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I'm Vanessa Zoltan. And I'm Mauricio Bruce. And this is Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. We have a special guest today, Mauricio Bruce. How are you today? Good. I'm great. I'm really excited to be here. Hi, everyone. You are...
our host on The Real Question and faculty for our class, What Matters. So What Matters is our nine-month-long class that is starting this August. It's on sale now. I do sacred reading with people. Our beloved colleague, Michaela Bly, does storytelling with people, teaching them sort of the tips and tricks of how to tell stories that integrate senses of identity into their own lives and
Can you tell people about what you do as part of What Matters? I sure can. So my role is to look at the books that we're reading as sort of mirrors and try to guide people to understand what those books might be revealing about themselves. I call that inner work. And so we use the books
to understand ourselves better. Why am I reacting this way? Why am I thinking this way about a specific character? What does that say about me?
And then I also get the privilege of doing three one-on-one sessions with each person and getting to have chaplaincy conversations with them about what they're feeling, what they're going through, what they're thinking, and sort of help them understand what's going on. Yeah, and you're so good at what you do. People always love the work that they do with you.
Thank you. I really enjoy the work that I do too, and that I get to have these kinds of interactions with people. I get to lead really fun exercises and really fun thought experiments. So one of the exercises that we do is we find a character that is somehow resonating with us and that is calling to us and that is maybe showing us
a part of us that we haven't inhabited yet. And so for a week, we will bring that character into our life. And I will invite people to sort of think, how does that character serve breakfast? How does that character drink coffee? How does that character go to the grocery store? And I'll ask them to embody it in their life as a way to discover parts of themselves that that character might be inviting them to discover. And it's really fun.
That is so fun. So this class starts in August. It will run through next March. You can find out more about it by going to not sorryworks.com. It is a very small cohort, so spots are limited. And we are really excited to do this for the fourth time. Yeah. And with really fun books this year. I mean, we always have fun books, but I'm really excited about the ones that are coming up.
Anne Mauricio, you are inspiring our Every Flavored Bean conversation. Our bonus conversation for patrons only is going to be, we are going to embody a character from Harry Potter and wonder how that character would go about parts of our day. So...
I'm really excited to pretend to be Hermione and go through my day with you. So Mauricio, you are telling a story on the theme of memory, which is something we will be discussing a lot with our three books in What Matters this year. What story do you have on this theme? So the story I want to tell takes me back to when I was 18 and my appendix exploded. I didn't pay much attention to a little bit of stomach pain that I had for about two days.
And I remember the day I was sitting in the classroom and the pain sort of grew. It became really painful and then it went away. And I thought, oh, I'm done. It's cured. The teacher saw that I was sort of off-colored and sent me to the nurse, which ended up sending me to the hospital, which ended up being two months of surgeries and infections and recoveries. And a couple of days before all that happened, my mother had...
confronted me about being gay. And so I've always associated that time in the hospital with that wound.
with being wounded. And in a way, it was a pity story. It was like, oh, poor me. I got confronted. And then that became two months of pain and of surgeries. And here are the scars literally on my body of who I am. And so for such a long time, that became a defining story of who I was. It became this wound that I carried, sometimes with pride, sometimes with shame. I would take my shirt off to go to a
swimming pool and people would ask, oh my gosh, what happened? What are those scars? And I would have this great juicy story to tell about my scars.
As you know, recently I had another stint at the hospital. I had an intestinal stroke that ended up putting me in the hospital for another month. But what was so interesting was the doctor went in through the same scar and told me that the piece of intestine that had died was the piece where my appendix used to be. And I interpreted that as my body also saying, it's time to let go of that story. That's not who you are anymore. The memory had become a crutch.
For a time in my life, it had helped me understand my pain and it had helped sort of protect me. And now it had become this thing that had me anchored in the past. It was holding me back. And so letting go of that story, letting go of that memory, also opened up room to explore a new version of Mao that could now start to become.
