I know. At one point this summer, I said I wasn't going to write about Harry Potter anymore. I changed my mind.
Recently I was re-reading Book 7 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), this time with my younger daughter, and she asked me if I ever wanted to be a wizard. Her question reminded me of when I was her age and reading the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis for the first time.
There was no doubt in my seven-year old mind that I was Lucy, that Lewis had somehow known to write about me decades before I was born. My desire to actually be in Narnia, to touch Aslan's mane, to have tea with Mr. Tumnus, was so strong it was a physical ache. Those feelings stayed with me for years; it doesn't take much to bring them back to my imaginings (although, sadly, the movies based on the books evoke very little of that old pull for me).
My feelings about the Harry Potter series are different, but my daughter's question did help me realize one point of connection:I believe the boy wizard's story illustrates in a lively and entertaining way the whole idea of call or vocation, which is part of what was being stirred in me during those first early encounters with Narnia's magic.
Millions of readers and viewers know the story of Harry's "call," although they might not think of it that way. It comes to him not from a Burning Bush or a heavenly messenger, but from a giant named Hagrid, who also arrives with a pink umbrella, an owl, and a birthday cake. And this is only after the Harry's household has been deluged with letters, letters that his mean uncle confiscates and keeps from Harry. Whoever is sending the letters knows they are being intercepted, and their means of delivery become ever more urgent and inegenious. Bunches of letters shoot down the chmney and turn up hidden inside a dozen eggs. It turns out, of course, that the letters contain an invitation for Harry to begin studying at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
If you think about it, this episode has all the elements of a classic call story. There is an unlikely hero, and multiple obstacles to be overcome, and a persistent summons that cannot be ignored no matter how many barriers appear to be in the way of answering it. And most of all there is the moment of epiphany, that magical moment when Harry learns for the first time he is not an ordinary boy at all. He is a wizard. A wizard!
As bizarre and unlikely and indeed impossible as this revelation is, as much as he first wants to deny it, it doesn't take long before he realizes that this extraordinary piece of information actually makes sense, that it even sheds light on so many of the senseless things that have happened to him in life. The pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and he knows that a great and simple truth has been revealed to him: his identity, the essence of his being. His IS a wizard, the child of two remarkable wizards who had died trying to save his life, and that truth goes on to guide everything he does, every choice he makes, from that moment on.
Whatever other people may say about the appropriateness of children's stories that revolve around magic and wizardry, I love the way the Harry Potter series illustrate the concept of call. Two things stand out for me. First: call is about essence, being, and identity before it is about anything we can do or earn. The reason the letters arrive with such furious persistence is because, more than anything else, Harry needs to know who and what he is. Until we know who we are and, as Christians, know to whom we belong, it is very difficult for us to choose the right path. And secondly, that epiphany, that revelation, that call, is only the very beginning of the story.
The Harry Potter series encompasses 7 long books, which total approximately 4, 175 pages, or roughly 1,043,750 words. There's a reason for that, and it's not only that JK Rowling needed a better editor.
The revelation of identity, the call itself, can never be the most important part of the story. It properly belongs near the beginning, and is the catalyst for everything that follows. Harry needs to go out into the world and learn to become the person he now knows he was created to be. He has to build up his knowledge and his skills, develop friendships, experience challenges and losses and great joys that are all a part of the journey. Jonah has to go to Nineveh for his call to be fulfilled. Moses has to confront the Pharaoh and lead his people through the desert. The disciples have to cast away their nets and follow Jesus. We all have to do the same thing. It is how we respond to the call, how we let it shape our actions and our understanding, that is so critical.
I believe that everyone is called by God into a unique way of being--vocation isn't only for priests, nuns, and wizards! And I believe that God is even more persistent, even more creative, even more committed to his people than Professor Dumbledore, or any other character our imaginations can dream up. And, now that I am living into my own callings, as a priest and a mother and a wife and a writer, I know something else: I no longer want to go to Hogwarts, or stumble through a wardrobe into another world. I love doing what I'm called to do, day by day, imperfectly, without the benefit of magic.
Of course, if Aslan shows up tomorrow, I'm grabbing hold of that mane.
