Teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts to Muggles, Part Two Magic Wands and Dementors

The following is part two. Part One is here: https://alisonlongstaffmoore.blogspot.com/2016/10/teaching-defence-against-dark-arts-to.html

Magic walks among us.  We have learned to overlook it.  Magic wands in our common story go all the way back to Moses’ and Aaron’s staffs in the Bible, and to every great wizard in every great story.

The pastor, Biblical student, philosopher and historian in me sees the parallels between magic wands, kings' scepters, and Moses' staff. My spiritual training teaches me that all wands and staffs simply represent an extension of ourselves---a reaching out of our power into the world to create change.

A snake (or 2 snakes) wrapped around a staff is an ancient symbol called the "caduceus." It comes to us from Greek mythology (both the stories of Asclepius and of Hermes), as well as the Biblical story of Moses. We read in Numbers 21:9 "So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived."

The image of serpents wrapped around a staff is a familiar one in the medical field as well, decorating pharmaceutical packaging and hospitals alike. Snakes bites are generally bad news, thus the reptile might seem ill-fitting as a symbol of the medical profession, but the ancient emblem comes to us from many years of history and legend.

There are two versions of the symbol. The winged version is known as a caduceus, and the stick is actually a staff that was carried by the Olympian god Hermes. In Greek mythology, Hermes was a messenger between the gods and humans (which explains the wings) and a guide to the underworld (which explains the staff). Hermes was also the patron of travelers, which makes his connection to medicine appropriate because, in the olden days, doctors had to travel great distances by foot in order to visit their patients.

In one version of Hermes' myth, he is given the staff by Apollo, the god of healing. In another version, he receives the staff from Zeus, the king of the gods, and it is entwined with two white ribbons. The ribbons were later replaced by serpents, as one story tells that Hermes used the stick to separate two fighting snakes, who then coiled around his staff and remained there in balanced harmony.

Another, earlier depiction of the medical symbol is the staff of Asclepius, though it has no wings and only one snake. The son of Apollo and the human princess Coronis, Asclepius is the Greek demigod of medicine. According to mythology, he was able to restore the health of the sick and bring the dead back to life.

The Greeks regarded snakes as sacred and used them in healing rituals to honor Asclepius, as snake venom was thought to be remedial and their skin-shedding was viewed as a symbol of rebirth and renewal. This is a good thing to keep in mind the next time you spot a medical alert bracelet featuring the seemingly sinister serpents.

Regardless of what you think or feel about snakes, ask yourself if there there is greater magic outside of ourselves with which we can connect, whether we call it Love or Higher Power or The Force or something else.  Regardless of whether you believe in such a thing, what do your beliefs trap you in unhappiness and limitation, or support you in becoming the magical self that you are?

The Dementors in the Harry Potter stories stand out as symbols for deep depression and suicidal ideation. Our beliefs become tangled up with an overwhelming negative affect in depression, and the two feed on and reinforce each other. Depression drains us of hope and any sense of agency. The more helpless we feel, the less able we are to imagine any solutions. We become trapped in a cycle of hopeless thoughts and feelings of despair, so much so that we lose the ability to fight for our own wellbeing. Our hope and zest for life are drained away to the point of complete incapacity. It often takes the powerful support and positive action of friends and loved ones to save us. Very few people have the ability to escape such darkness without help. 

Those of us prone to toxic shame are at the greatest risk of dementor attacks. Toxic shame arises if we come to fear that there is something terribly wrong with us---something we didn't cause and something we cannot cure. It is the idea that we are too evil or broken or stained, and that everything we do will be marred because we are so . It is the difference between, “I have done some bad things and therefore feel remorse” vs. “I am innately evil and worthless and unlovable and don't deserve to live.” 

It is surprising how many of us fall victim to such irrational thinking.  But toxic shame comes from shaming we experienced when we were little children, when we are not yet rational, when we trust what our siblings and teachers and parents tell us. Toxic shame can be a killer. It is very important that we learn how to recognize it so that we can get help. It often takes the strength of others to drive it away, though in time we can develop the skills to hold it off for a while, and eventually to drive it away completely.

The dementor’s kiss represents suicidal ideation. It may also represent when someone we love is lost to mental illness so profound that the person we knew is no longer recognizable. This loss is real and happens all too often in our underserviced world of mental health care. Let's change this! Expecto Patronum!

Expecto Patronum! 

"Expecto Patronum!" is the charm for driving away dementors. It takes tremendous practice, repeated effort, and the ability to recall wonderful and joyful memories. My battle with dementors in my life has required that I develop strong stories of being worthwhile to counteract the depressive thinking and suicidal ideation. To quote professor Lupin in Prisoner of Azkaban, a Patronus is, "'a kind of Anti-Dementor – a guardian which acts as a shield between you and the Dementor.’ It’s also ‘a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the Dementor feeds upon – hope, happiness, the desire to survive – but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the Dementors can’t hurt it.’''

