Clint Schnekloth
Today I was out picking up large rocks in the back-yard. My goal is to make that section easier to mow while also using the rocks to edge a path I’m building through a tree stand in our side yard.
While doing this yard work (something I would in the past rarely have been doing on a Tuesday morning), I was also listening to the first installment in this season of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. After many years broadcasting (and growing popularity) the hosts are now on the first chapter of book seven, the final book in the series.
What I’m about to tell you next may come as a bit of a surprise. I’m suggesting to our middle school/junior high class (and their parents) that we use this series as the focus for our Sunday school classes for the next several months.
Why, you might ask, would a pastor use Harry Potter for Sunday school? Well, that’s a great question, and thanks for asking!
We’re in this together, right? Well, now the whole world is. Together with the world, as a teacher and pastor I’m trying to sort out how to adapt and pivot in the time of coronavirus. I’ve been looking for a way to study with the group, study something that would engage youth AND their parents, and ideally something that would capture the imagination and is genuinely fun.
But all kids are on a lot of Zooms with school right now, and I haven’t been super convinced our congregation or group is interested in adding one more Zoom to their rotation.
So I thought it might be genuinely easier, and more fun, to join a widely appreciated production that sparks the imagination and warms the heart.
For that reason alone, Harry Potter is a great choice.
I’m convinced imagination is a spiritual resource we need right now. Samantha Dols, a blogger who explores the human imagination and its impact on relationships, change, and social cohesion, writes in a recent post (https://medium.com/@samanthadols/imagination-disrupted-52ecdea0ee68):
“For most of us, our imaginations lacked the imagery that might have allowed us to comprehend this situation. We have not intimately suffered a crisis of this magnitude before, nor have the spectacles in the storehouse of our minds projected such an immediate and perilous pandemic. Albeit anecdotal, linguistic evidence supports this gap in cognition. In his weekly address, the Governor of Arkansas stated “COVID-19 has changed our world in ways we never imagined…”
Vanessa Zoltan and Casper Ter Kuile, co-hosts of the audio podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, are absolute masters at helping us imagine.
And they help us imagine specifically in the ways that can most benefit communities of faith?
Here’s how they do it. First, they teach the most fundamental and basic rule of sacred reading. Read closely.
In the podcast, they take their time. They read just one chapter per week. Then they make a podcast about that chapter.
Of course they ponder and think about the chapters that have gone before, and anticipate the chapters that will come after. But first of all they read the chapter closely, and with love.
After they read it, they highlight a phrase or word that stood out for them. This is typically the first step in a form of sacred reading called lectio divina. It helps the readers notice one particular word or phrase, which facilitates the primary and first rule. Read closely.
After this, they dwell on one spiritual reading practice. In the first episode, they discuss marginalia, the practice of writing in the margins, annotating a text. They encourage the practice.
A favorite part of the podcast on this first listen is the practice of blessing the characters in the chapter. It takes some imagination to bless fictional characters. When you do it, when they do it in this podcast, as a listener I was immediately swept into also blessing in my heart and mind people I know personally who are like the characters mentioned in the podcast.
Who is like Snape, in his skill and steadfastness? Who is like Charity Burbage, in her bravery? Who is like Draco, in over his head?
The podcast takes calls from listeners, and they play them back during the episode. This episode, a young woman calls in whose sister had died in 2018. In her grief, she stopped listening to the podcast for a few years, but was now coming back to it. The hosts respond in the podcast, and you realize not only are they reading a sacred text, they are also, in a deep sense pastoring a community, serving as chaplains for the Harry Potter fan community.
The hosts are also funny. Truly funny. And as they meditate on our current moment of coronavirus in light of this novel, you find yourself laughing, certainly something worth cherishing in a time of crisis.
For all these reasons and more, I encourage you: consider Harry Potter and the Sacred Text as a resource for this time. Join us in our journey with the podcast.
It’s a fairly simple structure. Take time some time this week to read the first chapter of Harry Potter book seven, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Then listen to the first episode of the podcast. That’s it.
I think you will find a simply byproduct will be this: in a fun and manageable way, you’ll learn sacred reading practices you can then also apply to reading the Bible.
Oh, last thing. Many scholars recognize that the Harry Potter novels are deeply Christian, or perhaps deeply Jewish, novels. This final novel is evocative of these religious traditions in multiple ways. If you’ve never read them, you will not be disappointed. If you have read them before, returning to them along with this podcast should be a source of joy.
If you’d like to learn even more how such communities of imagination around fiction can be sources for social change, check out The Harry Potter Alliance (https://www.thehpalliance.org). Here’s what the alliance does:
Mission
The Harry Potter Alliance turns fans into heroes. We use the power of story and popular culture to make activism accessible and sustainable. Through experiential training and real life campaigns, we develop compassionate, skillful leaders who learn to approach our world’s problems with joy, creativity, and commitment to equity.
Vision
We envision a world without regional, demographic, or financial barriers to leadership opportunities, and where activism is sustainable because it is approached with joy and bolstered by community support.
To read more, check out their What We Do page.
It’s legit!
The Harry Potter Alliance has organized successfully around a range of issues, performing “cultural acupuncture” to provide free books, and in one instance convincing Warner Brothers to exclusive use fair trade chocolate for its Harry Potter line of chocolates.
I’m pretty convinced by the research out of the Civic Imagination Project that well-funded imaginations in community are crucial to social activism. They tend to be much more participatory in nature, and engage younger people.
“Everyday experiences within a more participatory culture shift expectations about what constitutes politics and what kinds of change are possible. Right now, young people are significantly more likely to participate in everyday cultural or recreational activities than political activities. For many young people, now and historically, there’s a hurdle to entering politics. They are often not invited to participate, and they may not see rich examples of activists in their immediate environment. Those activist groups that have been most successful at helping young people find their civic voices often have done so by tapping into participant’s interests in popular and participatory culture. Cohen et al. (2012) found that youth who were highly involved in interest-driven activities online were five times as likely as those who weren’t to engage in participatory politics, and nearly four times as likely to participate in the forms of institutional politics measured in their survey.” (https://www.alternet.org/2017/03/harry-potter-activism-and-culture-jamming/)
I’m sure the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast will not be for everyone. Some of us are busy just keeping up with all the transitions happening right now during the pandemic. If that’s the case, don’t worry about trying out the podcast. Take care of yourself.
But if you have some capacity, I encourage you to take these steps. Find yourself a copy of book 7 in the Harry Potter series. If you can’t find a book, maybe watch the last two movies in movie series. These will get you up to speed.
Then, look up the podcast. You can subscribe to it with the Podcast app on iTunes
(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/harry-potter-and-the-sacred-text/id1096113994), or listen from their web-site (https://www.harrypottersacredtext.com). Side note, the web site is chock full of extra goodies, like a whole page devoted to sacred reading practices.
Find time each week to stay up to date, one chapter per week, one podcast per week.
One question you might have: why jump in at book 7? Well, the hosts of the podcast make sure their conversations are relevant to what’s happening right now in daily life. So although you CAN go back and listen to the podcast beginning with book 1, I think you’ll find starting now will bear a lot of spiritual fruit as we all live during this time of COVID-19.
On a side note: we are also encouraging a Sunday school resource for younger children that’s produced by Dawn Rundman in cooperation with her family. If you worship with us at the contemporary service Sunday mornings, you’ll be familiar with the rock liturgy written by Dawn’s husband Jonathan, the Heartland Liturgy. But Dawn and family are doing an eight week Sunday school series that is free to watch online, and it’s really fun.
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