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Old 04-10-2004, 12:13 AM   #11
Dininziliel
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: 3rd star from the right over Kansas
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Davem,

I think if Eru/God/Love/The Universe could be held accountable for doing wrong, and thus eligible to be sued for pardon, Jesus would have come down from the cross, else he was a most insane fanatic. On a lesser scale, there could have been no LotR.

It is a matter of acceptance, pure & simple. This is not the limited level of "that's all right then."

The journey from thinking God responsible for the wrongness in life to acceptance of God's will is pretty much what LotR is all about. Tolkien repeatedly explained that its central theme was Death vs. Immortality: Men's acceptance of death, the Elves' acceptance of the "long defeat", and the consequences of attempting to usurp Eru's/God's place with the intention of altering these fates--death being the most historically perceived "wrong" thanks to the skillful wielding of fear. If we kept faith & behaved as we were created, we would not be having this discussion; instead, we chose to believe illusions which fatten on our fear and make the world most of us experience.

The ones worthy to be forgiven are the people you see, talk to, sit next to, write to, read the writings of, think of, and are one of. It is because of our own free will that the world is a cruel, harsh, and most unfair place. IMHO, this is precisely why Tolkien made the whole story pivot on pity & mercy. This was certainly Frodo's journey, and though at the end he may have been irreparably scarred, he was not bitter, nor did he say, "If only I'd known," or "I wish it had never happened," or even "I wish it had not happened to me." It was because of his pity--an inherent part of acceptance--that he could be healed. He may have failed at Doom, but he completed the larger journey. And so can we all.
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