Update on MerryK

Sorry it has taken us so long to update the blog. Thank you all for your prayers! MerryK came home from the hospital last week!

After the last post, MerryK was improving slowly but surely. They were talking about letting her go home and then she passed out while sitting up and moving off the bed. She was white as a sheet with blue lips and scared us all! In 30 seconds they had 8 people in her room scurrying around, injecting her with anti-narcotic medicine and running various tests. They concluded she was low on red blood cells (hematocrit was 21) so she received two units of blood the next day. Because she only had one good arm (and it was a pin cushion by this point) the IV for the blood was quite painful and each unit took 3 hours to go in. She was a trooper about it, but Mom was having a hard time watching her suffer.

The next day she was much stronger and talk of letting her go home enlivened all of us! When they did let us go home, the car trip was excruciatingly painful for her as her leg took every bump and jolt. Her arm had a compression bandage on it, that had to be cut off when we got home because her arm had swollen up from all the movement and from not being elevated. But, once we were home, she could sleep without constant interruptions. You cannot imagine the difference just one good night of sleep made on her. She was like a different person. We still woke her up every 3 hours for pain meds, but she could sleep as much as she wanted in 3 hour increments, and she did a lot of sleeping at first!

We have been home over a week now and we are pretty comfortable with our new routines. She still gets pain meds every 3 hours, but she is down to 1 each time instead of 3 and she isn't hallucinating anymore. She is able to move from the bed to the wheelchair very easily now. The most pain she has is from physical therapy, but she is showing improved range of motion nearly every day. She also gets an anti-coagulant shot twice a day and sometimes that is painful depending on where it goes in. She is uncomfortable in bed sometimes because her positions are limited, but she uses pillows to rearrange herself. During the day she sits on the recliner/sofa with her leg up and arm propped.

She can use her laptop (although typing is very difficult) and she watches a lot of old TV shows on DVD, like Stargate SG-1, MacGuiver and Battlestar Galactica, that she has gotten from the library. As a family we are watching Stargate Atlantis in the evening while we eat dinner downstairs with her.

We have an appointment next week to have her heavy splint on her leg removed and replaced with a removable one. We are all curious to see what it looks like under there. She cannot put weight on her arm or leg for another 3-5 weeks. When she was released from the hospital, she did not have a cast on her arm, just a cloth sling. Since there is a metal rod inside the bone (from shoulder to elbow), I assume they don't expect her to injure it in any way! There is also a metal rod in her leg bone from knee to ankle. It is remarkable how differently broken bones are handled nowadays. They had her moving the arm just 2 days after surgery!

Thank you all for your continued prayers for all those bone pieces to heal together properly. Everyone has been so kind to MerryK and she is quite overwhelmed with the attention.

Update on MerryK

MerryK is doing better this evening (Saturday). She is experiencing a little bit less pain and is less groggy. However, she does have a fever (~101 degrees) that is not responding as well to Tylenol as we would like. It may be nothing more than a normal post-operation fever, but it may be more than that. They took some of her blood to culture, so hopefully we'll know more tomorrow. She hasn't eaten much do to a depressed appetite, but hopefully that will change for the better as well.

Thank you so much for your prayers.

Prayer Request

Dear Friends,

In case you haven't already heard, our dear MerryK was hit by a car on Friday (1/11) while she was walking to catch a bus. Her right arm and left leg were badly broken, but thankfully she did not have any head or internal injuries, other than cuts and bruises.

On Friday afternoon, she went into surgery to repair the broken leg (estimated 3 hours). Since she was enduring the surgery well, they decided to repair the broken arm while she was out instead of having to have a separate surgery later. It ended up being ~8 hours, which was one of the longest 8 hours that I have spent waiting for news!

She came out of the surgery OK and is doing as well as can be expected (lots of pain). The doctor said that they put pins in both her arm and her leg and that she wouldn't be able to put any weight on either for about 6 weeks and that she wouldn't be very mobile during that time. Those of you who know MerryK know that being immobile for a day or two is hard, but six weeks?

