Kyler is home tonight. There is much rejoicing.

When he left, we all expected that he would be gone into early November, and would miss Ubercon for it; however, he did so well that they announced a while back that he would be finished tomorrow–and then decided this morning that he could leave today. I was supremely pleased to be able to bring him home, and proud that he did so well.

Unfortunately, that, plus a few other problems, put me well behind on today’s work–it is, after all, Tuesday, my heavy day. One of those other problems had me sitting in a parking lot for most of an hour when I should have been starting dinner–but at least I remembered to take my Romans notes for editing.

Speaking of editing, I got flagged by the printer of About the Fruit because I had not properly placed the ISBN on the copyright page (mea culpa, I did not pay enough attention to the directions, and was worried about how I was supposed to add the barcode to the back, so when I saw that they had done that I didn’t look further). I have made the correction to my copy, but still have to upload it to them; at the same time, I will adjust the price to the regular price, but that means also changing the Specials page on my site to remove the sale announcement. So that’s more work, probably more than I can accomplish tonight. Tomorrow already has its own scheduled disruptions, but hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze a bit extra into the day.

In other good news, the gout is subsiding rapidly, and I’ve started leaving the walking stick behind.

–M. J. Young

Many of you will by now have seen the news that J. K. Rowling has stated her heroic and much-revered character Dumbledore is “gay”. Already I have been asked about this, and I will be giving my answer here in a moment. What interests me more is her revelation, more quietly reported, that the entire Harry Potter series is, and has always been, a Christian story. Rowling kept this “secret” close to her breast while dealing each book, as she feared giving it away too soon would lead readers to guess the end before they reached it. This pleases me. I’m not the only person to have noticed the Christian influences in the Harry Potter series, and I’m certainly not the most vocal of those defending it, but I have taken a stand in defense of the stories as part of my unofficial position as defender of Christian fantasy in the modern world. Having her say what I have been saying is rewarding.

On the other report, over on MySpace, a mysterious friend through a friend who often asks me odd questions, Dr. Jack Centipede, asked me my opinion of the report. My comment there was truncated–apparently I failed to keep to some unstated word limit imposed by MySpace–so I am going to copy what was saved and attempt to complete it here.

I don’t want to say that an author is wrong about her own character, so what I’ll say instead is, I don’t see it.

There is something of a pernicious error which grew in the twentieth century, which holds that two men who care about each other and who bond with each other are therefore homosexuals. C. S. Lewis complained about this, saying (I think in The Four Loves) that when you have these close friendships, that “philos” “brotherly love”, someone will say that of course they are “really” homosexual–and that what you feel is pity for the one who says this, because it suggests that he has never known real friendship. It is quite possible for men to care about each other without being homosexual, but in our age every effort is made to characterize such relationships as homosexual, because those in homosexual relationships want to be able to claim that their relationships are “normal”.

I see nothing in Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindenwald that indicates it more than a very close friendship, the kind of friendship I have had rarely in my life. Dumbledore is not gay, but caring and sensitive and eager to know people and to forge relationships with them. It is not the same thing.

Let me make two more points on this, briefly.

First, if Dumbledore is gay, then any man who has ever felt a close connection, a bond of sincere friendship and mutual interest, with any other man, is also gay. I think–indeed, I would hope–that that would be all men everywhere. By this definition, then, every man is gay; and if that is so, then the category is meaningless, and no man is.

Second, it is significant in my mind that the same is not said about women. We assume that women forge these dear and close friendships with other women, and that this says nothing about their sexuality. It is only when men forge such relationships that this becomes “homosexual” or “gay”.

This puts men in a lose-lose situation. On the one hand, we are accused of being cold, uncaring, unemotional, self-centered and self-interested, failing to bond with others, failing to share our true feelings. On the other hand, should we venture to warm, care, emote, reach out to and bond with others, and share our true feelings, we are suddenly branded as “gay”. You can’t have it both ways. Either it is quite normal for people–men and women–to have caring relationships with each other, or it is always abnormal for anyone–man or woman–to care about a member of the same sex.

Thus I think Rowling has fallen into the trap of assuming that her character Dumbledore must have been gay because he cared deeply for and about another man. I care deeply for and about my father, my uncles, my cousins, my brothers, and my sons; that does not make me gay–nor does it make me gay if I also care deeply about friends who happen to be guys. What’s a guy to do, anyway? After all, if I, as a married man, care deeply about other men, I am labeled “gay”; but if I care deeply about other women, I am labeled “lecherous”. The only kind of man we will accept as manly is the one who doesn’t care for anyone but himself, and that’s not the kind of man we need in this life.

From there I commented on the Christian connections of the book, including the above news link, but since I’ve already done that here I won’t repeat it.

There are a dozen things I am supposed to be doing right now, I suppose, but rather than attempt to list them here, I’m going to attempt to do them, and maybe tell you about them tomorrow. The gout persists, flaring up overnight, but calming a bit as I work; I wonder to what degree the constriction of my feet within my shoes is reducing the pain.

–M. J. Young

It is a very strange thing, really. Every once in a great while I am afflicted with rather severe and seemingly inexplicable pain in my foot–my left foot, although I cannot swear that it has always been my left foot. I mentioned having it in the end of this past June, but that was quite unusual. The thing that is odd about this pain, which my doctor diagnoses as gout, is that I seem to get it usually–but by no means consistently–in October.

I realized it at Ubercon–probably Ubercon VI, if I’m tracking back aright. What struck me most about it, as I hobbled about with my cane, was that the previous time–and the time the problem was diagnosed–was just in time for Ubercon IV. However, if memory serves, I did not have any pain last year at or around Ubercon VIII–although I probably took the walking stick to be safe.

As of yesterday, the pain had returned, perhaps not with so much of a vengeance as I described in June, but fiercely enough that it was painful even lying down. I had to struggle with it during the afternoon and early evening, as there was much I had to do, including our own grocery shopping; by the end of the night I was using a walking stick, which I continued to use today. All I have taken for it is four hundred milligrams of Ibuprofen (that’s two tablets, but twice the recommended dose), but the pain has started to fade. I hope to attend Ubercon gout-free.

Today’s tasks included, foremost, visiting Kyler. He finishes this phase on Wednesday, and will be home for at least a few hours (assuming I can get him here). After that, the next step is uncertain.

I could tell you several things that did not advance significantly, but there’s not much point to that, so instead I’ll turn my attention to advancing something.

–M. J. Young