Nine years later

Last night I had a bit of nostalgia while sitting at the Willow Creek Theater, catching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the second time with the family. It suddenly hit me that it was nine years ago on Thanksgiving that I went with my family to first see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. How life runs in circles!

Nine years ago I was a sophomore in high school. Holy crap. A lot has changed. I started writing after seeing the movie. I'd never written before... I mean outside of school-work and AOL messenger. That was about it, but thereafter I came to enjoy writing for fun. I don't know how many hundreds, probably thousands, of pages I've written since that day, but in some small part it all comes back to nine years ago.

Life changes, people come and go. I've learned a lot, changed quite a bit, and I've grown up with Harry alongside. It's a strange, perhaps dorky, thing that it has had such a profound influence on the last nearly decade of my life, but then again I look at what others hang on to and I wonder if maybe it isn't so preposterous after all.

I'm working on setting up an independent study this spring on common narratives in contemporary preaching with Harry Potter as its focus. My initial course title idea is "Preaching Harry Potter: HP as preeminent sermon symbol". Here's the gist of it: we don't have shared narratives these days in the same way that my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents did. We don't work the same kinds of jobs (agriculture, farming, mining, stocks, whatever). These days our jobs, families, and private lives are as diverse as could be. And so we don't know each other anymore; we don't share things, and we especially don't share common stories.

So, this makes preaching difficult. With few common lived narratives, there are precious few things that everyone can relate to. Preachers are forced to use either church-y symbols that don't have any meaning to people for the rest of the week, symbols that they themselves find meaningful (which will connect with only a small proportion of the congregation), or stories from the news and symbols in popular culture.

But our news stories are so diversified and polarized along politic lines that outside of massive events like September 11 we don't share the same news. And even when we do, our opinions cloud the way we relate to any shared national or local, political narrative. A preacher who uses primarily the news as example will undoubtedly alienate.

So what are we left with?

Well, I think there are only a few things we still share communally. Sports is one. Even if you don't follow football or baseball it remains a shared, local narrative that is meaningful to a group of people. Yet, I don't think sports are quite universal; the divides here are more along gender lines than anything else. There are plenty of women who enjoy football and men who enjoy swimming or gymnastics, but when you talk about one or the other you are inevitably bringing up inherent divisions.

So, the only thing I can think of that bridges all these gaps is a story, one so powerful and persistent that it speaks both to young and old, white and black, male and female. It is the story of our lives, even if we think it is only the story of a young wizard boy. I get a little agitated, I must admit, when I see young people dressed up like witches and wizards for midnight showings and book releases, because the point of HP is not to try to leave this world for a better one in which you can cast spells. No, the point is that you are already Harry, you are already Hermione, you are Ron or Luna or Snape or Malfoy or Dobby, and you are going to go through the same things they do. Magic is incidental to the narrative that we all share. That is the power that nine years later I still feel. It is the reason I want to share a story. This story is big enough to mean something. It's big enough to be preached, because it points inevitably back to what is true and good in this world. The gospel of Harry Potter is that we are Harry, saved before we could do a thing about it. That is a symbol we can all hold to.

Chess Problem #4

Another problem from a second game against Michael Dokken:

Play online chess

Review: Deathly Hallows part 1

Saw the HP movie last night at midnight.  Here are my initial thoughts:

It was nicely done, included enough of the books to appeal to HP fanatics and was intriguing--I hope--for non-HP fans.  It lacked the piecemeal quality that so many of the earlier films did.  There was honest dialogue and a good mix of action and intrigue.  Also, there were some really fun moments.  The scene in the Ministry of Magic with the Polyjuice Potion was classic, well acted, and fun to see the actors retaining Harry, Ron and Hermione's characteristics.  Just loved that.

But the scene that made this movie for me was the retelling of the Tale of the Two Brothers by Hermione.  I thought this was going to be hard to re-create in film, but the ink blots were fantastic.  Whoever decided to do it that was a freaking genius.

Only some small things that bugged me.  Seriously, would it have been so hard to put in Wormtail choking himself to make the silver hand relevant?  But let's be honest, you're never going to make a Harry Potter fan completely happy.

