Day 3, Check! And Harry Potter

Day 3 has come and gone and I'm still only slightly hysterical without the kids. Dan and Becky came back from Italy a few weeks ago and brought pasta and other yumminess with them. They made that for us last night and then went to Harry Potter with us. I got a bit of packing done beforehand and even took a load of clothes to camp. Dailah's now ready to be clothed should winter hit tomorrow at camp. :)

So Harry Potter was AMAZING. Being the book lover I am, I'm not going to mention the fact that the book was better (though it was). I am also a cinema major, so I can appreciate how hard it would be to cram a 1,000 page book into a 2hr30min movie. With that said, the movie both standing alone and compared to the book, was outstanding.

The cinemotography is getting better and better with each one, as is the acting from the various "young" actors. Overall, I was quite pleased with the whole thing. I would argue that even those who don't typically get a lot from the Potter series would really enjoy the film.

With that said, the movie reminded me of one of the reasons I love the books so much. It's just the themes of love, friendship and good versus evil. This movie really played into the fact that not much seperates Harry from Voldemort (the dark lord). As Dumbledore says in the final scene, it's not the similarities, it's the differences. I think that speaks to life as well. What both terrifies and excites me about the human race is that we are all so similar. While it excites me that there's not THAT big of a difference between myself and say, Mother Theresa; it also terrifies me that there's not THAT big of a difference between myself and say, Bin Laden. We are human, we at one point were probably held and kissed by our parents, we put our pants on the same, we all eat, we breathe, etc. The difference is our reaction to our situation in life.

How we choose to live our lives reflects the differences in humanity and THAT is where we can make our mark. Harry constantly chooses the path of love, friendship, goodness. This is because he believes in the goodness of the world even though he has seen so much darkness. What a beautiful testament to his character! This is what I hope to pass on to my kids. We will all experience darkeness, there is no way around that. Though I grieve the day my kids lose their innocence and realize there is bad in the world, I realize it's inevitable. I hope I am there to show them that there is still good, too. That they can CHOOSE to be that good when everything/one around them is choosing to be the bad. Though they may have darkness in them, because we all do, they can still CHOOSE the goodness. The darkness does not have to define them.

I love these ideas. One of my favorite lines spoken in the movie (can't remember if it was in the book) was when Sirius Black says something to the effect of, "Fear can make people do crazy things." Though that discussion is perhaps an entire blog in itself, I couldn't agree more. Look at the world we live in today, it's so fear based we have parents afraid of taking their kids on airplanes or to the pool or out in the sun. Arguably our country has perpetuated it in recent years so that it's slimed it's way down to everyone else. Fear-driven life is infinitely depressing. It can, in fact, make people and countries and things do crazy things. It can stop you from doing pleasurable, relatively harmless things. It can paralize and cripple. It is not a life I want to teach my kids or a life I want to live. Though fear creeps in dark corners of my world, I try on a daily basis not to let it overtake me and prohibit me from living a life God has given me. The only one I'll have. I'm trying to live the life as goodness, without fear. Some days are better than others, I think today is going to be a good day.