Please continue pray for her so that she will endure the pain and the immobility with a good attitude. Pray for our family as well as this will be a major disruption for our family.

Thanks,
ClanKeeper & PurringPiggy

Realization

Winter quarter started for me yesterday, and I'm getting to know all my new teachers, classes, and fellow students. Something else happened, though, in my Introduction to Philosophy class. The teacher made a comment while talking about the Greeks that, we probably didn't know, but the movie "300" was based on fact, and I then realized that I was likely one of the few people in that classroom who had wanted to see "300" because it was based on fact.

The good and bad of Encore

We almost never play the game Encore (a game where teams battle over who can remember the most songs with a certain word or subject, and then sing at least six words of the songs) except on New Years Eve, and I always have the same two thoughts about it.

Good: Finally having a use for remembering many, many, too many, lyrics to songs.

Bad: The "Day After" syndrome. In other words, when you listen to recently purchased music and realize that you are an idiot for not remembering the song "Dream a Dream" when the word was "dream", the song "Name" when it was "name", and a very popular songs whose chorus has two of the four seasons you couldn't remember when the category was "Songs With the Four Seasons".

They are making the Hobbit! Finally!

New Line finally admitted it. Looks like Peter Jackson will be executive producer...no news on who will direct yet. I'm excited and worried. All the folks here will be thrilled, I'm sure. They have worked so hard for so long. Looks like they will make 2 movies, actually. Wonder where in the book they will make the break? Any guesses?

Rain, Rain and more Rain

Last week Washington State experienced an incredible amount of rainfall and subsequent flooding. Our neighborhood received 4 inches of rain in one day, but on the peninsula, they had 15 inches of rain and hurricane force winds! Plus there was 2 feet of snow melting in the mountains to add to the rivers.

Thankfully, we live in an area that doesn't flood, so our home was safe. For us the storm was full of fun as the children played in the pouring rain and we all loaded up and drove around splashing in puddles along the roads and in the parking lots of local warehouses. I've always had an affinity for puddle splashing, but this last week I experienced the biggest puddles of my life!

Since it was pouring rain on Monday, I drove Matt to work so he wouldn't have to get soaked before work. The warehouse parking lot already had at least 4 inches of water all the way across it, from warehouse to warehouse. On the way home, I was driving in the right lane of a major street (3 lanes in each direction) splashing in the occasional puddle along the edge. Well, suddenly I came up on a VERY deep puddle...it covered all three lanes of traffic on our side of the street! In the right lane it was probably 8-12 inches deep. I took my foot off the gas and slowed down to drove through, hoping I wouldn't stall the car. Suddenly, on my left, in the center lane, a huge truck came charging through the puddle and buried my car in water! I couldn't see for about 3 or 4 harrowing seconds! Whoa! Well, it was fun, though, and I took Matt through it later that day when he got off of work. The puddle was there the next day, too.

The flooding was incredible around here, and we live in the city. Parking lots filled as rivers of water flowed across roads and down embankments. We saw semi trucks and cars parked in 2-3 feet of water in several places. Just the water running down the road by our house carved paths over a foot deep in the dirt.

In other areas in Washington, rivers overflowed their banks and the interstate was covered in 10 feet of water! They closed I-5 for 3 days and the detour for trucks was 440 miles around! We saw pictures of a Walmart underwater and you could not see any windows or doors...just the top the building and the roof. It was devastating. The interstate was flooded in 1996, too, so the legislature passed a bill to pay for improvements so that wouldn't happen again. Sadly, the money was used for something else. How pathetic. And so they will ask for more money this year...what can you say to that?

The same problem happens with our schools and hospitals. They ask for money to make them earthquake safe, but the money ends up somewhere else, so a few years later they are asking for money again to make them earthquake safe. It's wrong.