What I'm really interested to explore with you in today's conversation is the way memory can really be important to remind us who we are, but memory can also keep us anchored in the past and not let us move forward. That is a really beautiful story. And I think that
We don't need an intestinal stroke to go back and look at memories and be like, "Oh, is the way that I'm thinking about this memory no longer serving me?" Right? Yeah, memory is so interesting. My parents, brothers, and I just had a fight about what happened to one of our dogs when we were little.
And my brothers and I share a memory and my parents share the memory. And we were like, well, did you lie to us back then? Right. Like this idea that my brothers and I have been telling this story for 35 years that my aunt lost our dog. And my parents are like, nope, the dog dug a hole and ran away. I'm like, is my aunt a totally different person than I thought? Right. Like,
is misremembering this and how has this rippled throughout our lives is just so interesting. Yeah. Absolutely. And we don't always even know, right? Like, Harry is having a reaction in this chapter and Lupin says to him, oh my god, you're reacting just like your dad, right? Like,
Sometimes, you know, the body keeps score, right? Or it's intergenerational or it's cellular that we're acting out of memories or stories that we don't even consciously know that we are. Yeah. And I think it's so interesting. There's a lot of research now on how every time we remember something,
it slightly changes or it gets altered or it's almost like the memory gets eroded. Or I wonder some of those memories from our past that we hold so dear that we continue to come back to and remember and remember and remember. How much are they really a memory and how much are they just a story or a fantasy about ourselves or about our life that we want to keep telling? Yeah. Some light questions for us.
Before I help everybody remember what happened in the chapter, I do want to say that the etymology of memory is memory. It has always just meant memory. We have always had this idea of remembering, of holding memories. This is just like an ancient idea. So I kept trying to poke and they were like, no, no, it's memory all the way down. So there you go.
as far as we can remember. But now, allow me to remind you of what happens in the chapter. Mauricio, can you please count me in? I am more than happy to count you in. Ready? Okay. Yes. Three, two, one, go.
So Harry and Hagrid crash into the Tonks' house and Harry collapses and he thinks Hagrid is dead and then he's fine. And he gets healed by Ted and he's like, that's Bellatrix and it's not. It's Tonks' mom. And then they go to the borough and nobody has come back the way that they're supposed to. And people keep coming back. And George had his ear cut off.
And no one else is like severely injured except that Mad-Eye Moody is dead. And they're trying to figure out how did Voldemort find out that they were all leaving that night. You look impressed. You know, that was a good summary. And I wasn't keeping time. So I don't know how long you took. It took four minutes. I lied to you. I'm lying to our listeners about time. I'm gaslighting all of you.
Are you ready? I think so. Okay. On your mark, get set, go. Okay, so Harry and Hagrid crash and everybody comes out to help them and Harry learns that...
that not everyone has come back from the mission and George lost an ear and Mad-Eye Moody is dead and they go back to the burrow and Harry is full of guilt because people have died for him and they don't know how Voldemort knew and also the owl is dead I forgot its name in this quick time and Harry says I gotta go I shouldn't stay here
Her name is Hedwig, and the fact that you forgot her name means you're a bad person. It also has to do with memory. So Mauricio, something struck me about this theme of memory in terms of Hedwig. Harry noticed in the last chapter, obviously, when Hedwig died, right, and was crushed.
And then chaos ensued and Harry almost died and Hagrid almost died. And then they have to rush to get their portkey to the borough and nothing has gone the way that it was supposed to. And there are all sorts of new crises to be concerned about. And so he gets distracted. And then Hagrid asks, where's Hedwig? You know, we can attend to Hedwig. And he remembers again that Hedwig is dead.
And that's something that I think we all know about grief, right? I remember when my friend Brandy died, I went home from school and took a nap and I woke up and I was like, something is wrong. I remember that something bad happened, but I didn't remember what. And then I was like, oh, right, Brandy is dead. And like this wave of grief came back, right? That you...
you forget for a minute that, like, your whole world has changed. We could talk about it as reliving. It's almost like Harry is reliving Hedwig's death, just like you were reliving...
