This is a guest post by Linda Ricke.
There was scene at the end of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy that I can’t shake from my brain. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are back in the Shire sharing a pint at the local Hobbit pub. They have just completed their harrowing journey. They have watched too many friends die, they have seen the worst of people and themselves, and they have saved the world from mass destruction. But the Hobbits of the Shire have no idea. They’ve been contentedly going about their lives completely ignorant of the horrors being committed just outside the borders of their little world. And they treat their mates, newly returned to the Shire, as they always have.
But our heroes are not the same Hobbits they were before their journey, especially Frodo. He can no longer look at the world through the same eyes because he has gone through a profound transformation, and he is no longer the same man he was before his struggles brought him into enlightenment. But no one around him recognizes that he has become someone else, and his inability to share his experience leaves him feeling isolated and alone.
I wonder if that’s how Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you Linda. This post offers some good food for thought and reflection. The journey changes us all, if we but allow it to do so.
Yep…
Linda, this is so appropriate after yesterday’s post on Rosh Hashanah. This sentence particularly resonates with me: “They’ve been contentedly going about their lives completely ignorant of the horrors being committed just outside the borders of their little world.” The real sadness is that the Hobbits have changed but no one recognizes it. Once we have experienced the love of Christ we have a responsibility to live differently and to love differently so that others will be drawn to Christ as well. We have a responsibility to show our faith with our works.
There is so much more in your post but I have gone on long enough. Thank you very much for this.
Wow…
This gives me pause and asks me to think about how often I fail to see transformation in the lives of others. Also in connection with the High Holy Days: last night as I drove home, I intentionally chose a route through a neighboring orthodox Jewish neighborhood. I wanted to see and feel Rosh Hashanah alive and well. And I did — lots of people out and about, en route to shul: elderly men with in black suits and black hats with white shirts and long white beards; families dressed in black and pushing babies in strollers; a group of teen-aged girls walking together, setting their own fashion trend in their black sweaters and long, swinging black skirts and black flat dress shoes. Had I thought about it, I would have recognized countless expressions of annual transformation.
L’shana tovah, everyone!
Thanks for your insights Robin.
This transformation is happening to our service men and women as well. We have been praying for friends who are having a difficult time in their family after the father has returned from being posted overseas. It is a difficult transition for everyone as they adjust to their new normal.
Thank you for the Garden analogy. I think I will add that to my prayers for them.
Linda – Thank you for this post. I have shared it with many who have in their own struggles to do God’s work have found themselves in this in this difficult transition as well. I feel as I grow in my faith at times, I struggle with a new normal. Thanks be to God!
Hi,
Your post has given me some thing to think about with regard to our lord
and the garden of gethsemane and other things in my life.
Phil
Thank you for this very thoughtful post, Linda. Two thoughts come to mind, and one is that if we have experienced transformation, we need to find and gather with others who have also (which brings many of us to this Blog, I’m sure. Thank you, Paul.) I need to be with others who have seen the other side of Good Friday so I can remember with them. I’m a slow learner and a fast forgetter.
And I was moved by Robin’s mention of being observant of transformation–of all sorts–in others, and to offer the kindness of recognition at least, if I am capable of offering nothing more. Wonderful post and discussion this morning.
Your comments today brought tears to my eyes. This was a deeply personal post for me. I feel so understood. As usual you all were able to see the deeper meanings. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As I write this I am on a journey & havingthis post come out while I’m on it was a great part of it.
I’ve always thought that was the beauty of the Liturgical Cycle and the Readings repeating every three years… we are not, should not the same as these events come around anew…we should see things with new eyes and new insight.
Movies can teach us so much….
One of the things I love about The Lord of the Rings is that it unashamedly teaches about character. I think that’s the most important part of the story. I’ll never have Frodo’s problems, but I’ll always have similar choices to make about how to handle the problems I do have.
Regarding Gethsemane, early in the first book, Frodo says to Gandalf, “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf replies, “So do I. So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” I see a parallel to Jesus in the garden saying, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Linda,
This was a very powerful post. I was just sitting here and thinking how much some of my relationships have changed because I can no longer support some of the things I hear. Likewise, I am sure I have disappointed people who are going through thier own transformations (thank you for that insight, Robin) and been insensitive to them. But, somehow, I believe it is all good. Discomfort is usually growth, so I am hoping something is taking root that will make me a better servant.
In the meantime, it is good to not be alone on the journey. Thanks Linda.
It’s good to be reminded that the stranger among us we are to welcome may be someone we already know. We don’t always know what rings they might have happened upon or cups that would not pass them by. I hear in this a call to be present to people as they are, here and now, not as they were, or as we hope they might be.
Thanks, Linda!
This is a very deep one. Much thought required methinks.