Blurb from “Hobbits and Christian Hope Today”
What does Christian hope look like in the era of COVID-19? Journey alongside Sam and Gandalf in the midst of their worldwide calamity. Let the divine hope that permeates J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings nourish you and sustain you.
Excerpt from “Hobbits and Christian Hope Today”
“… What separates The Lord of the Rings from other works of great fiction of a similar genre is the way it handles and presents hope … for a beautiful, courageous, and even divine hope permeates the story’s darkest darkness and most hopeless circumstances. Written in the middle of 20th century, in a century that should have robbed Tolkien of any sense of hope in humanity, in technology, in faith even, it is the story’s hope, that instantly made it a timeless classic…” Here are links to two of the scenes mentioned in the episode:
“I wish the ring had never come to me”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrOqnZdvI6M
Sam’s speech in the Two Towers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6C8SX0mWP0
Here are the three quotes explored during this episode
Quote one (from The Return of the King book): “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
Quote two (from The Fellowship of the Ring, book and movie):“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
Quote three (from The Two Towers, movie): It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. 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 happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.