Harry Potter and the Light the World Campaign. Day 14: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Just above the light switch in my daughter's room, my wife has meticulously painted one of her favorite quotes from the Harry Potter series:
It is a message of joy. It is a message of strength. It is a message of hope.
My wife and I want my daughter's room and, more importantly, her life to be filled with joy, strength and hope. The people organizing the Light the World campaign want the world to be filled with those as well.
This is not the only connection between the Harry Potter series and #lighttheworld. Today's theme is...
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:21)
or is it...
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Rowling 325)?
The answer is, that it is both.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we learn about a terrible mistake that Albus Dumbledore made when he was a young man. In his frenzy to obtain power, he forgot what was truly important. This blunder cost his sister her life. When Harry sees Ariana Dumbledore's grave, he reads the inscription and realizes that Albus would never forget this terrible choice. That inscription:
There are many interpretations of this Bible quote. Some believe that it means that people should only treasure heaven. Others think that it means that your heart will follow whatever you treasure. Many think it means that you cannot treasure money and love.
Being the good Harry Potter fan that I am, and keeping in mind that it is a children's story, I prefer to think of this in far more simpler terms...
Keep your priorities straight.
Nothing is more important than family... even those who don't share your blood.
The one time Dumbledore put power above all else, it cost him a family member. Nothing is more important than family love. Dumbledore knew that... and never forgot. For the rest of his life, Dumbledore only cared about one power: the power of love. He knew it was the source of strength for Harry. He knew it was Voldemort's weakness. He knew it would be the only weapon with the power to destroy pure evil.
After that one horrible mistake, Dumbledore kept his priorities straight.
To me, today's #lighttheworld theme is asking us to do what a fictional teacher did: learn from the teachings of Jesus Christ, one of the greatest educators who ever lived.
The Light the World website explains:
"There’s nothing wrong with having possessions as long as we don’t lose sight of more important things. When we focus on what really matters and on serving others, we can find real happiness."
Today, I am going to heed that lesson. I am going to spend time with my highest priorities: my wife and children. Tonight is family night. (It is also Star Wars night... and the whole family is going!) Before the movie, we are going to hang out and laugh. We are going to talk about what we hope to see later tonight. We are going to share stories of our days. Perhaps we will quiz each other about Harry Potter. I think I have my first question! "What is written on Ariana Dumbledore's tombstone?"
The Light the World site goes on to suggest several ways you can focus on what is truly important.
Are you spending time on the things you value most?
Clear some space on your calendar to invest in some one-on-one time with someone you love.Do you have enough money for your needs?
Donate to a loved one’s college fund or a charity that represents something you care about.What’s your favorite meal?
Sacrifice the cost of your favorite dish to help feed the hungry.
For more information on #lighttheworld, please visit https://www.mormon.org/christmas/25-ways-25-days/day-14
That is amazing. I can't wait to have similar family nights with my wife and son as he grows older! At ~15 months old, he still doesn't watch tv, so this would be more difficult to do right now :)
On the other hand, he seems to love reading books! Hopeful he keeps that up more than I did as a kid growing up. I've become more of a book reader once I met my wife, since she was always reading books and I wanted to share in something that she enjoys.
My son LOVED the Star Wars books when he was your son's age. It was weird because they were for older kids. I just looked at the pictures and told him a very quick version of what was happening (no attention span). But now they have Little Golden Books for Star Wars. They are awesome!
I hope it was not the prequels
Yeah, the attention span thing has definitely made books more challenging, but now we point to the pictures and talk about what we're seeing.
It's so much fun to watch them grow and learn!!!
I would never give Harry Potter to my kids or any other's.
I am a writing quality freak and the books are filled with inconsistencies and bad moral messages for toddlers if you dig deep.
Which message.. Challenging the status quo? Working together in a team? Using Magic?
Being called a hero instead of your parents
Making the challenges to the stone pointless if you can't get it if you want it
Getting rewarded for breaking the rules
This is just the first book alone, there are many more in the others
Thanks for the powerful message! It should be Christmas everyday!
Chrismas is special exactly because it's not a daily thing
I am referring to the gift of giving,sharing our blessings that we have to somebody in need,praying for the sick,broken hearted,lost souls and thanking God above for the give of life! The world will be a better place to live in if we let Christmas spirit reside in our heart not only during the holiday but throughout the years. But it is also right to acknowledge and celebrate the Lord's birthday every year just like we acknowledge and celebrate our birthdays. He deserves more praise, I feel like I am not worthy of his unconditional love sometimes.