Brandy's death, right? Like the memory or the act of remembering here is almost an act of living again and experiencing the grief again as if it were for the first time. Yeah. I think that that's one of the reasons why we put up memorials, right? Like photos of people who we've loved and lost, right? That we have this anxiety about forgetting them. We know ourselves, we know that we're going to go about our days and just like, are
our current needs are gonna distract us. And so I don't know, right? Like I can imagine Harry like keeping one of Hedwig's feathers, right? Just like things to remind us to make sure that these beautiful things stay memories with us. It's a way to honor that past and to honor that thing that is lost. And I wonder, as I was listening to you speak,
If the mind and the body might distract us so that we can move on and that remembering there could be an act that keeps us in that grief or in that past. Yeah. And so, you know, we build the memorial to remember, but our body forgets to help us move on. Yeah. I've just, I'm sure you've had this feeling too of like, I don't want to move on. Right? Like I want to remember this and I want to stay in this pain. And I think that's,
That's often just a part of the process of grief. But there is this moment, right, often where you're like, I don't want the pain to go away because the pain is the memory. And once the pain goes away, this will no longer be the most important thing in my life. And I always want it to be. Yeah, the pain is the memory or the pain is a way of me honoring that which is lost. And I think also in this case with Hedwig,
There is the physical friend, the physical pet, the owl, but it also represents happier days when Hedwig would bring mail from friends and from family, when school was easy and the days were sunny and bright. And by losing Hedwig...
Harry also has to acknowledge how times have changed and that it is no longer the easy time or the sunny time. Hedwig becomes a kind of threshold that has been crossed where now Harry has to be an adult or face the reality of the war in which they are consumed. Yeah. There are these moments that it's like we are different before and after. Yeah.
And like your story, right, it can be literally true or just somehow symbolically true. It's not like Hedwig dying, right?
actually changes everything about Harry's life, right? When I think Harry would go whole days or weeks without thinking about Hedwig. Hedwig would be in the Owlery at Hogwarts and happily flying around and, you know, just doing great. And like you from your surgery from when you were 18, like there was a point at which you were totally healed.
And yet, symbolically, right, like there's a before and after. There's a moment in which Hedwig was allowed to fly free and Harry was in school. Yeah. And I even think of book one, there's a sense that when Hedwig comes in, there's a magic that has come into Harry's life. Yeah. It's his magical ally and he is going to school and his life has changed. And Hedwig had...
was a symbol of all those great things that had happened in his life. And now, with Hedwig leaving, it's almost like the magic is drained out and we have to face the war and the terror.
And it's not so magical. It's also the beginning of his childhood again, right? We know that as a one-year-old, he got presents. We'll find that out in book seven, right? That he got a little magical broom from Sirius for Christmas or for his first birthday. But from one, when his parents died, until he gets Hedwig as a present from Hagrid, he's not having a childhood. He does not get a single gift.
And so Hogwarts becomes this place where he gets to have a childhood, where adults are going to care about him. When he gets injured, he gets sent to a nurse. People are going to give him chocolate when he's sad. You know, he's going to have friends for the first time. And so it is truly symbolic of his childhood ending. Yeah.
There's another big loss in this chapter, right, of Moody. I'm wondering what you make of Moody in terms of memory. Yeah.
So when I first think of Mad-Eye Moody, the first time we met him, which funnily enough was not him, was in book four, right? And so immediately when I think of Moody, I go back to the Triwizard Tournament, to everything that he represented in that book, and to what that book meant, which was Voldemort coming back, now fully in a body, and the death of Cedric. So, you know, talking about memorials, in my mind, Moody is a memorial to Cedric.
into Cedric's death. But now, Moose is gone. He represents a kind of safety, of security, of order, of law. Yeah, and once someone becomes a memory, I feel like you become scared of what else you're gonna lose about them, right? You're like, "I've lost their body," right? "I've lost the ability to make new memories with them."
But also, I was just talking to my mom. Her parents have been both been dead for a while, but she was just recently saying to me how sad it is. She was like, I can't remember what they looked like walking anymore. That she's like, I used to be able to tell who was coming down the hall from like the sound of their steps. And now I can't picture it anymore.