Therefore, summoning a Patronus requires recalling strong, overriding memories that stand strong against toxic shame. It requires the ability to connect to inner joy and hope, which can often spring from the things we most love and the moments of greatest happiness with friends. Depression is a muggle's dementor, and it takes time and effort, and the love and support of friends to be able to drive them away. Love and joy and the memories of deep friendship help us create our personal Patronus.


May you find good teachers and good companions to help you in your battles against dementors. May you find your powerful love, your way to extend it into the world, and to drive away the darkness with light.

With luck, I will also one day write about  "Riddikulus" for muggles, and “Protego” for muggles, as well as review some of the most potent chocolates for recovery from Dementor attacks.

Until then, Expecto Patronum! 

Privilege

"Privilege" as defined by the Oxford Living Dictionary is "a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people."

I am white. (Privilege) I am a woman (Second class and subject to all sorts of discrimination). I am educated. (Privilege) I am broke. (Profoundly disadvantaged) I live in North America. (Privilege) I am 55. (Disadvantaged when seeking employment)  I am reasonably attractive. (Advantage) I live with mental illness. (Invisible disability.)

And on and on it goes.

Do I know privilege?  Yes!

Do I know discrimination?  Yes!

I completely understand the "Black Lives Matter" movement and find the objections ludicrous. 

I am not black. But I know injustice and discrimination, and stand against it in all its forms. There is absolutely no question that black people in the United States face a terrible disadvantage that is deep and insidious and all-pervasive. To think otherwise is denying the evidence of generations. To point to one's own "rights" as somehow invalidating the outcry for justice for people of colour says more about the denier of the issue than about the legitimacy of the outcry.

Wow. Just, wow. How ridiculously insecure are these privileged people, and what, exactly, do they think they lose by extending compassion and justice to a greater portion of the human race?

As a way to open my heart to seeing my white privilege, I have been meditating on privilege as: "something which supports me but is invisible because I take it for granted."

This has been tremendously helpful in opening my eyes to all the advantages I actually enjoy. I am realizing how quick I have been to see the injustices in my life but blind to all the advantages. This particular lens ("what do I take for granted?") has cracked open a new way to appreciate all the things for which I can be grateful. I have been blind!

I can breathe. (Some people struggle to.) I have readily available clean water. I have a comfy bed in which to sleep with no bug infestation. I have more than enough food and treats and a bunch of body fat off which I ought to be able to live before I starve to death. I have lots of abilities (if I could just find paid employment...). Best and brightest: I have someone to kiss goodnight and who is with me for the long haul, whom I adore.

I am truly blessed. 

I think as humans we can't help but look for how we can improve our lives. But when I do that too much, I lose sight of how many blessings I already have. Instead, I compare what I have to those who have more. I compare my life to what I EXPECTED it should be at this point in my life, (house paid off, freedom to travel) not to how blessed it genuinely is. I still look at what I want rather than what I already have.

Comparison of my life to what I wish it was leads me to dissatisfaction. Comparison of what I have in relation to those who have more leads me to resentment and a narrative of victimhood.

Why do I do that?

It doesn't serve me at all.

Being grateful for what is serves me far better.  It is a new phase of my spiritual practice to look for all the things I get "for free" and to be grateful. That doesn't mean I am not allowed to notice the injustices. It does open me to seeing ways other people suffer things that I don't simply because of being born into a different country or family or skin color or orientation.

I will continue to support the cry of "Black Lives Matter" just as potently as I stand for women in ministry and loving inclusion of different gender presentations.

"Treat others the way you want to be treated" remains my spiritual cornerstone. 

May I grow in gratitude for the privilege of clean air and water and relative health and safety, even as I fight to see such rights extended to everyone on the planet. 

May I grow in recognition that even the ability to fight for these things is a privilege.

Spoons

The "Spoons" Metaphor or "Spoon Theory"

Recently, a darling young woman-friend said to me, "I can't.  I don't have enough spoons."  (She lives with depression.)

At my puzzled look she told me with delight about the helpful "meme" that is spreading through the collective conversation.  It all began with Christine Miserandino's attempt to explain to a friend what it is like to live with invisible illness---about the tough decisions one has to make every day with one's limited energy.

The concreteness of the spoon imagery has managed to effectively illustrate what invisibly ill people have been saying for years:  Those who live with illness have far fewer resources than the healthy.

