Lessons
from Harry Potter-Part 2
Last week I
wrote about some of the lessons we can learn from the Harry Potter books. I
listed six:
1.
Everyday
is filled with choices and it’s those choices that determine what we are, not
our abilities.
2.
It
does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
3.
It
takes bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our
friends.
4.
We
all have light and dark inside us. What matters is the power we choose to act
on.
5.
The
time will come when we will have to make the choice between what is right and
what is easy.
6.
You
cannot rise to your full potential until you know who you are.
I wrote about
the first three on the list in that blog and today I want to discuss the last
three.
Each of us has a light and dark
side
In book five,
“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, Harry and Sirius Black are having
a conversation and Harry asks if the connection he is feeling between him and
Voldemort is making him become bad.
“Harry Potter: This connection between me
and Voldemort... what if the reason for it is that I am becoming more like him?
I just feel so angry, all the time. What if after everything that I've been
through, something's gone wrong inside me? What if I'm becoming bad?
“Sirius
Black: I want you to listen to
me very carefully, Harry. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person,
who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn't split into good
people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What
matters is the part we choose to act on.” That's who we really
are. (http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000987/quotes)
As I said last
week with lesson one, we have choices to make every day between good and evil. We
all have the battle between good and evil in our lives and we must choose the
good and push our natural tendencies towards evil back and give into the
spirit. The scriptures teach:
“19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from
the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to
the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man
and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord,
and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full
of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to
inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19)
Part of the
process of putting off the natural man and yielding to the Holy Spirit is
choosing to obey God’s commandments and reject evil. As we do this we are
blessed and become free from the sins of the world. The more we make the right
choices, the less the dark side tempts us. Sorry, I can’t help making the Star
Wars connection that Luke and Darth Vader discussed about us having both the
good and dark side in us and we have to choose each day to follow the light and
suppress the dark side. Elder Dyer spoke of having to curb our appetites and
passions when he said:
“The practice of restraint is a necessary attribute of every gentle and good man. Women without it become coarse and unrefined. To curb the appetites and passions, to screen wisely the thoughts that are permitted to enter our minds, to avoid the habit that does not produce the spiritual and abundant life, are experiences of life to be concerned with if the crown of achievement and the nobility of good character are to be possessed.
“Choosing good over evil and right over wrong is the crowning achievement of life, and in so doing man becomes the masterpiece of the Creator and fulfills the basic purposes of his mortal probation. An ancient prophet speaks of it in this way: “… he that ruleth his spirit [is greater] than he that taketh a city.” (Prov. 16:32.)” (“The Nobility of Man in Choosing Good over Evil”, Elder Alvin
R. Dyer, Ensign, 1971)
Choosing the Right Thing over
the Easy Thing
In the end of “Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, Dumbledore, speaking to the students said this about
making the difficult choices:
“..when the time should
come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy,
remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he
strayed across the path of Lord Voldermaort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”
(Dumbledore to the Hogwarts Students, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, P
724).
It is not easy
to make correct choices all the time and even when we do make the right choice
bad things can happen. Our friends make fun of us or no longer want to be our
friends. Sometimes good people are hurt even while making the choice to keep
God’s commandments. Everyday there are new stories of individuals that try to
keep God’s commandments and yet they are persecuted for doing so. The fear of
what man can do to us should not keep us from doing the right thing. There are
other consequences of our choices. Elder Ridd in a recent general conference
address spoke of what our choices are and the consequences of those choices:
“You are growing up with one of the greatest tools for good in
the history of man: the Internet. With it comes an elaborate buffet of
choices. The abundance of choice, however, carries with it an equal
portion of accountability. It facilitates your access to both the very best
and the very worst the world has to offer. With it you can accomplish
great things in a short period of time, or you can get caught up in endless
loops of triviality that waste your time and degrade your potential. With
the click of a button, you can access whatever your heart desires. That’s
the key what does your heart desire? What do you gravitate toward?
Where will your desires lead?” (“The Choice Generation”,
Elder Randall L. Ridd, General Conference, April 2014)
Knowing Who You Are
The final lesson
I would like to discuss it that you are not able to achieve your full potential
until you find out who you really are. For ten years Harry had no idea that he
was a wizard. Strange things were happening to him and he was able to do some
things that he did not understand. Finally when Harry met Hagrid on his
eleventh birthday and Hagrid said: “You’re a wizard, Harry” did Harry have an
idea of what was happening to him. Even then it took going to Hogwarts and studying
with some of the greatest magical teachers before he understood his potential. After
learning who he was and also with the help of his friends and teachers, Harry
was able to rise up to his potential and defeat the evil Voldemort.
We are all
children of our Heavenly Father and have the potential to become as he is.
“32 The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;
“33 And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father…” (Moses 7:32-33)
Paul writing to
the Roman saints said:
“16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
“17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;” (Romans 8:16-17)
Brother Burgess
in a conference address in 2008 said:
“Knowing who you are makes you spiritually strong, sound, and stead
fast
in your priesthood duties. You become confident with faith and
determination to make right decisions. You have courage to stand up for
what you know is right.
“…Finding out who we are is one of life’s greatest quests. As parents and
leaders, we make a sincere and honest effort to help those we love
understand and know the answer to this simple but profound question,
“Who am I?”
“…You are literally a son of God, “spiritually begotten in the premortal
life.
As His child, you can be assured that you have divine, eternal potential
and that [your Heavenly Father] will help you in your sincere efforts to
reach that potential” (Do You Know Who
You Are”, Elder Dean R. Burgess, General Conference, April 2008)
It is a great
blessing to know that we are children of our Heavenly Father and that our
potential is eternal. Until we overcome the natural man and yield to the Spirit
the battle between good and evil in ourselves will continue. As we develop the
habit of choosing to keep the commandments, the will to make the hard choices becomes
easier and that strengthens the spirit in us that leads us to do good. As we
develop these habits of good choices we will find happiness in this life and
eventually obtain our full potential and be joint heirs with our Heavenly
Father, Jesus Christ and our families in the kingdom of God.
Your comments
and questions are welcome.
