Tuesday, February 24, 2015

The Great Stories




  The Bridge within Us!

One of the truly great dialogues comes from Tolkien’s The Two Towers. Frodo is the ring bearer who must take the ring of evil to Mt. Doom in Mordor and toss it into the molten lava to destroy it.  This dialogue comes just after the pair are beset by yet one more attack that leaves them exhausted in body and spirit.  We all have narrow bridges to cross between who we are and what God calls us to be and do.  Finally, we awaken, I believe, to the great mystery that the Giver of the Vocation also gives the grace to carry it out.  We have to give ourselves to the Giver to cross that bridge.

The Dialogue
Frodo: I can't do this, Sam. 

Sam: I know. 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 had 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. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. 

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?  

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for








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