Burning Upon Re-entry.

It's been a long, long, long time since I've blogged.

I'd tell you about all of the things that have distracted me from the practice, but I'm not sure they'd interest you, even though blogging, at its outset, requires a belief in the existence of some interesting quality in one's thoughts, opinions and experiences. Instead, I'll just skip right to the thoughts and opinions stemming from a particular experience.

I've been volunteering with a particular youth ministry for about nine years now.

There are any number of directions in which I could take this blog entry given that starting point. I have more stories about people going through the most awkward and confusing phase of their lives than I know what to do with.

You see a lot of things when working in youth ministry. You see a lot of different kids from a lot of different situations reacting to a lot of different things in a lot of different ways.

And then, when you thought it couldn't possibly get any weirder, when you believe you've reached the pinnacle of human strangeness, when you begin to look back on your own adolescence with a sense of comfort because of the baffling peculiarity with which some of these people conduct themselves - then you meet their parents.

I suppose that not all youth ministries attract the same sort of people. To give you some idea of what I'm dealing with, this particular youth ministry belongs to a moderately-floundering suburban megachurch. I'd try to give a general description of many of the people there, but that requires a lot of sweeping generalities and I'm going to do more than enough writing that people would consider "negative" in this entry.

So, back to the parents. Parents do many, many things in the name of protecting their children. Many of those things actually end up protecting their children. I'd like to tell you about one of the other things.

I hang out with some students from the youth ministry when I can, as I believe that spending time with positive influences is good for young people and, every now and then, I conduct myself in such a way that suggests that I'm a positive influence.

I was hanging out with a student at a coffee shop which is normally occupied with a disproportionately high percentage of Christians. It's located near a couple of private Christian universities, so it's a convenient place for them to have coffee. It's a Caribou Coffee, which, for whatever reason, is loved by suburban Minnesotan Christians. They're obsessed with it. None of that information is particularly relevant, apart from the fact that being around this particular group of people intensified my reaction to what the student told me about when we were having a cup of coffee together.

He was telling me about a discussion he and some students had with volunteer youth ministry leaders (many of which are parents of students involved in the program) at the latest of his semi-weekly house group meetings (this youth ministry meets at the church every other week, with the other weeks devoted to several smaller gatherings located in a few houses spread throughout the cities).

Conversations with teenagers can go a lot of different ways. Teenagers have active and growing minds, and a "normal" conversation with a teenager will likely deviate from one subject matter in favor of another with regularity. They are a curious bunch, if nothing else. It is one of the few consistencies I find in having discussions with people of that age group. I really like that about them.

The conversation this student was having (with other students and some volunteer leaders, a couple of whom were parents)? It was about Harry Potter.

Youth ministry exists in large part to guide the next generation into carrying on the tradition of faith which their parents have adopted, in a manner that helps the students grow into healthy, morally-sound people of faith. This involves a lot more conversations about a lot more things like Harry Potter than one without any youth ministry experience would expect.

I don't know much about the particular demographic of the people who happen to read my blog every now and then. I don't know how many of them have had consistent exposure to the kind of religious environment into which I regularly thrust myself in the name of hope for the youth of this world - but I know that I think that the following should be troubling to all of them:

Parents spend time telling young people about the spiritual perils of exposure to Harry Potter.

Doing this requires a worldview that is far, far more intense than I am willing to hold. I grew up hearing a lot of things about "spiritual battles." My parents never told me about anything like that, but I spent a lot of time at church to make them happy, so I heard a lot about it. I do believe in many spiritual things, and that in some way there are spiritual forces at work in this world, some good (those associated with the being to whom I refer as "God") and some opposed to those I consider good.

And I know that I have never read any of the Harry Potter books. That, however, has a lot more to do with my nonexistent level of interest in them than it does with a pervasive fear that one of the devil's little nasties is going to jump out of page 142, punch my spirit in the groin in order to incapacitate it, then tying it up, taking it captive until I experience deliverance from that damned Harry Potter and his band of spiritual goons.

That's the title of the next one coming out, right? Harry Potter and the Band of Spiritual Goons?

Come to think of it, Christians ought to rename the books that have already been released to more accurately depict the effects they might have on one's spirit:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? No good. How about Harry Potter and the Eternal Lake of Fire Into Which He Will Plunge Your Screaming Children If You Let Him?

I was going to rename more of those, but couldn't get past ideas that were wildly inappropriate.

Really though - just imagine it, the event of a lifetime, the long-anticipated, winner-takes-all, ultimate spiritual confrontation of the universe...taking place at the famed MGM Grand Las Vegas, with Michael Buffer doing the introductions:

DING DING DING!

And now...in this corner...standing five-foot-nine, one hundred forty pounds - the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords - Jeeeesuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuussss Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist!

[wild cheering]

...and in this corner...standing five-foot-six, one hundred sixteen pounds - the Stealer of Souls, the Slayer of Spirits, the Devil's Dastardly Deputy - Harr-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Pooooooooo-tterrrrrrrr!

[raucous booing, children and their parents cursing and throwing garbage]

Ladies and gentlemen - llllllllllllet's get rrrready to rumble!

And then they duke it out. Imagine the pay-per-view sales.

Christians are taught (both by their Bible and by those who preach from it) that they are empowered by and have living inside of them the same spirit which raised Christ from the dead.

Gotta watch out for that Harry Potter, though.