The federal government will also give money to those who suffered in the flooding, as well. Some people will rebuild again in the flood plane, which I think is also wrong. If you want to live there, it should be at your own risk. If an area consistently floods (or experiences wildfires) folks should not be allowed to rebuild there and expect compensation when the damage occurs again. That is my 2 cents. Now I'm off to do laundry.

The Second Amendment Ratified

Another one of my papers for school...this one was for writing class, and the assignment was to develop and defend a thesis on gun control.

The Second Amendment Ratified

When you look at the world throughout history, there have been some problems that most people have acknowledged will never leave us. Perhaps an idealistic few have held on to their utopian dreams, but overall societies have observed rationally that human behavior has its flaws. That does not stop us from trying to manage these flaws, however, and in recent years talk has gone around about dealing with the amount of violence that takes place daily in the United States. Article after article, we hear of school shootings, robberies, armed assault, acts of terrorism, and even more seemingly random violent acts. As the most obvious connection between these acts, guns bear the weight of much of the criticism, and it’s not hard to see why. With the power and speed that these machines have, it can be a frightening thought to think of how many people do or can possess them.

With this being so, anyone speaking up in favor of some sort of gun control—whether just more restrictive gun licensing, the illegality of certain types of weapons, or no gun access at all—will automatically have the gut reaction of everyone on their side who has seen how guns can kill hundreds in seconds. As everyone knows, though, gut reactions are notoriously subjective, and I’m not sure it’s wise to trust them in this case.

But then, there are admirable reasons for gun control. Such powerful weapons should not be easily available, common sense says. Even if most are purchased by responsible people, merely their presence could prove a danger to those who have a mind to take them and use them for less responsible means. And there is an ease in how they can be used—it is much more tempting than other weapons. Highly restrict them, or ban them altogether, and you should eliminate much of the threat of violent crime. However, this is only a pretty ideology by itself. Though in the mind it may seem solid, even a more thorough theory shows that gun control does not reach its goals.

When trying to effect social change, it is wise to look to social psychology, the area of science that examines how we think and behave as a society. We don’t have to dig deeply here to find the first problem with the idea of gun control, that pesky idea that can be expressed by the proverb “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”. It’s common sense that those who would break the law that says that it is illegal to kill would not find any number of lesser laws, such as those that banned guns, a deterrent. Simply making something illegal does not eliminate it, as everyone knows from the easy supply of illegal drugs currently available. As long as someone wants it, they will be able to get it; laws don’t get in the way all that much. So, rationally speaking, the only effect of gun control laws would be that law-abiding people would give up their guns. We aren’t really worried about them, are we?

Even without that common sense, however, there are deeper psychological truths about the effects of laws and punishments. When it comes to stopping behavior, psychologists have learned that you can’t simply put an end to one behavior without doing one of two things: replacing the original behavior with a more approved one, or making the punishment too severe to be contemplated. Because, as should make sense from experience, punishments are most likely to make people more adept at avoiding punishment. Except those non-dangerous law-abiding people, of course. When faced with an inconvenient law, such as speed limits, most people are willing to break them. Even if there are fines, they must be enforced, and even if police vehicles are stationed every so often, they can’t be stationed everywhere. Instead of stopping our speeding, we just learn to speed when police vehicles are not around. Why should we think that gun control laws would have more success? Criminals would be most likely to find better ways of hiding that they possessed a gun.

All of this is a theoretical discussion of gun control, however. As it’s not a brand new concept, why don’t we address the varied levels of gun control around the world? After all, surely the evidence here proves a point in one direction or another.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite so clear-cut. Correlations could be made between violent deaths and gun control laws, but that would not prove causation. It would prove even less if the correlations were different in each case, as they indeed seem to be. Switzerland requires all males to keep a service weapon and ammunition in their homes at all times, and has very low crime rates compared to America. Israel has very high standards for who can purchase and own a weapon, but they encourage everyone to own a gun, and have the lowest rate of violent deaths involving guns. Britain, it is true, has higher gun control laws and a lower crime rate than the US, but they had that before adopting those laws, and that accounts for more than just crimes involving guns. As Don B. Kates said, paraphrasing British analysts, “First, how do those who blame ‘lax American gun laws’ for the far higher U.S. rate of gun crime explain the country's also having far more knife crimes? Do they think that Englishmen must get a permit to own a butcher knife? Second, how do those who attribute U.S. gun murders to greater gun availability explain the far higher U.S. rate of stranglings and of victims being kicked to death? Do they think that Americans ‘have more hands and feet than’ Britons?” (Guns, Murders and the Constitution). As he concludes, societal differences make it next to impossible to make comparisons between countries over what laws they have.

