a visit to Hogwarts

Our parish Vacation Bible School is this week. Through the efforts of Meg W., our director of Christian Formation, the church has been transformed into Hogwarts for the week. She had lots of help with the setup, including Mike, Tom, Zoe, and Kim. Now that the week has arrived, what seems like the whole parish is involved, with dozens of adults appearing in cameo roles.

*** we interrupt this essay for a Shameless Commercial Message ***

Wizards and Wonders -- a curriculum for Vacation Bible School
If one reads the reviews from Virginia Theological Seminary, it lists the strengths and weaknesses of this and other curricula which they recommend. For this one:

"Weakness: requires free-spirited leaders"
Fortunately, we have them around here.

*** and now, we return to The Music Box ***

Meg has also done a VBS based on the Chronicles of Narnia, "Aslan is on the move," and yet another based on "A Wrinkle in Time." These, too, require "free-spirited leaders," and the transformation of one's church into places of magic and wonder. I am fuzzy on the details, but I think that Meg wrote one or two of these curricula, all of them now published. Vacation Bible School in this parish is extraordinary, and Meg is extraordinary. It is a privilege to work with her.


I have been involved in some of these events, but not this year. I will be gone the latter part of the week, so I am on the sidelines. Nonetheless, I have been wearing a black cassock around the church so that I look like one of the miscellaneous wizards (or ghosts thereof) roaming the hallways of Hogwarts. I have done some of my work in the Potions Classroom (formerly the choir room), suitably located in the lowest recess of the church dungeons. I regularly walk down Diagon Alley (formerly a hallway in the educational wing) to the Great Hall (the parish hall). Yesterday, I spent much of the morning at the organ, dressed in my cassock. As the various classes passed through (they took a different route every time to get from place to place, easily possible in our maze of a building), I stopped and glared at them to provide some atmosphere.

I will miss it when it is over.