The (com)passion of Christ

Ivy: I went to see Karen Armstrong on thursday.
Ivy: she wrote A History of God
Ivy: among other things
Ivy: former nun
Ivy: she's amazing
Ivy: she says that the key to all religions is compassion
Ivy: if you can't feel compassion for others you can't come close to God, basically
Ivy: she says properly speaking religion should bring you closer to understanding the pain of others
Ivy: and when you act from a place of fear instead of a place of compassion it all comes out wrong.
Isilya: *nods*
Isilya: That's wonderful
Ivy: she's a truly amazing person
Ivy: someone asked her what she thought of the Mel Gibson movie
Ivy: she said that it seemed like pornography of violence
Ivy: and that fixating on the suffering of Jesus was unlikely to help anyone develop compassion for anyone else
Ivy: since they idea is that he's suffering for YOU
Ivy: she says religion should make you forget yourself, not fixate on yourself
Ivy: think of others, not all about you
Ivy: and all this fixation on the suffering of Christ tends to have the opposite effect
Ivy: gaining ego instead of losing ego
Ivy: she says, why look at the suffering of Jesus when you could look to Africa
Ivy: or the Middle east
Isilya: *nods*
Ivy: does thinking about the suffering of Jesus make you more compassionate toward those people?
Ivy: if not, something's wrong
Isilya: *nods*
Isilya: I hate how people make God so small
Ivy: exactly
Isilya: I think, if your God is that, then why on earth do you bother believing in God?
Ivy: yeah, she said something about people making God hate the same people they hate
Ivy: she told two stories about the golden rule
Isilya: *nods*
Ivy: Hillel and Jesus
Ivy: what's the most important commandment
Ivy: treat people as if they were yourself
Ivy: compassion
Isilya: *nods*
Isilya: I would love to see a movie The (Com)Passion of the Christ
Ivy: ooo
Ivy: we should write that
Ivy: that's a good post
Isilya: We should
Isilya: You should write this
Ivy: lol

Molly Weasley and the non-stop Howlers

Were I to choose a household for myself as a child in the world of Harry Potter, it would not be the Weasley house. While I recognize that Molly Weasley loves her children very much, I wanted to cover my ears every time she entered a scene in book 5. She yells constantly. I had noticed it in the earlier books as well, but it didn't seem so dominant; she sends howlers of course, she yells at the twins and tells them their aspirations are worthless. But in OoTP, the volume is cranked right up and I started to feel that her constant shouting was bordering on abusive.

Back in the day when I worked with children for money, our cardinal rule was "Don't yell at the kids." In any circumstances. Including emergencies. No yelling, no raising of the voice, no shouting "DINNER!" from the middle of a field. You go from spot to spot and talk to children in a normal voice. Yelling, according to my boss, is a form of violence.

I am not the only person who believes it. This article from 2000 argues that children exposed to yelling and belittling from their parents are more likely to encounter problems with drugs, self-esteem, and suicide as teens than do children who were beaten. While Molly Weasley may not rank up with the top abusers in the Harry Potter series (certainly the Dursleys and a certain Umbridge are worse), but she's not a happy glowing rose to live with either, according to the books.

I don't entirely understand why the Weasley clan is so often seen as some sort of perfect family producing the perfect mates (namely, Ron and Ginny). For Harry, the Weasleys are a godsend because as a family they will take care of him in ways his own family will not. They are warm and loving and open their house to strangers, and as a fan of Harry I'm very glad that the Weasleys are there to give him a little love when he really needs it. The Weasleys represent an alternative for Harry, which is something he desperately needs. That's fabulous, but let's be clear; children who grow up around the kind of yelling we see Molly Weasley doing in the Harry Potter books are not likely to grow up perfect little flowers. Harry has it cartoonishly bad with his family, but Ginny isn't living in witch heaven either.

"The impact of yelling depends on a child's temperament," says Dr. Waugh, author of Tired of Yelling (1999 [see full article here]. "If children are on the easily anxious and sensitive side, some become very traumatized by yelling. They may withdraw, become depressed or fearful of anger," he says. "Others learn by example and overexpress anger, becoming defensive." Sort of sounds like GoF Ron to me.

Focusing on the overly-loud environment of the Weasley household is an interesting direction to take a character like Ginny; according to Ron, we don't know Ginny very well until book 5, after all. She was too nervous to speak in front of Harry before, so we couldn't see what a little fireball she really is. How does that loud household affect her? Does she swear like a truckdriver the way her brothers do? Does she raise her voice whenever she gets nervous? Does she shout down people she loves when she's worried about them? It would make sense. That's what her mother does.