And it was breaking her heart that she'd like lost this memory. And I immediately was like, oh my God, I have to take a video of my parents walking. You know, like, I don't want to forget that. We become anxious about making memories. We become anxious about losing memories. We end up
I think that one of the things you're grieving is that you're not going to be able to make new memories with them. Yeah. Moody's not going to be able to teach them anything else. Moody isn't going to have his wisdom to share anymore, his protectiveness to share anymore, right? Like Tonks says, he was the best. He saw this coming. He knew that they were going to assume Mundungus, right? Like all of that.
It's not just grief at missing the person. It's missing what the future them was going to be able to give you. Right. The imagined future with them. Yeah. And I think in this chapter, because Moody's body isn't found, there's an extra grief at, I can't even see it one more time. I can't even honor it. Or right, like, he will only live in my memory now. Yeah. There's no place for me to place that or to put that.
He only exists in my memories. And then it becomes really scary. What if I lose those memories? What if I forget? This week's episode of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is brought to you by Blue Lizard. At Blue Lizard, they have simplified sunscreens so that you can be fearless in the sun. Sun exposure is unavoidable. And with so much information out there, it can be hard to know the best way to protect your skin. Blue Lizard.
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I also think there's something about polyjuice potion that has to do with memory and how when you take the potion, you have to like hold the person who you want to become clear in your mind. Or if not, you won't be able to assume their full form or right. Like,
There's something about this potion that is also deeply connected to memory. And the fact that the first Moody that we met was Polyjuice's version of Moody. And also, everyone just took Polyjuice potion to become Harry. Like, this, I need to be able to have him clear in my memory. And now that Moody's gone, will I be able to have him clear in my memory? Will I ever be able to take that on again?
It just occurred to me, everybody is running around in Harry's clothes still in this chapter, which we don't get reminded of. But Hermione and Fleur look like themselves again at this point. But they were literally minutes ago seeing the world through Harry's eyes.
whatever, farsighted, nearsighted eyes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're literally seeing through his eyes. And they're all still running around in whatever, you know, flannel and jean, hairy look. Yeah, all the different ways that...
memories are embodied. And yeah, with Polyjuice Potion, you have to be like, what does this person sound like? And imitate them and get them into your body. Moody dying also really triggers for Harry this like, I keep losing mentors. I keep losing people who had wisdom. And he, again, you know, accounts, he's like, I lost my parents. I lost Sirius. I've lost Dumbledore. And now Moody. Right? This like,
that the world is just like taking the wise people from him and how just like one memory triggers another memory. Yeah, how they sort of cascade and you start sort of pulling out of that mental closet just this and this and this and this and you can get lost in memory. Yeah, yeah. In positive
Positive ways, too. This is a real downer of a chapter. But I mean, one of the reasons that it's so fun to get together with old friends is someone will remember something that you had forgotten about for years. And then you're like, oh, my God. Right. And it can just cascade into more and more ridiculous memories. Yeah, absolutely. Can we talk about the body? Yes. Like right now, there's no moody body.
Nobody knows what happened. They can't find him. He just has to live in memory. But later in the book, they'll find his eye on Dolores Umbridge's door, which I think is a really sort of nefarious thing.
thing that you see the Death Eaters have done. And we already know Dolores Umbridge is nasty, but now to have the eye there and in a way desecrate the memory, the body throughout the book, I think is a site of memory. Like I'm thinking of George's ear.
And George's ear gets cut and he loses the ear and he's making fun of it and he's okay with it. And, you know, some people are worried, but he's like, oh, it's fine. Look, I'm holy. And I have scars all over my body and I know what each of those scars represent and what they were and what they meant. And it's almost like my body...
memory itself is a place of memory. Like the body becomes, right? Like the body keeps the score. You said it earlier, but the body is literally a place that is remembering or reminding me of the things I've lived through, the things that have happened to me. It is like a memory album literally on my body. And I think there's something so important about honoring Moody's eye that gets left over there, honoring Moody's
George's ear that cannot be regrown, honoring Harry's scar, honoring all these places in the body that are sites of memory. Yeah. I am not a bikini wearer. I've always been a one-piece person. But since my hysterectomy last year, I'm like, no, I want to wear bikinis. I have five scars on my body and I'm so proud of them because...
