True victory

First, sorry this is so late. I've been busy, and unfortunately, this is one of the easier things to put off.

This week I'll combine a couple topics. For my Bible quizzing, I've been studying I Corinthians chapter 15, among others. It has some beautiful verses that are not only beautiful for the words in them, but the truth they contain. While first memorizing the chapter back in December, I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So I was doubly intrigued by the verse Harry finds on his parents' tombstone: "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (I Cor. 15:26).

This verse relates well to the book's title objects--the deathly hallows, three items which, if owned by the same person, allows that person to master death. On his unrelated quest, Harry hears about the hallows, and while he chooses to follow Dumbledore's directions instead of pursuing the hallows, paths cross so he meets Voldemort in a final encounter holding all three hallows. I don't understand this entirely, but the hallows prevent Harry's "death," and after a near-death experience, he comes back to defeat Voldemort. So it would appear that Harry has destroyed death.

But has he? He tricked death once, but he'll still die one day. So will Ron, Hermione, and everyone else he helped in the story. Many of his friends die during the battle, and he can't help them. He has defeated an agent of death, Voldemort, but only Christ can claim true mastery over death.

I'll close with some of my other favorite verses from I Corinthians 15. With each promise, think about how much greater our God is than any other power.

"I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?"
...But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Dreams

Finally for a writing topic. This came to mind again after I had a rather vivid and disturbing dream about my AP literature test (classmates can inquire further). I thought it would be funny to tell later, so I got up at 6:00 in the morning and wrote it down. This reminded me how rarely I record my dreams.

If you've read books about writing and brainstorming, you've probably been told to keep a notebook at your bedside to write down what comes to mind in the middle of the night. This is not the best use for such a notebook. Keep one there to write down your dreams after you have them. It may be hard to get up and do it, but if it's one of those adrenaline-pumping dreams where the ending plays over and over in your mind, it helps you get it out of your head.

I realized the value of this about four years ago, when I had a dream about traveling...somewhere (hey, it was a dream), and I was trying to protect my family from...somebody (I think it was Darth Vader, but I'm no longer sure). The most vivid part, though, was the lightsaber on my belt. I could really feel it, that gave me the idea for a story of a girl who finds a lightsaber on the street and is trained by Darth Vader. The story I wrote for NaNoWriMo came out pretty poorly, but I think the idea was good. And it was good practice. All from one dream.

What are your thoughts about your dreams? Comments welcome.