And why would people want to carry guns in the first place? The answer, of course, is self-defense. The original intent behind the Second Amendment right to bear arms was so that Americans would always be able to rise up against their government if it proved oppressive. As long as they always had a way to fight back, Americans could feel safe under their government. And they weren’t just paranoid; Hitler convinced the Germans to give up their rights to weapons, and then had no resistance to fear when he took over the country with his armed soldiers.

Even if you say that the time for men to be part of militias and ready to fight against an oppressive government is passed, that is not the most likely reason for a modern person to own a gun. Besides hunting and target practice, people are most likely to own a gun for personal self-defense purposes. Though it may seem that using a gun in self-defense would escalate the situation unnecessarily, John R. Lott showed that, 98% of the time, just pulling out a gun is enough to prevent a crime from taking place. He also pointed out surveys that showed that guns are five times more likely to be used in defense than in crime.

So yes, in a perfect society we would not need such things as guns. In a perfect society laws would be obeyed, and no one would need to fear at all. But in an imperfect world, where criminals break laws left and right, passing stricter ones on the ownership of guns to prevent violence is not a bad thought, but one that is sadly lacking the support of logic and common sense. As long as there are criminals, there will be a need for law-abiding citizens to have a means to protect themselves. The Founding Fathers were firm when they guaranteed the right to own firearms to all American citizens, and even 200 years later there is no evidence to suggest that they made a mistake.

Reflection

It’s the end of the year. Christmas music is already assaulting my ears (I love it, but not the day after Thanksgiving), and there are only two days left in my college classes. When I look back, I see that I’m a different person than I was three months ago.

I used to be a stay-at-home person, someone who read 3 or 4 books a week, someone who gardened and made her own herbal shampoo, someone who cooked and loved baking bread, someone who drank tea and discussed Anthony Trollope and Georgette Heyer, someone who kept most of her interactions with people to the internet and who had too many blogs and forums to count. That person’s favorite subject was English Lit, with a close second place tie between Language and History. That person collected quotes and had a secret geeky passion for the 1800s, especially British Navy tales, with a side love of fantasy and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Within three short months, that person ran away and left me in her place.

The first half of my waking day is spent at school. I take the bus every morning with my huge backpack, study, go to an education class to talk about teaching and politics, and then pop over to a psychology class to discuss—well, everything. I then hop on another bus to go work for a few hours at a book warehouse, where my job is simply to process books by entering ISBNs and conditions into a computer program and then shelve them in the warehouse. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go back to school after this for a writing class of reading essays and discussing them, and on Friday I volunteer at an elementary school where I correct papers and tutor kids. I eventually come home every night for a bit of catching up on a couple blogs and forums, maybe a little fun thing like watching an old episode of Stargate or writing some more of my story, and then more studying before bed.

I’m not the same person anymore. I am a person who discusses politics and science instead of books and language, a person who talks to strangers on the bus and has many new friends at school, a person who gets a regular paycheck and who has to manage this and a schedule very carefully, a person whose only experience with books on a weekly basis is putting them on shelves and reading from textbooks. I’m more likely to talk about Wernicke’s area than the genitive case, to say hi to someone as I walk by than be engrossed in a book, to catch a bite to eat on the run than spend the day baking challah. Worst of all, I’ve joined the ranks of science fiction geeks.

