Patricia M. Lyons - Teaching Faith with Harry Potter: A Guidebook for Parents and Educators for Multigenerational Faith Formation

Teaching Faith

with

Harry Potter

A Guidebook for
Parents and Educators
for Multigenerational
Faith Formation

Patricia M. Lyons

To my Beloved Wife

Lisa Kimball

You form the world in faith.
You form my soul in love.

Copyright 2017 by Patricia M. Lyons

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Church Publishing
19 East 34th Street
New York, NY 10016
www.churchpublishing.org

Cover design by Jennifer Kopec, 2Pug Design
Interior design and layout by Beth Oberholtzer Design

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A record of this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN-13: 978-0-8192-3355-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8192-3356-1 (ebook)

T o be an expert on Harry Potter requires only that you know that, like the Gospels, it is a story about the power of love and the presence of the resurrection in all creation. Everything else is trivia true and transformative, but trivia.

This book is in so many ways a transcript of the life-changing conversations and relationships I have had with people who love Harry Potter, God, or both. I am grateful for all the students who have been my teachers over the past twenty years. I am especially grateful for the students of St. Stephens & St. Agnes School in Alexandria, Virginia, who have inspired me with their passions for truth, understanding, justice, and lives of meaning. Thank you to every one of you who joined our chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance. Watching you wear Hogwarts robes and carry wands while designing and doing acts of service and social justice taught me without words the power of J. K. Rowlings epic to inspire justice, ignite courage, change lives, and heal a broken world. For nearly fifteen years, two former students, Maria Jones and Julian Wamble, have continued to teach me about love, God, and Harry Potter. May this book be a testament to your faith and its impact in the world.

The vision, wisdom, hard work, and grace of my editor Sharon Ely Pearson have been the gift and the gears to get this book written and finished. I am grateful for your guidance, humor, and profound knowledge of our shared loves, the Episcopal Church, and Harry Potter. I cherish too the Order of the Phoenix I gathered once I started this book project. Thank you to Harry Potter geniuses and genuinely powerful disciples Sam Faeth, Missy Green, Kimberly Lucas, Lindy Bunch, Samantha Gottlich, Maria Jones, Julian Wamble, Dawna Wall, Bronwyn Clark Skov, Dawn Alitz, Shannon Ferguson Kelly, Wendy Claire Barrie, and Day Smith Pritchartt.

I treasure the heart and mind of Chris Stewart, who, like Joanne Rowling, is a passionate person with a heart for Scotland and a heart for stories. Your help in this book project was essential. I knew I loved you when I pulled a Golden Snitch out of my clerical robes and preached about Harry Potter at your wedding. There was no guarantee that you would love this choice as much as your Harry Potter fangirl bride did on that sacramental day, but your broad smile at that sacred moment sealed our friendship forever.

And to your Harry Potter fangirl wife, the Reverend Audrey OBrien Stewart, I bear love and tenderness and gratefulness beyond words. You know more about Harry Potter than anyone I know. More important, you have walked bravely with God throughout your life in ways that continue to teach me, inspire me, console me, and form me into the person God has called me to be. You bring faith, hope, love, and glitter into my life. Faith formation is your palpable joy and contagious metabolism. Your life is an orchard of fruits of the Spirit, and your nourishment of my soul has made this book and so many of my words and deeds flow into the world. You are my priest and my best friend.

I remember exactly where I was when I decided to write this book. I was in room 210 in a hotel near a beach taking a two-day reading and writing retreat. I was sitting on the edge of the bed just a foot or two away from the large television crammed into a discount-size room. I was surfing channels trying to find weather reports for my day. I stumbled upon CNN. The anchor was introducing the next segment: a follow-up story to a horrific tragedy I had read about three days earlier.

The original story was gruesome and unthinkable. An armed and angry man went looking for his former wife. When he could not find her at her home, he went looking at her sisters house in the small town of Spring, Texas. He knocked on the door and was let in by his sister-in-laws fifteen-year-old daughter. He entered the house to find his sister-in-law, her husband, and their five children home. What followed was a bloodbath that still haunts me. He shot every family member execution-style and then walked out. He thought he had killed them all. But one of the children the fifteen-year-old girl who had let him inwas still alive even though she had been shot in the head. She played dead among her deceased family members until the man left the house. When she was sure he was gone, she got to a phone and called the police. While the gunman had been shooting her parents, she heard him threaten to find her grandparents and kill them as well. She alerted the police, who were able to intercept the murderer outside the grandparents home, just in time. Though shot in the head, Cassidy Stay was still able to save her grandparents lives.

Among the dead were Cassidys two brothers, ages four and thirteen, and her sisters, ages seven and nine. Also dead were her thirty-nine-year-old father, Stephen Stay, and her thirty-three-year-old mom, Katie Stay.

Just three days after the slaughter, the Spring community held a rally in a public park to support Cassidy and her surviving grandparents and to honor the young womans heroic bravery. A live report from this loving rally was what I watched in my hotel room. As soon as I saw the story, I froze on the bed, waiting to see if the surviving girl would come out in public. I just had to see her face. Hundreds had gathered, prayed, and brought balloons to release at this rally. And then, right there on live television, Cassidy Stay appeared on the small rented stage. She stepped up to the microphone and looked out at the crowd, which went wild with cheers. Cassidy smiled. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, looking both sweet and purposeful while functionally covering shaved and patched parts of her heads bullet wound.

As the crowd continued to cheer, I listened to two child and family psychologists commentating live for the cable news channel. They were describing the ongoing scene of Cassidy smiling at those cheering for her. They practiced the all-too-common reductionism of psychological analysis. Remember, shes in shock and isnt really present at this moment, Yes, shes smiling right now, but remember, she is likely taking strong coping medications, Shes waving, but dont assume that she is really feeling anything right now, and so on. I am not demonizing psychological explanations of events, but too often these aggregated musings miss the unique, mysterious forces in a persons life that are distinctively spiritual. Shes just in shock, they said, again and again. Cassidy continued to wave, to smile, to bite her lip as she held back tears. She was clearly profoundly sad and simultaneously feeling the love of her community.