LOTR and your Weltanschauung

[Joy]

Helen, please do explain I love this topic, btw.

I have been back for the past couple of days and I am realizing again why I love the Downs so much.

[mark12_30]

Delighted, Joy... thanks.

In "The Mirror of Galadriel", just before Frodo catches sight of Nenya, Galadriel describes how she is percieves the mind of the enemy, even as he strives to percieve her mind but cannot. The analogies/ applicability to spiritual warfare are pretty straightforward, and therefore the need for prayer is like Galadriel's vigilance-- to both protect and advance the kingdom, and protect Lothlorien. Lovely applicability. (Laurelindorinan-- Land of the valley of singing gold... Hmmm, worship. Fun!)

OK, on to Bombadil. Towards the end of Bombadil goes Boating is this section; I'll quote in full:

Songs they had and merry tales the supping and the dancing;
Goodman Maggot there for all his belt was prancing,
Tom did a hornpipe when he was not quaffing,
daughters did the Springle-ring, goodwife did the laughing.

When others went to bed in hay, fern, or feather,
close in the inglenook they laid their heads together,
old Tom and Muddy-feet, swapping all the tidings
from Barrow-downs to Tower Hills: of walkings and of ridings;
of wheat-ear and barley-corn, of sowing and of reaping;
queer tales from Bree, and talk at smithy, mill, and cheaping;
rumours in whispering trees, south-wind in the larches,
tall Watchers by the Ford, Shadows on the marches.

I was struck by a sudden longing to **have** this; both the tight friendships, the merriment and celebration, and all the things-- pleasant and fearsome-- to talk about. And I realized that the first half-- songs, tales, dancing, laughing-- shows up in fellowship and celebration and worship, and the second half-- walkings, ridings, sowings, reapings, queer tales, talk, rumors, wind (!!!), watchers (!!!) and shadows (!!!) turns up in intercession and prayer, etc. This is all standard fare in the Kingdom.

Which brought several aspects of the new work into a sharp focus that otherwise would have been much fuzzier!

[Joy]

Wow!! Those are really neat comparisions. I would have not thought to look at this that way.

I am going to have to go back and read with a different eye this time. Thanks.

BTW, did you know that a Christian author that writes on warfare has writen a book called "This Day We Fight" and stated that he got it from the RotK movie.

[Iarwain]

Not much time to post, obviously.

I just felt like sharing that Tolkien's works established in my mind a firm belief in absolutes. The sense of direction in all (or most) of the characters' lives leaves a sense that when one looks at the grand scheme of the world, things do make sense.

Also, I've found that Tolkien's writings have influenced me to favor passive suffering (at least in theory). For some strange reason I've come to believe that suffering injustice is in itself a noble thing. I remember seeing a film last year about the life of a central American Archbishop that was martyred (it was called "Romero"). The man had encouraged social organization against the military regime in El Salvador(?). When discussing the movie, I found that everyone else thought that Romero had taken the "high road", while I found myself thinking that he'd taken the easy way out. I still think so, and this (more than the belief in absolutes) is firmly grounded in my experiences in the Lord of the Rings and especially the Silmarillion.

I suppose in summary, these wonderful books have given me a different sense of moral values, a sense that supererogatory goodness is a great virtue.

Wandering off again,
Iarwain

[Dimturiel]

I first read LOTR when I was almost 14 years old and I have to admit that it has changed me completely. It made me be more aware of feelings and moral values that had been until then almost unknown to me, it made me understand life better and it made me cherish the ligth and beauty of this world because the characters that I admired so much had been through so much toil and suffering to keep it there. But this is what all myths and fairy-tales do and maybe this is why we love them so much. In real life we see many horrible things such as murder, treason and so on, and it is more than sad to see what man is doing to this world. And I think that it is a comfort for us to read about bravery, and friendship, and honour, and all the other things that are valued in fairy-tales and in legends. Books like LOTR are places of refuge for those that are tired of the pain and horror that is in their world. It is rather lonely, I know, to say that some characters from a book are your greatest friends, but I have learned more from them than I have learned from any other person in the real world. And I think that if more people read and understood LOTR many of the problems we deal with would be solved.