No Small Thing

I haven't posted for two weeks because I've been discouraged and unsettled and didn't want to post complaints and fears.  My goal this year is to live beyond fears, remember.  Although lately I felt less enthusiastic about 2012, I knew to give up would be premature and wimpy.  The only thing to do was read a good book with lots of resounding wisdom and epic journeys and heroic little people fighting against evil.  Lord of the Rings, specifically, as I have been wanting to revisit these gems for years. I was first introduced to Tolkien's work at the tender age of 11 by my seventh grade science teacher.  I blazed through those fat little paperbacks by nightlight and was seriously upset when Gandalf fell in the mines of Moria.  Thank goodness he resurrected or whatever that was. My grandma bought me the books even though she thought they were weird (an opinion based on pictures from the movie, particularly of the orcs). My younger brothers were led by my excellent example to read them, although they were more easily addicted to the movies and had them practically on a loop for years.  I resisted the films at first because I didn't want them to ruin the books, but they too are excellent. (I will say that occasionally hearing people deliver grand speeches about a ring does strike me as silly.  This is where the books come in.)

Anyway, I'm rereading the books and discovered my younger self prudently underlined all the excellent lines in The Fellowship of the Ring.  This reading I noticed many are spoken by Gandalf, and I will, in a few moments, share a few here.  But first I would like to say of Tolkien that he was a wise man and I am deeply appreciative of the years and years of work he put into these volumes. 

And now, some great lines from The Fellowship of the Ring (book), for your edification:

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." -Gandalf

"It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill." -Elrond

"[D]espair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.  We do not." -Gandalf

"Books ought to have good endings." -Bilbo

"[W]e put the thought of all that we love into all that we make." -the leader of the Elves in Lothlorien

"Memory is not what the heart desires." -Gimli

And from the film:

" And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend; legend became myth." -Prologue

" Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." -Galadriel

Of course there are longer passages that are equally insightful.  To myself in this quiet phase of my existence, I say as Bilbo said:  "It is not a bad thing to celebrate a simple life."