Harry Potter Theory

Dh mentioned that a boy in his Awanas class thinks that Harry isn't the "chosen" one but instead is the final horcrux. And, being the final horcrux, he will die in the end. I have to think about this theory. Thoughts?

Thursday Thirteen #1 (totally copying Ampersand)

My first Thursday Thirteen...

1. American Idol this week. Ugh. I thought everyone but Gina was blah, some more than others. And, ew, the faux hawk, how grotesque... why bother? Either get a real mohawk or don't but faux hawks are NEVER, I say, NEVER cool. Apparently, Sanjaya is here to stay for awhile since he is the contestant of choice on the anti-idol website. I wonder if he'll become as popular as the Asian guy who was able to get commercial work after his bad singing on AI. OK, back to the performances... the usuals did OK... Melinda and Lakisha, but they just weren't "on". I was thankful that Sanjaya wasn't the one to butcher "The Cure" song but Blake didn't do it justice either. He could've pushed it so much further with the whole reggae thing but instead ended up wishy, washy, middle of the road... I was sorry to see Chris Sligh go. He added an element of fun to the whole show and can sing but why oh why did he choose the Police? They are so distinctive in their sound. Oh well, 5 more days until next time... I am such an addict.

2. I am going to be reading two books related to mental diagnoses this upcoming month, "Born on a Blue Day", by Daniel Tammet (thanks to Ampersand) and "The Speed of Dark", by Elizabeth Moon (thanks to a member of my book club). The first one is non-fiction and the author is a man who suffers from Savant Syndrome. The second one if fiction and the main character is an high functioning autistic man who is given the opportunity to undergo a surgery that would "fix" his autism.

3. Other than those books, I look forward to going to the library and finding more books, specifically fairytales, by George MacDonald. Wikipedia has this to say about him,

"Though no longer a household name, his works (particularly his fairy tales and fantasy novels) have inspired deep admiration in such notables as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master". Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day in a train station (presumably from a railway station bookstall), he began to read; "a few hours later," said Lewis, "I knew I had crossed a great frontier." G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence". Elizabeth Yates wrote of Sir Gibbie that "[i]t moved me the way books did when as a child ... Now and then a book is read as a friend, and after it life is not the same ... Sir Gibbie did this to me." Even Mark Twain, who initially despised MacDonald, became friends with him, and there is some evidence that Twain was influenced by MacDonald (see links below for an article on the subject)."

4. Bounce (youngest dd) and I had an picnic on the porch two days ago and afterward she said an impromptu prayer that melted my heart, "God, thank you for making my Mommy," She said something else but I can't remember but remind me to read this post when she is a teenager.

5. Wow, do I even have 13 things to say about myself or my thoughts? Ampersand, how do you do this?

6. If you ever have a cast on your leg, a plastic ruler is a good way to itch inside of the cast without hurting yourself. You may need to invest in more than one, though, because they do break as I have found out.

7. I love my dog. Since I hurt my ankle, he'll wait at the bottom of the steps until I am all the way up and away from them before he runs up and gets on my bed. He's so considerate.

8. Dogs do need baths. Thank God, Dog was given a bath this week. Up until then, you could tell when he entered the room because everyone would start wondering, "Who farted?" Yeah, it was THAT bad.

9. I really do wish blogger was more similar to other blog communities. On livejournal you can blog and have a conversation because all of the replies go to the right people and back almost like a mini-forum rather than having to sign on to see if the person whose blog you commented on, commented back.

10. I wish every house had a porch and that people actually sat on them. Wouldn't it be fun to walk by your neighbor's house and talk for a spell because they were already sitting outside just waiting for someone to pass by?

11. Same daughter just now made up a song that included the words, "stupid mommy"... my how the pendulum swings.

12. Having ridden in a cart at Ikea due to my broken ankle, I can say with surety that I would never want to be the passenger in an adult-sized stroller.

13. There is now a Barbie on the market who comes with a dog whom you feed a "snack" which oddly resembles poop which... it is, when it comes out the other end at which point you can utilize the handy dandy pooper scooper that comes with the Barbie to pick it up and feed it to him again... Kind of gross, huh?

Just finished "The Musician's Quest" by George McDonald...

Here is one of my favorite quotes. I may write about others in separate posts:

"In all of life, there is nothing so significant as the next five minutes and whether we use it to do what God lays before us... Of course, there is a place for you, but I could not possibly direct you. I have no way of knowing what the next five mintues, all your life long, will present you with in opportunities for helping others. To get the training you need, you must simply begin where you are, do the thing that lies next to you, help the next person you encounter. I am sorry. I know you thought I would give you more specific direction."

We spent quite a bit of time at book club discussing this quote. At face value, the concept is simple but to put it into practice involves moving beyond contemplation and beyond self. It requires action. And, not action to go help the poor person down in the city or the unwed mother at the local woman's shelter. If those are the people placed in your life, fine, but what I find is that the people placed into my life at this moment are my children and many times they get the short end of the stick because I want to be helping with what I consider the "big picture". I want to do something that makes me feel like I've made a difference in the world. Getting yet another meal on the table, answering another homework question or doing another load of laundry don't give me that feeling that I want. Yet, doing all of those things are the things that are placed before me on a daily basis. I will not discount making time to help other people in need but figuring out when that time is, when the time is appropriate to move beyond serving those before me and reaching out to serve those beyond me is the difficult part. At one point, one member of my book club mentioned the fact that she knew a mother with an autistic child who dedicated many of her waking hours to starting support groups and a foundation for autistic children and thier parents. In the meantime, her own child ended up spending much of his time with other caregivers. Does the "greater" good of helping the larger population make up for the lack of time she spent with her son? I don't think so. Sometimes I think we aim for that greater good because we are anesthetizing ourselves against the pain or boredom of our own immediate life.

Being intentional with my time seems to be a recurring theme for this year. In the past, I've spent too much time reading on the internet and not enough time interacting with my friends there and my friends and family in real life. This year I will be more intentional on only reading a couple posts and blogs here and there and leaving myself enough time to comment to blogs, to make a phone call or to answer my child's question or watch a movie with my husband.

Community... A Freewrite

I've spent most of my life feeling like an outsider. Part of this is due to how one sibling treated me as a child. It's not her fault, it is just the way kids act when they have zero supervision. I learned then that what I had to say was irrelevant because someone else would always ignore me, talk over me, not listen to me. It's taken me years to combat that feeling and just when I feel that I have overcome it, I end up crying in my counselor's office over things that happened to me over 25 years ago.

The loss of my real life community this summer and my internet community this winter have left me with two gaping holes. I keep trying to fill those holes but somehow the patch isn't good enough or the cement is taking too long to "set". What am I looking for? What can fill those holes? Writing it out the answer seems obvious... God. But, God, why does it have to hurt? Why do I have to feel not interesting enough, exciting enough, good enough to be someone else's friend? I wish God would answer that question or perhaps he has. I am reading a book by Larry Crabb all about how God allows different things to happen in order for us to dig down below the crap inside of us and find that place inside our heart that can't be filled by anything else other than God. Maybe that's where I am.