Two years ago, my family and I traveled to London. One of the highlights of the trip for my family was the Harry Potter Experience. We boarded a train, then a double-decker bus, to visit the movie sets, which Warner Brothers Studios savvily turned into as museum/interactive experience for fans of Rowling’s record-breaking series.
We visited the Dursley’s brick house on Privet Drive; Hogwart’s famous dining hall, home of the temperamental sorting hat; Professor Snape’s Potions classroom, lined with a bazillion glass bottles each with a handwritten label; and Diagon Alley, where our favorite wizards shop for their wands, robes, and Quidditch broomsticks. All the while, this Potterhead basked in every exquisite details. Toward the end of the tour, the wall of hat stretched far above each vistor’s head. The room of special effects gave a nose-to-nose encounter with the mermaid from the Goblet of Fire. (A bit too close, thank you very much.) Finally, we entered a huge dark room that housed the largest model of Hogwarts castle (shown above), surrounded by dozens of sketches and paper models of the famed castle’s infancy. As we walked down the long ramps around the castle, the lights changed from daylight to night, revealing the small lights moving like torches through the hallways. Magical, even for a muggle.
The exhibits housed only a fraction of the art created for the film series, yet my family spent hours walking through them. Admittedly, we did take a short break to enjoy a glass of butter beer. Well before we headed back to London, the Harry Potter Studio Experience forever changed my appreciation for the art of film and thousands of creativity hours the crews poured into the Harry Potter film series.
No one walking through the sets, sculptures, props, and costumes would attribute them to cosmic coincidence. The whole tour pays homage to the creative works of countless humans, starting with J.K. Rowling, the woman whose words first conjured Harry and his entire world onto pages. Yet how many of us spend our entire lives exploring this glorious world—the grand landscapes, its countless species of animals and plants, the very colors of life—and fail to acknowledge the its beautiful creativity, not to mention the Creator? How that must grieve our Maker’s heart.
In Romans 1:20, the apostle Paul writes, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” When we stop to examine and admire the beautiful details of our world, we see the fingerprints of our divine creator all around us. Though we might prefer coincidence to creator, our choice is not excused in His eyes.
Our Lord doesn’t hide from humankind. Not only does He reveal himself through creation, He provided a wonderful series of books, so we can know his majesty better. Among them, Psalm 65 provides a wonderful closing to this post, beckoning our songs of joy to God.