And yet, which I’ve yet to understand, I’m just as happy. Sure, sometimes I miss books and cooking, but even more often are times when I wish I could stay at school forever. I hate that classes are ending and I’ll have to have new teachers and classmates next quarter. I have a hard time filling my weekends with anything but studying, and look forward to working full time over winter break. I get more exercise, less sleep, more social interaction, less free time, more writing, less reading—and my happiness level has not changed. Yes, I know that we’re supposed to be joyful always, but I didn’t expect it to be so easy.

I don’t know if the old me is gone forever or not. I would like to have a visit from her, maybe in the summer, or maybe just a virtual visit through doing some of those things I used to love. But if my life continues in the vein that it’s in right now, I wouldn’t mind either. It’s a little frightening to see what happened in three months, but after all, I’ll probably be able to find a psychological reason for it. Now would that be cognitive dissonance or adapting schemas I wonder...

My Wacky Brain

This is one of the papers I've written for psychology...if you can't tell, I had too much fun with it.

My Wacky Brain

I’ve heard that most students take psychology and develop some paranoia as they find all the disorders that describe them. Not for me, that experience—I was thankful, after feeling all my life that something was wrong with my mind, to discover exactly what was wrong. You see, I am now quite convinced that my neurons were distracted.

Sometime after my conception, as those multiplying cells organized into heart cells, skin cells, blood cells, etc., my neurons missed the orientation session and refused to read their instruction manuals. I suppose they were male. All those cells that are supposed to go to the cerebellum and the motor cortex to coordinate movement and reflexes? Well in my brain, they all decided that explicit memory sounded more interesting. It takes me weeks to learn simple physical activities, near-constant focus to keep from stumbling, and I have reflexes that would leave something to be desired even in tortoises.

On the other hand, I need only see, hear, read, or smell something once to remember at least 50% of it exactly later, and after the second time, my recall is more like 80%. But all those rogue neurons, they don’t just encode; no, they make countless connections to each other, more than any person really needs, I’ve found. I need the barest minimum of retrieval cues to activate thousands of neural networks. No sensory information is neutral...my neurons connect it to something, no matter how remote the connection seems when viewed logically. The most boring statement will remind me of something, and often more than one thing. My mom calls this “Google brain”, but unlike Google, where information is pulled up from keywords but left without any meaning attached, my brain finds fantastic connections to everything new and anything in my past.

Now, this description might seem more accurate of oversensitive neurons, but I maintain by my diagnosis of “distracted”. Because, also unlike Google, my neurons don’t pay close attention to which neuron fired just before them (I’m finding them a bit too human, really), and so I suffer from extreme source amnesia. Someone will say something, and I suddenly have a quote or piece of lyrics pop into my head and sometimes out of my mouth...but then I have to pause and wonder where it came from? I’ll laugh when someone else says the same quote I was thinking of, and then have to ask them: “Now, what is that from again?” In many ways, it would be nice to have a true “Google brain”, so I wouldn’t have to constantly use the computer version to check sources.

But worst of all, my neurons are incredibly distracted when it comes to what is important to remember. Books, movies, and songs need only one or two times through the hippocampus to be indelibly printed in my long-term memory, while I have to repeat the one thing I need from the pantry at least 30 times on the trip down the stairs to ensure that I won’t forget it. I’ll have to start using that loci technique more often and hope my neurons don’t figure out that I’m tricking them.

Another nice thing that this class has cleared up is my disturbingly frequent experiences of déjà vu, which I’m starting to think are those quintessentially distracted neurons not paying attention to which file those memories go in. I wake up remembering everyday, possible sort of dreams, and then find them actually occurring shortly after. No, I don’t work part-time as a fortune-teller...who wants to know that some day in the future I’ll end up seeing one of my friends at the library?

But now, I know what they are doing, those pesky neurons, and how to fix it. With my pegwords and the self-reference effect, I’m confident that I can train them to remember what I want to remember. And hopefully those myelin sheaths will multiply on all of the connections for coordination and reflexes...I’m really tired of tripping down stairs. But no worry, with knowledge comes power, and now that I understand what’s going on up there, I can fight it.