It was a tough decision, but it made me healthy. And I'm just like, yeah, look at this, right? Like, it feels like a tattoo being like, ask me about my hysterectomy. I'll tell you about my choice to not have biological children in order to be healthy any day. No, absolutely. I think...
I used to be very ashamed of my scars because of what they represented. I am so proud of my scars and I show them off happily because I think, you know, going back to what you said earlier, they become memorial sites for our life and for what we've been through and for what we've had to endure or accomplish or...
Yeah. Yeah. And the kids have really positive associations with my hysterectomy scars, right? Like they knew me as sick for so long. And just over the last year, they've been able to experience me as like a healthy person. And every once in a while, it'll occur to them. They'll be like, look at you. You're just, you can't do that, right? Yeah. And the scars, when they see my scars, it reminds them. They're like, oh, right. You were sick.
And you're not. And like, that's so fun. You're changed. The scar reminds the world and you that you're changed. Yeah. Then there's Harry's scar, right? Because scars can obviously be a talisman of horrible things also, right? Like they can remind us of deeply scary moments and traumatic moments. And Harry's scar, I mean like...
It is haunting him throughout. And one of the things that's interesting about Harry's scar is that it creates memories of things that didn't happen to him and that he isn't there, which I also think is a metaphor, right? Like,
You get told a story about your parents long enough, it's like you were there. You know, like our memories mess with us in that. Or I often forget if something was a dream or real. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Harry's scar is literally horcrux, right? Sometimes these scars are all but wounds that we carry around. And even Harry's scar is a memory to a moment of...
that he doesn't want to remember, that he can't remember, but that he sees every day because it's literally on his face. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, George makes the joke about, oh, I'm holy now, get it? Holy. And I do think we could talk about scars being holy or sacred in the way that they remind us of the journey we've been through. And whether it's a good one or a bad one, there's still memories of our life. Yeah. Yeah.
Part of the memory with George's ear now is that his mom healed him, right? And like she couldn't fully heal him, but that she like did everything she could. I feel like you always invite me to try to see things in a more positive light without forgetting the sadness or the like actual material losses.
Like George is in pain and he lost a lot of blood and like all of that matters. And also it's a battle wound. It's a scar with pride and love associated with it too. Yeah. And I think that moment you just highlighted, it'll always be a reminder of his mother's love and the way that she was there to heal him and to take care of him. Yeah. Yeah.
So Mauricio, usually we pick a sentence at random for the sacred reading practice we're going to do today. We're doing Lectio Divina. It's our first time this season doing it. It is a four-step medieval Christian reading practice. I will walk you through it. Usually we pick the sentence at random. Today I was like, I'm sorry, everyone. There are two sentences at the end of this chapter that just feel...
Too appropriate for our time. So I'm picking our Lectio Divina. I'm going to read us two sentences and then we'll just do the last one.
This is Hermione talking to Harry. Harry has just made clear that he is seeing what Voldemort's up to through his scar. And Hermione is like, dude, you got to stop. Dumbledore wanted you to stop. Shut your mind down. And what she says is about Voldemort. Harry, he's taking over the ministry and the newspapers and half the wizarding world. Don't let him inside your head, too.
I always read the chapter physically and then I also listen to it once. And this morning I listened to NPR to Up First and then I listened to the chapter and I was like, oh, this is just about Donald Trump. And so the sentence that I want us to do for our Lectio is don't let him inside your head too.
Because I think that it gets to the heart of something that we're all struggling with right now, which is like, what relationship do we want to have to the news on any given day? So step one of Lectio Divina, Mauricio, is we talk about what is literally happening in the sentence. I've done some of that. But what else do we have to add here? Don't let him inside your head too.
I mean, it is literally about allowing something inside, specifically the head, which is the place of memory and of thoughts and of, right? It's where my inner voice talks to me. So it's about not letting him there keep being true to yourself. Right.
