True Beauty

-

Those of you who know me personally, know that I am a gigantic Harry Potter fan.

On our recent trip to the UK, we were in the midst of Harry Potter country. Not only were we in the area where the movies were filmed, we also got to visit the places where J.K. Rowling got her inspiration to write these wonderful tales.

We made sure to use every opportunity to immerse ourselves in the Harry Potter fandom in the UK.

We visited Kings Cross station, the Warner Brothers Studios, Tom Riddle's grave, the coffee shop where JK Rowling used to write her books (The Elephant Room), many of the castles that Hogwarts was modeled after and we even got to ride on the Hogwarts Express steam train! Needless to say, I was in my element.

At the Warner Bros Studio Tour we saw how the film makers used amazing special effects to make brooms fly, dragons come to life and magic real. In one of the rooms (Shown in the picture above) they have a massive replica of Hogwarts castle that they used to film wide shots of the school. 

It truly is beautiful.

However, the most amazing discovery that we made was that when they needed to fully capture the beauty of the scenery found in the films, they ventured into the deepest parts of Scotland and used the natural beauty of the mountains and lochs that are found there.

This realization reminded me that even with the advanced editing capabilities that we have at the moment to recreate beauty through special effects and fancy film making techniques, nothing can measure up and compare to the natural beauty that can be found in God's creation.

"Take a good look at God’s wonders,
they’ll take your breath away."
- Psalm 66:3 (The Message)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

The Laws of Leviticus

-
Image
The second and third passages of scripture that are used to condemn homosexuality and clobber LGBTQ+ people come from the often-read book of Leviticus (sarcasm alert). Before digging into these verses, let’s quote them here: “Don’t lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.” - Leviticus 18:22 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” - Leviticus 20:13 These strong words in the Bible have armed anti-gay protesters with enough content to fill their picket signs with hatred and violence. “Homosexuality is an Abomination” and “God hates fags” and “To death with the gays” are all signs that make regular appearances at Pride parades throughout the world, unfortunately often held up by so-called Christians. Regardless of someone’s belief about homosexuality, I will never understand how some Christians see this as a Christ-like response...
Read more

The Ceremony that Divided the Church

-
Image
Note: A shorter version of this article was first published with the Jesuit Institute of South Africa. Last week Friday, my family sat down to watch the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The French always have a knack for the theatrics and this year was no different. The performances throughout the long ceremony were mesmerizing and provocative. We went to bed that night feeling tired but excited for the Olympic Games that were officially starting the following day. Little did I know that not everyone shared my enthusiasm. The Outrage I woke up the following morning and decided to browse social media (when is this ever a good idea?). My feed was filled with people sharing their outrage at a particular scene of the Olympics’ opening ceremony. A still picture of the ceremony was being shared alongside a picture of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” painting which admittedly showed a slight resemblance to the original. According to the outraged folk (including some morally...
Read more

Leap of Faith

-
Image
I recently did the Lake Eland Extreme Zip-line with some of my friends from Pietermaritzburg. The zip-line is 1 100 meters long and reaches max speeds of up to 160km's per hour. All that is keeping you from falling hundreds of meters to an inevitable death is 2 cables and a harness that my hysterical brain was telling me would not have been out of place as a car's seat-belt. We arrived early and waited for half an hour as we contemplated our life choices up to this point. Eventually we were all kitted up and ready to go. While I wouldn't say that I have Acrophobia - an extreme fear of heights - as I looked out over the gorge that we would be flying through, breaking the national speed-limit in the process, it is fair to say that my stomach started churning and my legs turned to jelly. It was at this point that I'm sure many of us were trying to think of any reasonable excuse that would get us out of this jump without seeming like a coward. One of the thin...
Read more