Being judged for low functioning or being guilted into more activity is NOT helpful.  Even still I struggle to remember that I often have fewer spoons in a day than regular people do.  I don't need outside help in feeling like I am not doing enough or producing enough.  I manage to feel shitty all by myself. (It is part of being depressed).  Patience and compassion are needed, not more shaming and shoulds,

When I think in terms of my "spoons," however, I tend to get practical and pragmatic, rather than getting bogged down in shame.  I am hearing the metaphor of the spoons increasingly in the conversations around me now too, which makes my heart glad for all the other good people I know who live with invisible illness. (Illnesses such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, depression, anxiety disorder, and a so many more.)

It is too easy to judge others, and too frequently unjust.  The simple act of trying to explain or defend oneself  from others' judgments and "advice" and attempts to "fix" takes even more spoons from an already meager supply.

The world already is overly short on compassion and respect.  How about we hand around more of that and less of suspicion and judgment and ill-informed assumptions?

Let's start handing out free spoons.  A kind word; a smile; a helping hand; an anonymous act of kindness: these are the things that help everyone.  It is so much easier to give a spoon than take one.  Why are we so quick to assume that someone who is short on spoons deserves to be so?

Please, take excellent care of yourself if you are short on spoons!  Please accept help with grace, not shame!  And many thanks to all those blessed enough to have spoons to share, who share them.

"Love one another as I have loved you."

Find the original spoon theory story by Christine Miserandino here.

"Home" a sermon

Home

"Open House Sunday"

Rev. Alison Longstaff, May 4, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 33:20-22; Rev 21:1-4; Heavenly Secrets 7560

I was in one of my coffee groups not too long ago, and as is our custom, we were taking turns sharing what was on our hearts.  For some of us there, this group is one of the only safe places where we can be completely honest and be completely ourselves.  We have a group agreement that no one will judge, nor interrupt, nor give advice.  Each member is loved and accepted unconditionally.

That morning a wise and kind older woman, let’s call her “Anya” was describing her day. She and her husband have an adult child with a mildly diminished mental capacity who lives with them.  This adult child has a child who also lives with them.  The adult child has trouble holding onto jobs and trouble managing her behaviorally challenged son.  At an age when many of their peers are enjoying retirement, “Anya” and her husband are still parenting this young mother and now also needing to be the parents of her demanding little boy.  “Anya” was so weary and discouraged, and my heart ached for her.  It struck me that her home—the place where we are supposed to be able to go to rest and be safe—was regularly a place of chaos and disruption and drama.  Do to no fault of her own, nor even her daughter’s, “Anya’s”  home was not a safe haven for her.  It was not a place where she could rest.  It was full of chaos, and she saw no way to change that.

Home.  What does that word evoke in your mind?  For me it brings to mind “The Walton’s”, or that famous image of a Thanksgiving meal by Norman Rockwell.  Home should mean family, and family should mean safety and unconditional love, but all too often these things do not go together.  Too many people feel neither truly safe not truly loved.  Too many have to make a home away from their family, if they wish to feel safe.  If both your home and your family are safe and loving, consider yourself very lucky!

A church is a home too.  It is a spiritual home, and when a church runs well, it is definitely a place of unconditional love, acceptance, and spiritual and emotional safety.  That is what church should be, and that is what we should expect.  Unfortunately, all too often church is only some of these, or none of these things.  And when our church family hurts or betrays us, the wound cuts very deep.  Perhaps, while we expect our family to be crazy sometimes, we expect our church to be better, more perfect, to reflect God’s love all the time.

 

When our church gets mired in conflict, or personalities clash and start recruiting members to take sides, or when our church changes from a pastor we love to a pastor we can’t stand seem to feel good about, we can feel profoundly disillusioned, even abandoned or betrayed.  Losses such as these surrounding our church home are real and painful and occur all too often in our society.  Yet they also remain unnoticed and unacknowledged.  We understand the aching losses when someone says, “my dog just died,” or “my baby went away to college,” or “we had to sell our house,” or “he had a stroke and can no longer drive.”  But how comfortable are we in saying, or hearing with quiet sympathy, “we got a new pastor that I just can’t warm up to,” or “I can’t believe the behavior of the people at my church; it makes me feel ashamed,” or “I understand the value of the new style of worship, but I miss the old rituals so very much sometimes!”  We are more likely to placate or advise, which is never as helpful as simply listening to the pain.

Our spiritual attachments and what we find spiritually meaningful is deeply personal, yet as a culture we have a long way to go in respecting each other’s spiritual territory.  We all could afford to undergo “spiritual sensitivity training.”  Perhaps this is due to the longstanding Christian culture of dutifully attempting to invalidate and replace every spirituality the missionaries encountered.  From a pastoral and psychological perspective, that is spiritual violation.  It is profoundly disrespectful, and it is small wonder that such Christian colonization has left a trail of cultural genocide and abuse in its wake.  yes, Christianity has done a lot of good.  But I cannot gloss over the harm and abuse that is also a real part of the legacy.

