Finding hope
In these dark times, when it feels like the world is coming apart at the seams, I find hope in a deep knowing there is still beauty in the world. That somewhere dolphins are jumping just for the joy of it. That birds are singing to welcome the morning. That a flower is opening to the morning sun, and autumn leaves are changing color.
I am reminded of this wonderful dialogue between Sam and Frodo in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings:
“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 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.”
