Day 16/17: The greatest commandment

I've been a Harry Potter fan for a while. Not since the beginning, to be quite honest, I wasn't too keen investing time, money and energy in what I considered a children's book. But I've grown to love the book, its characters and the way the story still gets me. Its a simple enough concept, the boy wizard destined to walk the narrow road of a reluctant hero in an epic battle of good and evil and every other shade in between. It has giants, elves, romance and back biting... all thrown in for good measure.

But what I find so different about this series from all the other epic/adventure type books- think Narnia and Lord of the Rings- is the simple message about love. Dumbledore, and JK Rowling for that matter, spends alot of time talking about how Harry's innate ability to destroy Lord Voldermont stems from his ability to Love.

"By attempting to kill you, Voldemort himself singled out the remarkable person who sits here in front of me, and gave him the tools for the job! It is Voldemort's fault that you were able to see into his thoughts, his ambitions, that you even understand the snakelike language in which he gives orders, and yet, Harry... you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort's followers!"
"Of course I haven't! He killed my mum and dad!"
"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love. The only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power like Voldemort's." - Dumbledore and Harry [ch.24, HBP]

I never gave it much thought, this whote concept of love and destruction- they are really two sides of a very vast spectrum. They can't exist without each other and they can't survive with each other. One of life's more complex paradoxes, I suppose. Each QT is filled, these days (I think God's trying to send me a message here) with verse after verse of loving each other (Jn 15:12), loving your neighbour (Gal 5:14) and the grand exclamation that Love never fails (I Corinth 13:18). And sometimes, in times like these, I find it hard to keep that commandment, and even, in believing that promise.

But, as a good friend said to me today, we all get there in the end.

I pray its true...