (most of the time). Of course when she began to see that she had learned something herself, she became excited about it and so the learning process was further accelerated.

We started singing children’s books to her. Many children’s books are already in some form of rhyme scheme and the good ones actually have decent meters which lend themselves to singing. For example, Margaret Wise Brown’s Big Red Barn is a book that almost sings itself to you. Ashley has heard this sung to her many times. When she lays down at night to sleep, it is not uncommon to here her rehearsing several pages of the book aloud through the one-way baby monitor.

An Adult Application

So maybe you don’t want to get really good at memorizing entire children’s books. If you’re a parent you know that you will have them memorized regardless of the method you use to share them with your kids - just from the sheer repetition. But what about the world of big people, where learning can be more intimidating the older we get?

When in seminary, it took me two weeks of study to even believe that Hebrew was a language. I still struggle with it relative to Russian and Greek. When I had to memorize the numbers I was cratering. My professor, Rev. Elliott Greene, was definitely going to want to see me counting in Hebrew. Flash cards were killing me so I made up a stupid song that about drove my wife nuts.

ehad, shinaim, shalosh, arbah, hamesh, shesh…

I can still hear that song in my head (and see the cold stares from my wife) and I can still count to ten in Hebrew. If only I could have sang an entire Hebrew grammar I would have retained a lot more of the language.

An Ecclesiastical Reality

Historically, Christian churches have sung at least some of their liturgies. Calvin used to sing the psalms. One church father would write their homilies in metered form and would then sing them to the congregations. Rite One Anglicans today have sung Eucharist services. Even if you are not so-called “high-church” in your disposition, you have likely heard the Lord’s Prayer sung. There are a variety of popular artists that have their versions.

The point is that aside from the aesthetic beauty of such sung components of liturgy, there is a pedagogic component too. There is something about singing that brings something into our minds in a way that seems to remain more accessible to us. Someone told me one time that they could remember all the Led Zeppelin songs they used to listen to as a kid, decades later. But do you remember the conversations you had about the band? Perhaps.

Again the point is that there seems to be something hard wired in human beings to which music appropriates itself in an aesthetic and pedagogical way. Historically, the church has done well to employ this most appropriate method of discipling her members for while majestic propositions and assertions are communicated about the faith, it is done in a way beautiful and more readily learned by those singing.

Just a thought I had at the office today, doing a most ordinary thing:

One may do the ordinary in such a way as to prevent ever approaching the extraordinary.

Yesterday I had the privilege of preaching to a congregation in Northwest Dallas. They are relatively young, composed of mostly hispanic and some anglo people. In preaching on Psalm 70, I made the mention that it was a prayer that should be prayed on our mountain tops and in our darkest valleys and everywhere in between.¹

A mother of three, with whom I spoke after the service, made mention of the strain that she often felt in having a moment where she might pray at all. Her goal, as I understood it, was to prayerfully mother her children. As I have learned, this seems to be an idea that has monastic virtue. Many, including myself previously, had thought the monks were those who wanted nothing to do with the world. Some, of course, were more hermit like. However, generally, monks would withdraw for the purpose of engagement with the world. They would retreat to advance. They would worship God with hoe in hand. What a beautiful connection this mother of three had made. As she tends the fertile soils of her children, she retreats to advance, tending their little lives, worshiping Christ with hoe in hand.

This seems to be something the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote, μάρτυς γάρ μού ἐστιν ὁ θεός, ᾧ λατρεύω ἐν τῷ πνεύματί μου ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ (God is my witness, whom I worship in my spirit in the gospel of His Son). Apparently, Paul is making great contrast with the Greek idea of worship that emphasized “geographical focus and physical activity”³ and in this sense seems to coalesce nicely with the mother of three, who, like Paul, has more on her plate than often seems manageable; and yet, both worship God with hoe in hand, as they would go along in their respective vocations.

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¹ paraphrasing a thought from Abba Isaac (c.a. 180 AD) found in the devotional, Christ in the Psalms by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon.

² author’s translation, Romans 1:9.

³ N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 422.