Anyway, it was a good movie--not the best I've ever seen but enjoyable and hitting close to the heart of what HP is all about, and I'm really looking forward to the sequel.

Chess Problem #3

From an ICC 5-minute game. Black to move.

Play online chess

And now for something completely different... poker

This isn't about Harry Potter: I realize I have become fairly obsessed with HP recently. I really don't think about this as much as I post about it, but my public identity has become A) Harry Potter, and B) everything else.

However, I do other things in life, including weekly poker night at the seminary on Saturday nights. This last Saturday I lost money for, I think, only the second time this year, but it came on an interesting hand. So, for those of you who care about poker (which may be nobody), here is what happened.  I'll tell you what I had, and figure out what I did wrong (or right) in this hand.

Blinds are 5 cents/10 cents.  I'm the dealer and I have KJ of clubs.  There are five players in the hand.  The first two to act both fold, so I raise to $0.30.  Ken in the small blind and Josh in the big blind both call.

The flop comes 7clubs/8clubs/10hearts.  Ken checks, Josh bets $0.30, I raise to $1.00.  Ken and Josh both call.

The turn is a 6 of hearts.  Ken checks.  Josh bets $2.00.  OK, now it gets interesting.  I have committed $1.30 to the pot, so the pot is $3.90 before Josh's bet.  So I have to commit $2.00 to a $5.90 pot.  I'm assuming at this point that Josh has a 9, so he made his straight and I am losing, but I can take the pot with a 9 or a club.  That leaves me with potentially 12 outs out of 45 unknown cards.  That's a little better than 1/4, which is about what I'm getting on my call with implied odds.  So, I make the call.

Then things really get interesting.

Ken goes all-in behind me.  Now, Ken had about $10 before this hand started, Josh had about $12 and I had $7.30.  Josh calls immediately.

Oh dear.  So now I have committed $3.30 to the pot and I have $4.00 remaining.  The pot I can win is about $18.00.  So, basically I am getting 4-18 on my money.  In other words, if I'm getting 22% to win I should be making this call.

I ran the numbers.  I'm thinking they both have a 9.  If they have nothing else of import I can win the hand with one of the two other 9s or the other 8 clubs.  So, best case I have 10 outs.  10/44 (plus the two unknown cards from their hands). 10/44 is... 22.7%... brilliant.  So I'm right at that boundary.  I decided to go for it and make the call.  Probably the wrong decision.

Ken shows 9/9, and Josh has 10clubs/Qclubs.

Disaster.  Josh has two of my clubs, so I'm only getting 8/42 or 19%.  My outs are the other two nines, and the remaining 6 clubs (2,3,4,5,6,A).  Sadly, the river came up blank.

So... was I right or wrong?  What would you have done?  When would you have gotten away from the hand, or would you?

Chess Problem #2

From my game with Michael Dokken today at the Chess Castle.

Play online chess

Minneapolis Open games

My games from the Minneapolis Open

Play online chess

Play online chess

Play chess online

Play online chess

Play chess online

Election coverage from Frank

Let me sum up the elections for those of you who haven't seen a newspaper (or know what a newspaper is).  This election we decided that what we need is change, so we voted in the Rebumblicans.  This is opposed to the previous election where we wanted change and voted in the Dumbocrats.  I continued being a good citizen and throwing away my vote for a party that will never hold office unless it comes in the form of a WWF wrestler who is certifiably crazy, though just as effective in office as anybody else.

Let me hazard a guess as to what will happen in the next election:  we will want change and vote D.  Then in the next election we'll want change and vote R.  I love politics.  It's like having the choice between pizza and steak every night.  If you have pizza on Monday, then you probably want to have steak on Tuesday, then when Wednesday comes along you think, "Man, I had steak yesterday, better be pizza!"  Then Thursday comes with the thought, "It's been two days since I've had steak!"  And so on and so on, ad infinitum.  Meanwhile, mac and cheese is sitting in the cupboard, feeling ignored.

All of this is ok... as long as you don't have any tea with dinner.