Well, it did make a nice picture, really, a nice visual image: little neuron people up inside my head, constantly distracted. I could see the file cabinets of “dreams”, “events”, “everything else”—mislabeled, as I could see. Equally clear I saw those lazy neurons sitting around and just looking for connections to make. “Look Bob, that tone of voice is just like the tone that Anthony Hopkins used in scene twelve of The Mask of Zorro!” And I could see the lonely faces of those neurons in the cerebellum, stretching out their hands to make the networks necessary for movement while gazing longingly up at the overcrowded memory sections. I know in the end it’s just an image, but it was fun for a while.

Guess we haven't posted much lately...

This fall has really turned out differently than I expected. MerryK was planning to start college, so I thought my greatest challenge would be adjusting to her being gone for a few hours each day and helping her with the shock of being bombarded by the world on a daily basis. Turned out that the college transition has been a lot easier than we thought it would be. She chose great professors (thanks to a couple great websites) and she loves her classes and is doing very well.

The big surprise was an email from a friend, telling us of a company that was looking to hire homeschooled students. We embarked on the road of resumes, reference letters, and interviews. MerryK and Aragorn ended up getting jobs at this company, which sells books on Amazon.com. It is a perfect fit for them both...MerryK is listing books (she can type incredibly fast!) and Aragorn is working in the shipping department. The staff commented after a couple days that they must be "uber" homeschoolers because they worked so hard and so fast! I am very proud of them!

I never expected Aragorn to be gone for hours, too, plus MerryK now works AND goes to school, so we hardly see her except on weekends. :( It has been quite a big adjustment. Also, Adaon has taken over MerryK's old babysitting job, so he is busy 2 days a week watching a toddler. As a result our school schedule has been totally wrecked and I am juggling to fit everything into the hours we have available.

The other unexpected consequence is the trickle down effect that the older children have on the younger children. The whole tone of the family has changed, with people coming and going, teens riding buses, money in the hands of teens, iPods in ears, driver's permits and generally a less than together feeling. It seems to be hardest on me. The children are all happy. I guess I will adjust. I know I need to be praying more.

I knew my children would grow up and begin this transition...but I thought it would be one child at a time, spaced out more and a bit more gradual. Silly me! So, that is why we haven't been blogging much.

Two Wonderful Books I Just Read

I just finished _Your Child's Growing Mind_ by Jane Healy and it was wonderful! I think I read a recommendation for it at the Common Room. I sure wish I had read this years ago! I learned so much about my children, and much that would have been helpful when they were younger. It is very practical and gives how-tos which I really appreciate. What a great book! BTW, I also learned a lot from Jane Healy's _Endangered Minds_ and think that all parents should read it as well.

The other book I picked up off the clearance rack at Half Price Books last week. (Best dollar I ever spent!) It looked like a nice story and it wasn't till I got home and read the inside dust jacket that I realized it was based on a true story. Perhaps others already know about this book...I see it was on Reading Rainbow on PBS. Anyway, it was new to me. Today I read it aloud to my little ones and I wept throughout the entire book. It was so touching. Oh, sure, I might also be a bit hormonal, but the book really is amazing. It is just a picture book but it is one of my favorites! Get it from the library, if you don't own it already. It is called _Boxes for Katje_ by Candace Fleming. And grab some tissues before you read it.

I'm not dead, just studying

School has been keeping me from blogging, but thought that I'd pop in just to say how much I want the T-shirt that says this:

"There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."

I love it, love it, love it.

You all need to hear this!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_oc1j5NakY

You MUST go hear this! This woman took everything a mom says in a day and condensed it into 3 minutes and sings it to the William Tell Overture! This is SO funny!!!!

Another 'Only in Our House' Moment

While finishing up the dishes in the kitchen, I was surprised by a sudden noise behind me.