She isn't saying, and this is really helpful because this is where it's like very specifically about Voldemort, right? She's not saying don't think about Voldemort. She's not saying don't pay attention to the news. She's not saying like let's not think about the best strategy. Like let's just forget and be happy. But she's saying don't let him control your mind. Don't let him take over your mind. Don't let him use your mind. Right.
Because Voldemort literally will sometimes use Harry's mind to potentially spy on Dumbledore's army. Or trick Harry and get him into dangerous situations. Yeah, this magical distinction is actually really, really helpful. It's not, don't think about him, but it's, yeah, don't let him inside your head, too. Yeah.
Okay, so step two, we ask ourselves what other stories it reminds us of. What other books, what other songs, paintings this reminds us of. Don't let him inside your head too. I don't know why this came to mind, so you're going to have to help me figure out what's smart about this potentially, if there is something. The Goya painting of Saturn eating his own son came into my mind because...
It's a painting of someone bloodily putting a head into their mouth. Interesting. It's about somebody putting the head in the... In their head. Yeah. That's a really interesting connection, right? Cronus would eat all his own children. He was so in his head about how he would lose power that he would eat all his children. Yeah. There's sort of a reversal there. Don't let him in your head, but...
The prophecy was already in Cronus's head. Right. The reason that Harry has to be the one to fight Voldemort is because he's a horcrux, because Voldemort is in his head, right? Literally. These things always, exactly. These things always have this duality. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what else I connected with. Don't let him inside your head too. It also reminds me of like,
cheering when you're like, don't listen to them, right? Like, don't distract you. Keep going, right? It's like a kind of cheer. Like, don't let them in your head. Don't get psyched out. Yeah, but when you just said that, it reminds me of like the siren song and all these things that can go inside your head and control you or force you to do things that you're not supposed to do or that you shouldn't do. Or that a different version of you wouldn't want that version of you to do. Yeah, yeah.
I'm thinking of Odysseus, who literally wants the siren song in his head. And he asks everyone to cover their ears, but he listens to it just to have that experience of what it's like. But has them tie him to the mast so he can't act on it. Right. Like Odysseus says, tie me because that future Odysseus won't be able to resist it. Right. So the question is, did Odysseus let the sirens in his head? Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Because when it was over, he wasn't like, untie me and now I'm going to go back. Right, right. And so like, yeah, what does it actually mean to have something in your head? Yeah.
Can we talk about memory through this then? Sure. Don't bring that memory into this conversation. Don't let that past you in your head for this present decision. Yeah. Because sometimes memory, like we said at the beginning, can be a great place to remember. And sometimes it can be an anchor to your past and won't let you move forward. Don't let him, I would say, like past Mauricio, into your head right now. Yeah. Or at least not that.
That one. Yeah. Okay, step three is what does it remind us of in our own lives? And the sentence is, don't let him inside your head too. I think of all those negative versions of me that I'm like, don't let them in your head. I'm really clear-minded right now of who I want to be and what I want to do. Don't let those insecure versions of you
in your head or sometimes those people outside of me, those other people who might have negative things to say about my ideas, about my desires, my needs. Don't let them in your head too. Don't let them come in and dissuade you from being who you want to be. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like
someone said this and now I'm going to misquote them. But we often make decisions in conversation with like fake Twitter trolls, right? Where it's like, I don't want to say this thing because someone is going to counter me in X, Y, and Z way. And it's like, okay, why are you letting that, why are you letting this fictional Twitter troll control you?
what you're doing. - Oh, I don't wanna say this 'cause I'll sound stupid. They'll think I'm stupid, but that's the Twitter troll inside my head. - Right, no, it's always the Twitter. Twitter trolls live so loud in my head. What it reminds me of in my life is when I started proctoring living with Harvard freshmen, I was 30 and I stopped at 36. And when I stopped, I was like, "Oh, I've literally lived twice as long as you."
And I just was meeting with the student and she had this like whole story about herself as a quitter.
She had all this evidence. She was like, no, no, no, no. I always quit things. And I just wished with my whole heart that I could be like, you are too young to have any story about yourself, right? Like there's so much counter data to that. And that I was like, oh, one day I'll be 72 and look back at myself at 36 and be like, you're too young to tell yourself that.
