Everything sad
"Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
~Samwise Gamgee
I think it might be time for another Lord of the Rings read-through. I was thinking about the above quote, which is from Return of the King, when Frodo and Sam wake up in Rivendell after destroying the ring and being rescued, half dead, by the eagles. It’s my favorite quote from the whole trilogy — I think it’s many people’s favorite. But today I was thinking about the hundreds of pages that lead up to this moment. It’s a redemptive moment, but one thing the books do not do is rush to redemption. Before (seemingly) everything sad comes untrue, first comes everything sad.
In fact the books are somewhat brutal in their description of the hopelessness of the quest. I have a hard time reading them if my mood is already tending toward depression. There’s not so much a spirit of cheerful determination amongst the fellowship and all involved, as there is one of plodding necessity. They fight, they plan, they journey, not because they’re confident of success, but because in the face of evil there’s nothing else to do but keep fighting. To keep going. To pray that the arc of the moral universe really does bend toward justice, and to keep taking painful, desperate steps toward that bend.
But in the meantime, things are really, really sad. And perhaps they’re going to be sad for a while yet. Maybe for two and a half full-length novels (plus The Hobbit and, if you’re really dedicated, The Silmarillion). For me, it’s worth reading through the hours and days and weeks (for me) and months (for them) to get to that moment at Rivendell. It teaches me, each time, to be present in the sorrow. It teaches me to hang on to hope, yes, but also to continue to put one foot in front of the other even when hope is gone.
For anyone else who is in the midst of everything sad, for those who have lost loved ones who will not return to them in Rivendell, for those who are in despair about the state of their country, or who are in a bleak, cold winter in their hearts and minds and struggle to find anything to be hopeful about — will you keep turning the pages with me? Let’s keep hoping, but when hope is gone, let’s keep going anyway. The journey is slightly less impossible when we’re not alone.
Love,
Jessica