I must admit that I have never read any of the Harry Potter books or seen any of the movies. And I know that puts me into the 1 percentile category of people breathing on the planet. But I was watching the interview with JK Rowling on “Good Morning America” or “The Today Show” and was intrigued by this panel of young lads and lasses asking her questions about her novels.

Meredith Viera mentioned something to Rowling about several characters dying off in her books. And then she asked Rowling if she ever thought about killing off Harry. How she responded was very interesting and quite telling. She said something to the effect of, “I thought about it a bit, but realized how many people would be utterly devastated.”

And she’s right. How many folks would be utterly devastated if their young hero were to be ‘no more?’ What power this woman has! Money gives people power. But so do words. She has both so I guess that makes her the most powerful person in England.

She can ruin someone’s day (although, I’d say week or two) by killing off a beloved character or make someone’s day by killing of a ‘bad’ guy. What power.

Unfortunately we have just as much power, if not more, with the spoken word to ruin people’s days, weeks, and years. But the spoken word of encouragement can be just as powerful for good, even if it is just a few ‘pages’ of spoken words. So in some ways, without the luxury of a 700 page, billion dollar book, we’re just as powerful as Rowling. So let us take caution and be reminded of Spiderman’s maxim “with great privilege comes great responsibility.”

Sometimes people need a cup of coffee to wake up in the morning. Other times it takes something traumatic, like a frog in the toilet. As I was getting the coffee ready, Amy interrupted my routine with the claim of a giant frog in the toilet.

So I calmly surveyed the situation, and she was in fact correct: it was a frog in the toilet (I don’t think her contacts were in because she thought it was something that usually belongs there at first). Then I grabbed some disposable gloves, a bucket, and a bit of courage, and made my way to the frog’s newly found residence.

As I reached in there to coax him into jumping nicely into my bucket, his springy legs propelled him onto the shower wall. Then to the mirror, and then onto my chest hair. My chest hair proved to be only a short stay as I, with gloved hands, pushed him into the bucket and tried to cover up as much surface area as I could with one hand.

I yelled for Amy to open the front door, and I threw him out. He landed softly onto the wall outside, and I headed quickly to the shower. My chest hair needed a good washing, since the frog had spent the night in our toilet. Not the best place to lay your head, or whatever it is that they lay.

I really didn’t need any coffee this morning, except to keep me from getting a caffeine headache.
And we learned a valuable lesson: look before lifting.

You may have heard of the referee-gambling situation in the NBA. The man who is now wanted by the Feds (and the mob), happens to have a house in Lakewood Ranch. Apparently, allegedly, Tom Donaghy has been involved in tampering with games during his tenure in the NBA. But even stranger than that, I played basketball with this man at the ghetto YMCA when I first moved here.

Now I have played basketball at Furman University with an NFL safety, linebacker, WNBA star, but playing with an NBA ref wanted for fixing games and scores was obviously a first. However, I didn’t notice any ‘fishy’ activity at the time. But looking back upon those games, who knows if they were really ‘legit?’ I mean, how do I know he was really giving his all (he probably was-he was a tough player who didn’t like to lose)? But why was he playing so tough? Had he bet on himself? Since pick up basketball games are self regulated, and players become the ref’s, I’ll always wonder on the legitimacy of my wins and losses (mostly losses).

This could cast a dark cloud over pick up games of all sorts, from ultimate frisbee, church league softball, all the way down to jumping rope and tetherball (which is already deemed a ‘dirty’ sport by some these days). Who knows if the mob has infiltrated our ranks? We won’t. And that’s a thought-not a scary thought, or even an educated one; just a thought.

For the Christian Ed hour this past Sunday, one of our college students led a discussion on the Harry Potter series. The idea was to discuss “Christian” themes present in the book. Regardless of whether not she intended any such “themes” or pictures (and I’m sure she didn’t), any piece of good literature will inevitably illustrate the main ‘themes’ of the Christian story: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation. Whether we realize it or not, we are all somehow affected by the elements of this larger Christian story. And because of that, every good story will somehow display at least one or more of these themes. On the same note, not every book is the bible. To be specific, only one is. So it is profitable to critique a book such as Harry Potter as well, and consider some of the negatives. Then we won’t be oysters and suck in everything, or isolationists, and have NO impact on our neighbors (whom by the way we’re called to love). By the way, where was mine on Sunday, instead of at church? Reading the latest Harry Potter book.

I’m preaching on the providence of God this upcoming Sunday. It’s probably one of the most comforting doctrines in all of the bible. That God is somehow involved in all of life, behind even human choices, is pretty cool.

For some people, this might be seen as an invasion of privacy. And I guess it is. He wouldn’t infringe upon the rights of His created people would he? Well, I need him to. And I think most people would welcome this invasion of privacy at least at some level.

For instance, if some crazy PETA member (and this is just a hypothetical, I think) is coming to blow up your house because you like to eat veal, then don’t you want God to “invade his/her (let’s not be sexist) privacy” and make them change their mind? You wouldn’t want to place all your hope in a fellow PETA member convincing them that killing people is actually worse than killing animals, would you?

I for one am glad that God can change people’s minds. I certainly need Him to change my mind all the time. Fortunately God invades my privacy, and does it a lot. He’s been doing it for some time now, and I need him to “will” and “to work” (Phil 2:13) until He completes the work He’s started (Phil 1:6). Invasion of privacy is my only hope for sanctification.

Unfortunately I listen to a lot of sports talk. Once I get an IPod, I’ll probably listen to a lot more edifying stuff, like sermons, when I’m behind the wheel. Maybe that will help with road rash, I mean, rage.

