One of the best perks about being Minister of Music at Edwards Church is that I have a reserved parking space behind the church. How many people in downtown Northampton would love to have that! Over the summer, someone changed the sign on my parking space to read “Reserved for Minister of Magic.” I was thrilled and left it that way for several weeks.

Okay, is there anyone who doesn’t know what a Minister of Magic is? In the Harry Potter series, the Minister of Magic is a political position roughly equivalent to the Prime Minister in England. He or she is the head of the wizarding world and is in charge of all things magical. In the original series, those occupying the position were quite corrupt. However, in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a new play which takes place twenty years after the original events, the Ministry of Magic is in much better hands. (I won’t spoil the surprise.)

There’s definitely a sort of magic about music. A composer hears sounds in his or her head and writes them down in the intricate code of musical notation. Then people familiar with this code can recreate those sounds, often hundreds of years later, for others to enjoy. Unlike art, where we view the original creations, music is a recreative discipline. We musicians get to take the composer’s blueprint and make their creation our own. That’s a pretty magical thing.

But there’s also magic in worship. The magical silence during prayer, the reading of ancient texts, the mystical aura of communion, the sharing of signs of peace. In our singing, our praying, and our fellowship, we create a shared experience that is so much greater than anything we could do by ourselves.

I’m thrilled to be your Minister of Magic at Edwards Church. But when you think about it, aren’t we all Ministers of Magic?