 

Some visitors here today are spiritual nomads, forever wandering from group to group, taking what you like and leaving the rest, self-sufficient in your own spirituality, (which can be quite healthy).  Welcome.  May you find rest in your soul.  I certainly understand why so many choose not to trust or belong again in any church home, because of bad experiences with poorly behaved or poorly managed congregations.

Others here today were born and raised in this very church home, and can only imagine what it is like to have been deeply hurt by and lose their church home, or even what it is like to have to search and search for a spiritual home before finding one.

There are probably as many spiritual stories as there are people in this room.  What is your story?

In our scripture readings today, we heard Jerusalem called “a quiet home.” In fact the promise is that the New Jerusalem will be a place where “God will dwell with us, and wipe every tear from our eyes.”  Doesn’t that describe the spiritual home of which we all dream? That is what every church and spiritual organization should be, though many (all?) are not.

 

Emanuel Swedenborg—from whom this denomination gets its name, (rather the way Lutherans are named from Martin Luther)—prophesied that this “New Jerusalem” found in the Book of Revelation, represents a new, inclusive spirituality that will grow among all humankind.  This “New Jerusalem” will be new precisely because it will not be exclusive.  It will honor and respect the goodness and truth in all people and all religions.

Swedenborg says that we are all called to do our inner work—to undertake the metaphoric “hero’s journey,” if you will—where each one works continuously to grow in insight and compassion.  The idea is that if and when the human race can grow into such a collectively compassionate, enlightened, and responsible overall state, heaven on earth will indeed draw much closer.  What is promised in Revelation and named “The New Jerusalem” is the hope of such a universal human compassion and wisdom—a world full of millions of little Dalai lamas, if you will—only from many different spiritual origins and flavors. 

Yes, this funky little historic church is named “The Church of the New Jerusalem,” after that vision, not in any illusion that we are the embodiment of that long-awaited world state, but with the intention that we will strive towards it, day by day, step by step.  Are we a perfect spiritual home?  Not on your life, though we wish we were.  Have people been hurt here?  Yes indeed.  All we can do is express our remorse and do our best to make amends and to see that such mistakes don’t happen again.  We try to see this home like spiritual family—we love each other anyway, even if we have crazy moments and sometimes we drive each other a little nuts.  That’s what love is and that’s what family does.

Home.  What does the word mean to you? 

Does the word tug at your heart the way it tugs at mine? 

What does the ideal mean to you, and how does it compare to what you come home to every day?  No doubt everyone in this room knows at least one person whose foundation is a troubled and chaotic home, like that of “Anya” described at the opening of this sermon.  If you are so lucky as to have a home that is safe and restful, take this moment to breathe a prayer of gratitude.  And let’s all of us, stop right now for a moment to hold in our hearts and prayers all the souls who must survive somehow, day by day, in homes that are not perhaps emotionally or psychologically or physically safe.

For some of us, this church group is perhaps one of the only safe spaces where we can come and begin to be completely ourselves and be completely heard.  This congregation has a group agreement that we will not judge, nor interrupt, nor give advice (though each of us sometimes forgets).  May it ever be a place where each comer is loved and accepted unconditionally.

I have come a long way from my home in Canada to make a new home here.  I have fallen in love with this great town, and especially with this tiny, magical congregation.  Those who have lived in Maine a long time love to share the state they love with visitors, hoping they will love it too, and hoping they will fall so in love that they will stay. That’s a lot like how we feel about this little church.  We love it when others come to visit.  And we really love it when somebody decides to stay. But whether you just visit sometimes, or you move in and join us, you are welcome here, any time!  Your presence is a blessing no matter what.

Amen

Readings:

Isaiah 33: 20-22

20 Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts;
Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home,
A tabernacle that will not be taken down;
Not one of its stakes will ever be removed,
Nor will any of its cords be broken.
²¹ But there the majestic Lord will be for us
A place of broad rivers and streams,
In which no galley with oars will sail,
Nor majestic ships pass by
²² For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us

Revelation 21: 1-4 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. ² Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Heavenly Secrets 7560. My paraphrase of the Latin To ‘be gathered home' means to be placed in safe keeping. Spiritually a 'home' or a 'house' refers to the inner part of a person’s mind where compassion and right-thinking reside. It is the capacities for compassion and right-thinking that make someone truly human, and that essentially is the real person.   Because this inner mind is the seat of goodness and truth with a person, and the capacities of compassion and right-thinking dwell there, the Lord keeps this region utterly safe and protected deep inside each person.

By Emanuel Swedenborg