But the topic of conversation on pretty much every station, at every time of the day, is centered on one thing: Michael Vick and his dog fighting.

In case you didn’t know or care (and that is certainly an option), Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcon’s QB has been indicted for conducting dog fights on his property in Virginia. Apparently the shitzu’s and the pugs, who fought not so bravely, were executed in a number of horrible ways. Actually they were pit bulls, but thinking of it now, lapdog fighting might be a little safer for both sides. Nipping and yapping can only do so much damage, you know?

Anyhow, Vick is innocent until proven guilty, in the court of law. But in the court of every Tom, Dick, and Harry, (and Geoff too) he is guilty until proven innocent. But is this a Christ-like attitude which me and Tom, Dick and Harry all share?

I just read last night how Jesus forgives those who recognize their need, even if they feel/we feel they are the worst of sinners John 4 (adultery), Luke 7 (serial adultery) and 1 Tim 1 (Paul for persecuting the church). But in this case, there is no confession, so not really an answer.

But if you go with the need for two witnesses (2 Cor 13:1; Deut 17:6; and I guess the Fed’s when they bring the goods to trial will count as ‘two’), then I probably ought to wait for the evidence. After all, both Jesse Jackson and I were led to believe the Duke Lacrosse players were guilty when they weren’t. The only other principle I can think of is the trumping love principle: love neighbor as yourself. If I were innocent, I would want others to withhold judgment.

But what if I were guilty? I guess I’m jumping the gun again.

I can remember some time last year encouraging Amy to read more, or really at all. Recently that has paid off, for me, as much as for her. I purchase several books from Amazon every 3-4 months or so, and recently I purchased some books by Mark Driscoll. He’s the “cussing pastor” of Blue Like Jazz.

Anyhow, before I have even finished Ordering Your Private World (which she already started and finished before me while I was out of town on the mission trip), she has been digging into ‘my’ books before I even have a chance to tell her about them! And she’s reading it alongside an Edith Schaefer book as well.

Long story short, it took my wife to get me back into the discipline of reading again. And while I’m not moving along as quickly as I’d like, fortunately I can count on her example challenging me. It shows the blessing of having someone (not necessarily a spouse-though you do get double word score) in your life who can challenge you sometimes without saying a word, but rather reading one.

I mentioned in my sermon last week how much my wife and I love 48 Hours Mystery shows. The only problem with them is the fact that you really never know for sure (except one time when the dude admitted brutally killing his love rival for a slap-on-the-wrist-five-year-plea-deal) if the people are guilty.

Well, Amy and I DVR’d a Dateline special on Mary Winkler, the minister’s wife who somehow shot her husband in the back. But this time, there was no doubt of her guilt. The only question was what degree of murder or manslaughter was it.

She claimed that she didn’t remember doing it. Convenient memory. She didn’t know why she was aiming a loaded shotgun at her husband, even though she remembers getting literally kicked out of bed moments earlier.

I guess if you forget that you killed someone, even if you confess to the murder, and have the shotgun in your ‘get-away’ mini-van, you have the chance of serving just over a year in prison.
Not the finest performance by a jury. Fortunately we can actually trust our Judge.

Something strange happened in Washington DC. recently. Well something strange always happens in DC, but this time, it had nothing to do with politics. It had everything to do with hospitality.

A man walked into a house holding a 14 year old girl at gun point and shouting for money. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for everyone else, the family was just finishing dinner. So the family did what any good hospitable family would do: they asked him to sit down and have a glass of wine.

Amazed by the taste of this wine, and perhaps even more by the grace of its offer, he calmly admitted he was at the wrong house. Afterwards, he asked for a group hug and then left.

I don’t suppose that we’ll be thrown into this situation, but it does show you how hospitality, even if its only having a glass of wine with neighbors (which my wife and I try to do on a monthly basis with our neighbors), really breaks down barriers. It either figuratively, or literally in this case, makes people put away their weapons and defenses. In time, you’ll listen to what they have to say, and they’ll be open to hear what you have to say. However it usually doesn’t work as quickly as this unusual case. Nevertheless, the long term impact may be much greater.

Click here for a link to the story, in case you want to read it, or if you don’t believe me.

Today I paid a decent bit of money, and the only thing that came out of it, was the assurance that I would have to pay a lot more money later. I waited at my house today from 1-4 pm (because the plumbing service always operates with exact science) so that a lad could come and fix my sink (I guess that’s a sexist assumption-but I’ve never seen a female plumber). He charged me $75 to fix something that really should have been under warranty.

But anyhow, I agreed to pay the 75 dollars to stop the leak under the bathroom sink. So he grabbed the 15 dollar part and proceeded to ‘plumb away’ with it. After two of those 15 dollar parts, the leak was still as active as the humidity these days. He deemed the sink useless. So I was stuck paying 75 dollars so that he could tell me my sink was useless, and not fix it. After he made a phone call on my behalf, he dropped the fee to 45 dollars. Still, I hate paying for someone to not fix something.

I think sin is much like paying for our product (our life) to be fixed, but finding out in the end that our payment only leaves us more frustrated. Because not only did nothing get fixed, we feel more in debt than before; the payment only leaves us more aware that the problem is not something we can fix, or can afford to fix. But this is where the gospel becomes sweet: we’re not more in debt tomorrow even though it feels like it. Our debt has been canceled and new sink purchased. The ‘glory’ in confessed sin and need is that the gospel tastes that much sweeter: like bottled water as opposed to tap water.