That story, right? Carol Dweck, the great educator, talks about a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. And just we let certain stories live so large in our head that we stop believing in our own capacity for growth. That doesn't mean that you don't take responsibility for what you've done in the past, but that you just believe that you can still grow. And that like negative...
Negative thoughts are just louder, right? So it's like try to not let as many of them in your head because they're going to scream down the good ones. I cannot tell you about all the compliments I've gotten for making the show. I can tell you about most of the insults. Yeah, yeah. It's just that the insults feed those negative stories that were so desirous to prove true.
We want to confirm that we're a quitter. We want to confirm that we're a loser, that we're not good enough. But why? Therapist Chaplin and Mauricio, why? Why do we want to do that? Because I think disproving them and seeing that we're the opposite, that we're full of potential, that we're full of possibility, right?
means a lot of responsibility. It means we have to step up and step in and assume our power and start to create that new life that we have always thought or told ourselves we're not capable of living or we don't deserve to live. And those stories, even though they hurt us, are a comfortable place to be in. Yeah, they're safer. Because if you're going to try new things, you risk embarrassing yourself and
It's like, I'd rather feel small shame about
about who I think I am than risk feeling another more public shame of trying to be something else. We already know the pain of those stories, of the one where I'm a quitter. But telling the story where I'm not a quitter could lead me somewhere. And what if there's more pain there? So I'd just rather stay with this pain that I already know. Yeah. Okay. So step four of Lectio Divina is what does this make us feel called to? Don't let him inside your head to...
This was so helpful for me because this is like not I should stop listening to the news, not I should like hide from what Trump is doing, but I shouldn't let him and his administration and Musk and the whole apparatus.
impact the way that I want to see the world. That like, I want to see the world as a place of hope and change and love and possibility. And learning about what they're doing is not the same thing as letting them in my head. Yeah. What it calls me to do is all about believing in my own ideas and my own points of view. It's like trusting what I'm feeling, what I'm seeing, what I'm thinking, and not letting those people
quote unquote, out there, tell me how I should think or what I should believe in. Because I feel like a lot of the time, those opinions instruct or direct me on what a good thought is or what a good point of view or what a good perspective is. And not letting them in my head doesn't mean not listening to them or not considering them, but it just means trusting my own point of view and trusting my own instinct and my own
opinion as well. As I was just thinking about that, like keeping my own point of view, and you were saying, I want to see a world full of hope. And I think of Hedwig and sort of the end of childhood and the end of magic for Harry. I want to see a world which does exist there, which is still magical.
There is still magic in Harry Potter's world and there is still fun and beauty. And even though the war sometimes overshadows that, I want to believe that the world can still...
hold enchantment and happiness and joy and kindness. Yeah. That's one of the reasons why I love that the wedding is going to happen in just a few chapters, right? The novel really embodies that, I think. Yeah. Thank you so much, Mauricio. Thank you. That was really special.
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This week's voicemail is from Natalie. Hi Harry Potter and the Sacred Text team. My name is Natalie and I'm calling from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in response to Vanessa and Beth Silver's episode on Book 6, Chapter 4, Horace Slughorn. As I read this chapter, the theme of identity stood out to me most significantly when Dumbledore made the offhand comment about the Inferi,
He explains to Harry they are corpses, dead bodies that have been bewitched to do a dark wizard's bidding. In theory, have not been seen for a long time, however, not since Voldemort was last powerful. He killed enough people to make an army of them, of course. These in theory were once real people with full and complex identities, perhaps as sister, friend, peacemaker, cat lover, etc.
Then, as they lived into an important part of their identities, justice seeker, enemy of Voldemort, they were murdered. Even in death, most people are able to maintain and be remembered for their identities, but not these people. Because of their fight against evil, their entire identities have been co-opted and corrupted. Those who in life stood against wizard supremacy are now being used as weapons to sustain it. Perhaps they are being used to hurt their own loved ones.