The quotes are amazing and i love harry potter series. i have seen all the parts of harry potter but i love harry potter the chamber of secerat
HP has serious continuity errors and some pretty bad moral messages for kids if you see them from an adult perspective.
i don,t think so. my friend
Well, so does just about every Disney princess movie out there. Take Little Mermaid, for instance. She's fully 16 years old, constantly disobeys her father, swims to the surface, messes around with humans, gets deeply involved with a witch, sells her soul, wants to get married before she's fully developed her prefrontal cortex, and forces her own father to make a choice between his kingdom and his own belligerent child. And it was my FAVORITE movie as a kid. And I still love it. And so do my kids. I mean, how can you NOT love Ariel?
I think the BIGGER question is: where are all the mothers in these Disney movies? And why don't the fathers pick better second wives? Or get rid of them when they find out how evil they are? Or figure out how evil they are to begin with?
Little Mermaid: no mention of a mother. The only mother figure in Ariel's life is an evil sea witch.
Snow White : mom's dead. Dad married an evil narcissistic maniac murderess
Cinderella: mom's dead. Dad married a wicked gold digger
Frozen: The parents' heads are in the ground. They isolate their children from one another and abandon both of them emotionally. They need to grow a pair and help their children cope and develop their abilities in a healthy way.
Tangled (one of my favorites...): Where's mom? Oh, that's right? Out of the picture. In her place is an evil, manipulative, self-serving witch of a woman pretending to be the mother.
Aladdin: No mom. Just a dopey King-dad.
Beauty and the Beast: No mom. Just a sweet, oblivious father
Hansel and Gretel: mom's dead. Dad married a wicked woman and drove the children to run to the woods and nearly get eaten by a witch.
Harry Potter: BOTH parents dead. Replaced by stupid wicked relatives.
It's interesting that the majority of our heroins have no mother, several of them disobey their fathers, and ALL of the fathers are made out to be either oblivious and dumb, or oblivious and unkind.
Harry Potter is replete with bad behavior--if my kids did some of the stuff those kids did, they'd be on the coals.
But these make the BEST kind of stories! Orphan-esque children, breaking the rules to change something important and set precedent for their society. And we love the kids. They are OUR kids, and our neighbors' kids. And we want them to break the rules, because WE want to break the rules, because breaking the rules--the right ones anyway--sets precedent for bigger and better things.
I'm not worried about my kids turning into hoodlams from watching and reading Harry Potter, or obsessing about Disney Princesses when they were little. These are great stories of good vs. evil. Triumph over our demons and monsters. Faith in something bigger than ourselves so we can conquer things that are bigger than we are. Determination to be on the right side. Harry Potter is the best for that.
My BIGGER concern is how much quality time we are spending with our children, what are WE teaching them, what do they see US do all day, how do WE treat others, do WE obey the law and respect others, serve and be kind, etc.
If so, I think we're going to be in good shape, as will our children.
This is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read in my life!
I will do the same. And thanks to you, i will find a new meaning on it.
Because there is always a new meaning in being with the people you love the most.
Thank you very much for sharing.
Wow, harry potter used as an example to explain a part in the bible, I never saw that coming. I always said to myself that when I get married and have kids, I would make sure we have family time thrice in a week. @hanshotfirst thanks for this powerful message.
This is awesome.
I never knew harry potter fiction could be linked to the scriptures.
The importance of family cannot be overemphasized. I wonder where most of us will be without it. We must therefore cherish and foster the relationship in our families.
Cheers
Anything can be linked to anything else, since the longer something is the easier it is to find common ground. You can find for example lots of Christians calling HP pagan propaganda. Most young adult books are also using the same plot structure.
I was really excited that I was able to write about this day. The connection was really fun for me. Authors have written entire books showing how Harry Potter incorporates the Bible.
Thank you so much. Your post just cleared my head. i have been having issues cos my priorities have been wrong. Lately I have been having misunderstanding with my family. My desire has been to make good money. i didnt want to be distracted by family or friends. I felt everyone can wait until i get what i want. It made me to isolate myself, shut them out emotionally and mentally. but reading this i realize my heart has been in the wrong place cos i have treasured the wrong things FIRST. I realize the quest to greatness is easier, shorter and less burdensome when we share it with people we love and we know love us too. Thank Bro. from my heart....THANK YOU FOR THIS POST. WOULD GIVE U 100 VOTES IF I COULD..
I like that image of "sharing the load".
I have found that you can determine where your heart is by looking at your schedule (calendar, day-timer, to-do list, etc) and your checkbook. Time is our most valuable asset, so we all have the same amount each day and cannot create more, so whatever we spend it on shows what is important to us.
I aree 100%. Very wise. You can always make more money. Can't make more time.
You're correct @hanshotfirst that we should set prioritize. And family should always be the first on our list regardless what because they will stay with us until the end not matter what. Spending quality time is a must. And daily conversation, a simple "how was your day?" matters.
I love Harry Potter series and I like the way it showed how Harry loved his parent even if they're dead. Resteemed!
Thank you for this awesome post! May you & @gavvet be blessed always!
I never got why Harry was the hero when it was the parents who died for stopping Volt XD