7 Heavenly Virtues: Temperance

[rapierpen at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 29893

Hi, Peg--

It's a pleasure to make your virtual acquaintance. I'm a newbie to 
HPFGUs and this is my first post. I've been taking the Barnes & Noble 
Online University course called "Teaching Children Literature Using 
Harry Potter." In fact, this is my 3rd time through the course. My 
involvement there is partly pedagogical, allowing me to teach what I 
know, and partly writerly, giving me a place to generate and refine 
ideas for essays as grist for my website and for my book. The class 
also helps me learn about the potential audience for the book: 
teachers, parents, adolescents. More about this later. I've met some 
literate adults in that class who I've recruited to contribute to the 
discussion on my website. 

It's a pleasure to encounter cyber synchronicity, and that's what 
happened when I found your essay on temperance and your earlier (Jan 
2000) series of essays on the Virtues and Vices (which I've copied 
and will read off-line at my leisure).

In the past few days, I've been reading two books simultaneously that 
deal with your interest: Sheldon Cashdan's "The Witch Must Die: How 
Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives" and [can't recall author at the 
moment] "CS Lewis Explores Vice and Virtue." Inspired by these books, 
I was intending to examine HP Book I to see how the Dursley's portray 
the 7 Vices, but durn if you hadn't beaten me to it!

As a fellow writer, I'd be interested to learn more about your areas 
of interest and what you've been working on, and publishing, lately. 
I have a book in the works that you can read about, along with about 
80 some essays of mine on my website, an EZboard called The 
Classrooms of Hogwarts. About 15 essays directly relate to Harry 
Potter, others concern the craft of writing, attempt to clarify the 
experience of adolescence (in the forum called "Emerald City"),  
address parenting issues, etc.. You can read my personal profile in 
the Meet the Moderator forum. A quick way to find that is to do a 
Google search for "Rapierpen," pen namely me, or you can go the whole 
URL route: pub69.ezboard.com/btheclassroomsofhogwarts.

I look forward to hearing more of your ideas and perhaps to the 
chance for virtual cross-pollination. As you'll see when you visit my 
site, I'm big on synergy as well as on synchronicity.

Cybonara!

Rob "Rapierpen" Henderson