If you do not know the words…..

Of all the characters in Harry Potter, I have to admit that my favourite is Luna Lovegood. While a lot of people don’t like her because she is (at first glance) essentially just comic relief, once you look at her in more detail, she becomes a far more interesting character.

And, as time has gone on, I have begun to realise that her core beliefs – or what I take to be her core beliefs – are mine as well. That I have believed in things without any proof or evidence for longer than I can remember, regardless of how many (or how few) other people believe in them.

The Cumple-Horned Snorkack is the key example of this.

Hermione Granger – a very model of a modern young woman – doesn’t believe in the existance of the Snorkack (Crumple-Horned or otherwise) because she hasn’t seen it, and she hasn’t found any pictures or accounts in the various books she has read.

But Luna Lovegood – the comic side-kick – believes in it. Because her father says it is real and because she doesn’t demand evidence that it is real, but evidence that it isn’t.

And I have to say, I side with Luna on this.

I first heard the song “Puff The Magic Dragon” when I was a kid, and even then I found it said that Jacky Paper would grow up and leave his friend behind. But back then, I had no concept of what being grown up was like – no kid really does.

But now – well now I am all grown up, and I still don’t get how Jacky Paper could want to leave that world behind. A world where you can run, jump and fight. Where you can consort with Kings and Dragons, Pirates and Princes.

I’m all grown up – I have a house, a mortgage, a job. I have responsibilities and lots of grown up things to do. And I do them – I go to work, I pay my bills, my taxes and so on, and I think that I handle being a grown up pretty well.

But where Jacky and I differ – where I tend to side with Luna – is that I refuse to stop living the world I lived in as a child. Or at least, I refuse to stop believing the things I believed in as a child.

No one can adequetely prove to me that Dragons doesn’t exist. No one can adequetly prove that magic isn’t real. No one has shown me evidence to prove that Snorkacks, flying monkies and Arakeen Sandwormds don’t exist.

And while I understand the argument that you can’t prove a negative, however I would counter that if you can’t prove something doesn’t exist suggests that it might exist and you just haven’t seen it yet.

So I believe in Dragons, in Unicorns, in magic and Time Lords, because no one has been able to prove to me that there is a reason NOT to believe in them.

The obvious paralell is with religion – the entire basis of it is faith. You have faith – you believe in the evidence of things not seen. You just *know*.

Except I don’t think that Dragons run and guide my life. I don’t think that a Time Lord is going to make my life better. I don’t pray to Markus The Unicorn for advice or guidance.

But – by the same token – I don’t use the made up teachings of Markus The Unicorn to tell Mr Smith that he can’t marry his boyfriend or that they can’t adopt a child. I don’t use my belief that Dragons exist to blow up all the people who do not believe that Dragons exist.

However, those things aside, my belief in things that other people don’t believe in – that just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t real – is something I think everyone could do with a little of in their life.