It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass – LOTR, The Two Towers
There is something about darkness, suffering, and pain. Its malice and snares can have an effect on us. It causes our souls to ache, our minds to worry and our hearts to be in despair. With every beating heartbeat, we take one step into that lonely dark forest, akin to entering Mirkwood Forest, unaware of what lies ahead yet the soul is distraught and in distress. The amygdala fires off electric neurons into our bodies, forcing us to take the darkness and the worries head on. Our hearts become even more despair. What if we fail? What if we lose? What if everything that we work so hard for is gone?
When I was in college, I used to always remember this platitude – rainy clouds do come but eventually they have to give way to the sunshine. And when you think of it its true. The rain clouds don’t stay on forever. It is never a perpetual winter, even in the arctic continent, where the ice and glaciers eventually melt to allow the creatures of the habitat to begin their search for game.
God doesn’t allow perpetual winters in our lives. Its even written in nature’s DNA. Everything comes and goes, including bad weather, worries and anxieties. As samwise wisely points out in the midst of all their despair – “But in the end…its only a passing thing”. How true that is in our lives. Everything is a passing thing and the storms, though intimidating and sometimes vexing they may be, is only but a shadow of this world. I find that sometimes too often we get so caught up with the dark clouds that we forget how temporal it is. The dark clouds not only paralyzes us, but it cripples our courage and strength. We lose heart and give up. We resigned to the tyranny of resignation and defeat, as though all is lost.
Sometimes one may ask – what do we make out of all this? Is this even worth the trouble? These are the questions we ask ourselves when we resign our hearts to defeat. And its once again Samwise Gamgee that points to us to higher caling as he encourages his friend Frodo in the midst of all the calamity, pain and struggle.
“There is some good in this world, and its worth fighting for”
So the next question then beckons…in this world of materialism and individualism, what goods would you fight for? What are your goods?
