The Middle
I am one of the last people in my generation who has never seen or read the complete Harry Potter saga. It’s not because I think the series is demonic or promotes witchcraft or any moral reason like that. I actually did start reading the series about 12 years ago.
I was the first kid that I knew of in my class to get behind the books, introducing them to many of my friends. My mom saw them in a book catalog and thought they sounded interesting, and brought the first one home to me. I tore through it and began reading the next two books. I even ordered the fourth book from overseas before it was released in the U.S. because I was so engrossed in the series.
Then there was a bit of a gap between the fourth and fifth book. From what I remember this is when Potter-mania really started catching on in America, at least around the people at my school. The first Harry Potter movie came out around this time, and in my eyes it was a huge disappointment. To me the movie did not capture the same spirit as the first book did, and I was sorely let down.
My Harry Potter fandom was beginning to dull with the underwhelming movie adaptation. Then I heard that the 5th book in the series was going to be a staggering 700+ pages. Bundled with my disdain for the movie and the fact that it seemed everyone was getting on the Harry Potter bandwagon, this outrageous page count was enough to keep me from buying the book. I haven’t touched a Harry Potter book since, and I’ve only seen one other movie in the series (the 6th one, randomly, on a date).
Perhaps one day I’ll read the last three books and watch the rest of the movies. But I gave up on them in the middle of the story because I did not want to undergo the difficult task of reading a gigantic book.
Because of my stubbornness I am probably missing out. The Harry Potter books have affected millions, and you hardly hear a bad word spoken about them. Had I not given up in the middle of the story, I probably would have been rewarded in the end.
That’s the thing with a really great series of movies or books – if you stick through to the end, through the dull moments and the challenging parts, you really feel that sense of reward and accomplishment that comes with completion. The Harry Potter series affected and continues to affect so many lives because it is so epic in scale, because it is time-consuming and challenging to complete the journey through the books.
I think that’s part of the reason I was so excited to watch “Blue Like Jazz”, the long-gestating movie adaptation of Donald Miller’s excellent book. The movie was released this past weekend and was a treat for me to watch. I’m sure it was for Donald Miller as well. Not simply because someone made a movie about his book, but because of the difficult journey the movie took from script to screen.
You see originally the movie was set to be released a few years ago, but the funding could not be drummed up to support it. I remember reading Miller’s blog post one morning about shutting down the movie. It was heartbreaking. A dream had died right in the middle of the story.
Then a few days later, a new blog post popped up. At the suggestion of some fans, a Kickstarter online fundraising campaign was being launched to fund the movie. No one knew if this campaign would work. It was basically one last-ditch effort to make the movie a reality. I’m a huge fan of Donald Miller’s work – it has deeply impacted my life – so I did my part and donated, and hundreds of other people did as well. Within just a couple of weeks the movie was funded and then some. That was back in 2010, and after months in production and editing, the movie is finally out for the world to see.
Would the release of “Blue Like Jazz” been as exciting if it had just gone off without a hitch? Doubtful. The obstacles the movie had to overcome before hitting the theaters are as much a part of the story as the screenplay itself. The story told in getting the movie made has made an impact on lives far greater than the movie ever could.
Donald Miller and the film’s director Steve Taylor actually set about personally calling many of the people who donated to the film on the eve of it’s release, and I had the chance to speak with Miller for a few minutes on the phone. He sounded exhausted in the way that a father sounds right after the birth of his child – tired but for the good reason of seeing something beautiful through the completion of a difficult task.
I think God puts conflict and failures in our lives to make the success that we will one day achieve mean something. If you succeed at something without facing any challenge, the success is not so sweet.
I don’t think God puts obstacles in our lives to test us. God does not get off on manipulating our situations and charting down observations like some 6th grade science fair project. He knows that any good story needs to have a little conflict.
Don’t give up in the middle of your story. Don’t let an obstacle, challenge, or failure signal you to put the book back on the shelf, to resolve yourself to defeat. Get creative. Fight back. Try something different. Ask that God opens your eyes to seeing the challenge as an essential part of the journey. Believe that failures fuel the climax of stories.
God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him. When I cleaned up my act, he gave me a fresh start. Indeed, I’ve kept alert to God’s ways. I haven’t taken God for granted. Every day I review the way he works; I try not to miss a trick. I feel put back together and I’m watching my step. God rewrote the text of my life when I opened to book of my heart to his eyes. (2nd Samuel 22:21-25)
Storytellers
Name The Books From These Famous First Lines from Sporcle.com
How well do you know the first lines from these famous stories? What’s your favorite story? The Great Gatsby? To Kill A Mockingbird? Gone With The Wind? Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter?
There are so many great stories out there. Perhaps the better question is what makes a great story? What are the elements that are common to each of these great stories that make them so timeless and beloved?
“Stranger Than Fiction” is an excellent movie that explores what makes a great story by telling the story of a man named Harold Crick (played by Will Ferrell). Harold Crick is an unremarkable man living an uneventful life before he realizes that his life is a story. Like, literally. He begins to hear a voice narrating his every action. What’s worse is that pretty soon the voice begins to speak of Harold’s imminent death.
At first, Harold thinks he must be going insane. But soon he realizes that he has a unique opportunity before him. Harold Crick has the opportunity to view his life as a story. And what an invaluable opportunity that can be.
Take a moment to think about the life that you are living. Think about your everyday routine. Think about the plans you have set for your life. Think about the past week. Think about yesterday. Now try to think of your life as a story. (more…)
"You'd Go Crazy Trying To Explain Penguins…"
Did you ever see that movie “March of the Penguins”? It’s an engaging documentary about the fascinating process penguins go through to have babies. Here’s the gist of it as best as I can remember: the female penguin lays an egg. She then passes the egg over to her husband. He tucks it safely in between his legs. The female then leaves to go on a journey for a few months, leaving the man to take care of the egg (as usual). Penguins live in large colonies, and most of them have babies around the same time, so while all the women are off traveling, the men huddle together to try and keep themselves and their eggs warm in frigid conditions. The penguins rotate on the inside and outside of the huddle so as not to hog the warmest parts. Finally, just when the baby penguin is about to hatch, the mother penguin returns to take care of it.
Here’s the amazing part – the mother penguin just happens to know exactly when her baby is going to hatch. There’s no real explanation how penguins just seem to know when to come back to their babies; they just do it, and have been doing it for as long as anyone knows. It’s like they have some sort of built in radar that tells them just when to come back, even though they’ve never had a baby before. It’s beyond explanation. As Donald Miller puts it in his book Blue Like Jazz, “You’d go crazy trying to explain penguins. It’s best just to watch them and be entertained. I don’t think you can explain how Christian faith works either. It is a mystery. And I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul.”
Penguins are a beautiful mystery, and so is our faith in God. Faithfulness is hard to explain, but it is one of the fruits of the spirit, and if we want to be the people God wants us to be, we ought to examine this fruit and figure out how to exhibit it in our lives. (more…)