It makes me think of the families of victims of violence who seek peace and forgiveness, but society and the criminal punishment system try to co-opt their situation and their stories for their own agenda to punish or to seek capital punishment. Their identities are being pulled out from under them and they have to work really hard to reclaim them. I bless these people who do not get the opportunity to rest in peace.
I bless their families who have to lose them twice, first in death and second in identity. I bless people who are known for one aspect of their identity instead of for who they are as whole people. And I bless all people who are manipulated or exploited by the government or media for living into their true identities and offering themselves to the world. Thank you for your thoughtful, smart, and compassionate podcast. Peace be with you.
Natalie, thank you so much for that really beautiful blessing. I've never thought about the inferior in that way. It's embarrassing. I've always been like inferior, creepy, keep them away from me. But yeah, just realizing that these are absolutely whole people who are being weaponized even in death, really just adds so much compassion and complexity to the story. And so I'm just really grateful for this reading. Thank you very much. It just connects me to the theme of memory.
And the way in which we can use memory, and I'm going to sound like a broken record, but sort of to remember and push us forward or to trick us or trick ourselves or to anchor us in a place in the past that is stuck. And I think the Inferi, as Natalie was just describing them, or as she brought them into perspective,
in a way, are that these are people who have been weaponized and their memory is just being used for Voldemort's purpose. It is now time for us to honor members of our community who have been loved and lost. Shauna Barron, who was a professor who loved her students. Sandra Lonza, who loved her grandson and pups.
Catherine, who is 59, and a blazing light in the dark. Susie, who is 65, a mother, friend, and spiritual guide. And Danny Cher, who is 49, a wife and mother, and great comedian. May their memories be a blessing. Mauricio, we now get to offer blessings to characters in the chapter. Who would you like to bless? I would like to bless Hedwig. Hedwig.
Because I feel that Hedwig is being asked to hold so much in this chapter. They were, in my mind, rarely present through the books. They would come in every once in a while, deliver a letter, remind Harry of joy. And now, in this chapter, they're being asked...
to hold all of Harry's childhood and the horror of war and the beginning of everything that is happening. And that is a lot to hold with those two wings. So my blessing goes to Hedwig. Amen.
I want to bless George. You and I have both served as hospital chaplains, so I feel like you and I have both seen this where the patient ends up taking care of the caretakers totally understandably, and it's this beautiful thing. And George just like immediately starts cracking jokes and trying to show everybody that he's okay. And obviously, if you are a patient, I am not saying that it is your job to take care of the caretakers, but I do think it is just this really beautiful moment of generosity and of being
His joie de vivre coming through, even in this moment, that must have been really painful and really scary. Amen. Amen. Next week, we are reading Book 7, Chapter 6, The Ghoul in Pajamas, through the theme of commitment with Casper Turquille.
Our only reminder before we give our thanks is that you can get more Mauricio Bruce in your life by subscribing to The Real Question or by joining us at What Matters, which you can learn more about at NotSorryWorks.com.
This was a Not Sorry production. We are a feminist production company. We are sponsored by the Fetzer Institute. I'm the executive producer. We are edited and produced by AJ Ramas, and our music is by Ivan Paisao and Nick Bull. We are distributed by ACAST. We love our book club level patrons, Averill, Amanda C., Amanda S., Amber, Amy, Ashley, Danny, Emile, Esther, Gregoire, Casey, Kelsey, Kreeti, Kyle, Marina, Nadia, and Sita. And we love you.
We'd love to thank Natalie for their voicemail this week and our wonderful team. Ariana Nettleman, Julia, Argi, Nikki, Zoltan, Courtney Brown, Matt Potts, Anissa Ahmed, Danny Langley, Casper Turquille, and Stephanie Falsell. Mauricio, thank you so much. You're so welcome. I was so happy to be here. You're so handsome. Oh, thank you.
Can I invite everyone to come to the real question? Yes. It's a great show, and I think you'll really enjoy it. If you haven't heard it yet, come take a listen. Yes, too. I know, but I wanted to do it. Okay. You're invited, everyone. This week's episode of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is brought to you by Blue Lizard. At Blue Lizard, they have simplified sunscreens so that you can be fearless in the sun. Sonic!
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