Aragorn: (hissing Gollum-like) I found it, I did...the way through the Marshes. (normal voice) Actually, I just found a weird beeping in my room. *holds up carbon monoxide detector* Identified it. *long pause* I have no idea why I just said that.

And with that thought (which was mutual, I assure you), he then left.

An 'Only in Our House' Moment

Purring Piggy saying matter of factly to The Queen: "Well, just be boneless out of Daddy's way."

Overheard by the Clan kitchen

(loud splash of water in kitchen)
Purring Piggy: What happened?
Martin the Warrior: (flustered) I was trying to empty the giant cauldron thingy!

Emma Darcy: (who just turned four) Dear God, thank you for this food, and please help Aragorn to share his mangoes, in Jesus' name, amen.

(the end of a longer conversation that started out perfectly seriously)
Purring Piggy: ...that means Martin the Warrior can see people who aren't there.
The Queen: Yeah. He's magic.
Purring Piggy: What? When did this happen? Why didn't you tell me? I could make lots of money with a boy with those powers.
The Queen: (duh) That's why we didn't tell you.

Harry Potter ends

While on the camping trip, I finally got down to reading the last Harry Potter book. I was not a fan of these books in particular, but neither had I been downright against them, and decided to give the series a fair shot by reading them all through in order before starting the last book. Since I was late to this book, I came across many reviews of it first, and often was surprised by them. The general view among Christian reviewers seemed to be that Book 7 made it clear that this series was good literature, and that there was little doubt that JK Rowling had written wholesome and Christian books.

I won’t say anything on the plot of the book itself, because I’m sure most of the people who will read it have already read it, but these comments almost disturbed me. To be sure, there are many wholesome points in the last Harry Potter book, but those were there in the other books as well, and wholesome points alone do not good literature make. One common point was that because JK Rowling had placed a Christ figure and scriptural references pretty explicitly, those who still considered her books un-Christian would have to make silly points to still oppose them. But I do not believe that you can say that simply because a book has a Christ figure, or even that an author professes to be a Christian, automatically makes the books have a Christian worldview.

In fact, even if the last book had a Christian worldview, which I do not hold, I fail to see how that would make up for the previous six books, which so many agreed did not have a good worldview. As much as JK Rowling may think of herself as a Christian, her books do not hold up in honor what is good and right and true. Yes, Harry may sometimes be selfless and put himself in danger to save the lives of people, but that does not outweigh the fact that he curses and is cruel to those who he dislikes.

We are invited to applaud Harry when he curses the nasty characters, because they “deserved” it, and yet we are also invited to be upset when those same characters give Harry back the same treatment. Now, as the main characters are children, it would be unreasonable to expect mature behavior from them at all times, and yet the teachers and authority figures (many of whom we are called to admire and look up to) hardly chastise Harry for this. And then there is, of course, Harry’s frequent rule-breaking, which scarcely goes punished or even treated as something undesirable. When Hermione, once a character who sought always to follow the rules, joins Harry and Ron in their disobedience, the tone is one of relief, as if she was wrong to do otherwise.

When it comes down to it, Harry is only noble when it comes to earthshaking events, when the world is at stake and he is facing the ultimate evil. And here, it is true, he performs bravely and selflessly, and gives a good example. But in most other circumstances, he is self-centered and a hearty adopter of the philosophy that says “the ends justify the means”. Indeed, even in the last book, when Harry is at his most mature and most admirable state, that philosophy still lurks in the corner.

JK Rowling tries to portray good and evil as distinct, as black and white, but her good characters do most of the same things that her evil characters do, even use Dark Magic, and only the intentions are different (and occasionally not even those). Despite the presence of many good messages, the Harry Potter series ending does not make all criticism of the series “slander” or “outrageous”, as has been said by some.

Did I enjoy the last book? I did, as I enjoyed books 5 and 6, as her writing and stories definitely matured. There is in the final few chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows an incredibly powerful story, and had it been part of something more wholesome it would have been an asset to literature. But as the situation stands, I must still hold that the books are not the safest fare, and should be read by a mind already founded in truth.